More of this would have been better.

I am going to caveat this by acknowledging first of all that Ousama Ranking (Ranking of Kings) was never actually capital-B Bad. However, I am hard pressed to identify another show with greater distance between how much I enjoyed it at the beginning and how disinterested I was by the end. I'm sort of appalled, to tell you the truth. Anime War Crime Tribunal provides a spoiler-heavy examination that covers basically every issue I had with the series, although I'm more negative about the problems overall.

He's not going to be big enough for her.

I feel as if I must be overlooking shows that genuinely collapsed, but I suspect those examples that escape me at the moment likely showed less initial promise. Ousama Ranking, at a minimum, had a solid start (that admittedly started declining towards the end of its first cours). I did already mention that I was sick of all the fighting. Well, it went on like that during the second cours, but then the monkey's paw curled, the fighting stopped, and it got even worse. As I understand it, the source manga is still running, so maybe the story gets good again. The very end of the final anime episode did open the door for that possibility, but I'm in no hurry to revisit Ranking of Kings in any capacity for the time being.

Congratulations on not being dead.
P.S. Spoilers.

To tell you the truth, I sort of forgot 86 Eighty Six season 2 two had delayed its final 2 two episodes to March 2022 Two Thousand Twenty Two. I mean, things were sort of tense when we last saw our characters, but it totally could have just ended the season where it was. I would have accepted a cliffhanger-ish ending and an indefinite wait until the next cours, whenever that happens to be. I mean, I think it's reasonable to expect there will be another cours at some point. The anime seems pretty well-regarded, and I've warmed up to it as well, despite some initial misgivings.

Congratulations on not being dead.
P.S. Spoilers.

86 is at its best when it's exploring how its characters relate to each other and to their shared experiences with war. These aspects of the series are much more compelling than how it depicts the war itself or the dynamics of the societies involved. This is not necessarily because I find many of those elements unrealistic, but rather more because I'm not invested in their outcomes. I'm not particularly invested in most of the characters either, but the series has devoted enough time to developing them that I can at least appreciate their emotional resonance.

Not Best Girl.

Because I was watching so few shows this season, I went back and started watching a universally well-regarded (and fortuitously two-cours) series I had skipped last season: Ousama Ranking (Ranking of Kings). As it turns out, it does deserve its high praise—or at least the first cours does. In particular, seeing how the young prince navigates through the both hidden and openly hostile threats around him does a lot for getting viewers on the kid's side.

Best Girl.

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for the show declined dramatically during its second cours. This is going to sound like a stupid complaint, but why is there so much fighting? It feels like this whole season has been endless battles. It seems as if most of the show's fans still enjoy the series, so I might be an outlier here. And it's not as if I actively dislike Ousama Ranking now, I just wish a king's ranking had more to do with his cleverness, or perseverance, or benevolence, or having an aerodynamic size queen for a stepmom, instead of having sick moves.

Akebi is very bendy.

Well, it didn't come up at all during the first episode, but the promotional material for Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku (Akebi's Sailor Uniform) states Akebi wants to make 100 friends at her new school. This is the same goal Shouko expresses in Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu. (Komi Can't Communicate) (the best show from the Autumn 2021 anime season, incidentally). I didn't know anything else about the series before I started watching it (although I was spoiled about the twist), but it seems like it's going to be one of those shows where there's not a whole lot of drama. The first classmate she meets might actually be a nutjob, so I can't rule out the possibility the show is full of weirdos. That's just speculation on my part, though.

A girl's gotta have goals.

Oh, if you haven't worked out yet what the third show in the 100-friends anime trilogy is, it's B Gata H Kei (Yamada's First Time). After graduating from middle school, Yamada sets a goal for herself to land 100 sex friends. I guess she doesn't technically express any interest in the friends part, but I'm going to include it. I'm going to include it because B Gata H Kei is an underrated masterpiece.

This is product placement, isn't it?

Sorairo Utility (Sky Blue Utility) is only a single 15-minute OVA? That's it? You're kidding me! Well, that leaves me with one less show than I was expecting to follow during the Winter 2022 anime season. That's unfortunate, because it was nicely done. There is no shortage of shows about girls who obsess over a particular hobby, but this felt much more natural and realistic than the typical fare.

It happens.

I learned of Sorairo Utility from one of the hundreds of artists I sort of follow on the Twitter. Specifically, the director, Saitou Kengo occasionally mused about wanting to make a girls-playing-golf anime, and then suddenly it became a reality. I have no idea if there is ever going to be any more, but I'd certainly be in favor of it.

I did appreciate Reines sassing Waver.

Sort of unrelated aside from also coming out on 31 December 2021 is Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note - Tokubetsu-hen (Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace note TV Anime's Special Edition), a short movie about magic shenanigans involving Waver's classmates from his pre-Fate/Zero days. I feel like I would have liked this more if I had a greater grasp on TYPE-MOON lore in general, but possibly not understanding is the normal and expected state.

Y'all are unconvincing girls.

Now that the second season of the Kimetsu no Yaiba anime is past its Mugen Ressha-hen (Mugen Train movie repurposed as TV episodes) arc and has aired four episodes of the Yuukaku-hen (Entertainment District) arc, I'm afraid my interest in the series remains well below the heights reached during the anime's first two cours. It's fine, but I feel as if I'm the wrong target audience.

I do appreciate Sawashiro Miyuki's addition to the series.

This is not unexpected, since my interest in Demon Slayer has always been something of an outlier for me; I don't typically watch or read popular shounen properties. I presume my disinterest with the current arc is because it is building up to its next big moments and it is complementing its narrative journey with the sort of flourishes and gags that I don't care for. I don't know how many episodes remain in this second season, but I believe it is continuing uninterrupted into the Winter 2022 anime season. I'm definitely still going to watch it, and not just because I don't currently have a lot other Winter 2022 shows on my radar. It's just unfortunate I'm not the right person to fully appreciate the series.

One of the rare scenes not set in the dark.

I never felt Blade Runner needed to expand into a franchise. Consequently, I had a lot of reservations about the 2017 sequel. That it turned out to be good (and arguably better than the original film) is something of a miracle. Unfortunately, the Blade Runner: Black Lotus 3DCG anime doesn't come close to reaching this bar. Not that it would be at all reasonable to expect it to, of course, and I'm not suggesting Black Lotus is a bad series necessarily. However, I am suggesting it didn't need to be made, or that it at least doesn't need to be a part of the Blade Runner world.

These umbrellas are so fresh.

Admittedly, being a Blade Runner property is the only reason I gave Black Lotus a chance, and it was sort of neat recognizing the callbacks in the setting and general atmosphere of the show. Catering to fans of an existing property will only carry a series so far, though, and there just wasn't enough in Black Lotus to keep me engaged. Maybe it got a lot better after I stopped watching, but its first four episodes were merely all right. How about next time, instead of setting something in the Blade Runner world, y'all set it in the world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? How about that?

I'm so disappointed you did not turn out to be a total cunt.

I would not still be watching SELECTION PROJECT if it did not share so many similarities with IDOLY PRIDE. (Spoilers throughout. Avert your eyes if you care.) Straight away, both shows feature troupes of newbie idols trying to make it big. Both shows have ALL CAPS titles. Both shows feature idols who die in a car accidents. Both shows feature idols who turn out to be the younger sisters of the dead idols. Both shows feature plot points about the sisters' complicated feelings of inferiority, guilt, and grief. Both shows feature idols who were transplant recipients of hearts donated from the dead idols. It's a whole thing. One notable difference: The dead idol from IDOLY PRIDE continues to hang around as a ghost, while the Hayamin-voiced idol from SELECTION PROJECT fucks off entirely after dying.

The OP is easily the best part of SELECTION PROJECT.

The big difference between the two shows, though, is that IDOLY PRIDE is surprisingly good, while SELECTION PROJECT sort of sucks. It is just not a good series, mostly because it is neither upbeat enough to enjoy for wacky idol activities nor downbeat enough to take seriously. It has camp elements, but none of them are amusing. It probably should have pared down its cast by at least half instead of filling the series with a lot of entirely undeveloped placeholders. The idol from Hokkaido is the worst offender. The poor girl literally has no scenes that do not involve food in some way.

Episode 11's epilogue ends on a mildly ominous note.

A smaller cast would have given SELECTION PROJECT more opportunities to develop the characters critical to its dramatic sequences. That it failed to do so stands in stark contrast to Love Live! Superstar!! which benefited significantly from its tighter-knit group. There is still one episode left in SELECTION PROJECT, so I suppose it might still manage to turn it around, but it seems almost certain SELECTION PROJECT will end up as just another uninspired, lackluster, below-average series that I'm not going to remember well later except for curiously sharing a lot of plot points with IDOLY PRIDE.