Best Girl.

Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii desu ka? continues to surpass all expectations. That an anime adaptation of a light novel with a ridiculous title (WorldEnd: What do you do at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us?) could turn out to be one of the best shows of the year is somewhat absurd, yet here we are. With 10 episodes in and two to go, I'm looking forward to the ending which was telegraphed in the first episode's 60-second prologue, but I'll also be sad to reach the end of the series, given that successful anime romances are so rare.

Ithea Seal of Approval

Since the most basic criterion for a successful romance is a pair of characters that the audience wants to see achieve happiness together, you'd think at least this minimum bit would be more common. Unfortunately, anime can't quite rid itself of the worthless dipshits who seem to be the male leads more often than not. They lend a real dubious quality to the frequent arguments about which love interest should "win." Is it really winning when her counterpart is odious? We saw this problem last season in Seiren, for example. When I last wrote about it, I suggested it was getting better. Yeah, it turns out I was way wrong.

Mini-Kashima Double Seal of Approval

Willem, thankfully, joins the vanishingly slim ranks of decent fellows in the pantheon of anime male leads. Moreover, he and Chtholly have genuine chemistry together. It helps that the other characters see it as well. This is not a harem comedy, and there are no real competitors for either character's affections. SukaSuka is very much about Willem and Chtholly falling in love, and the show is a lot better off this way.

Definitely not symbolism.

If that's all it takes to have an effective anime romance, then why are they so rare? I suppose it probably comes down to the primary consumers of anime having different standards and expectations than I do. Airing this season, for example, I presume some viewers might argue Eromanga-sensei is a "good" romance, even though it is very much a harem comedy where the Best Girl almost certainly won't "win." Additionally, I think you also have to be a bit fucked in the head to sincerely root for Potato-kun and the girl who we all know he will choose at the end of the light novel's run. Thankfully, this season also features Tsuki ga Kirei (The Moon Is Beautiful), which I stopped watching at episode three, but hope to finish eventually because it seems to be another Actually Good anime about romance, albeit of the junior high school variety.

I wonder where they got the water.

SDS of Ogiue Maniax fame recently remarked that his circle of friends and co-workers "automatically gravitate towards pairings" and that they were skewing his perception of anime fandom. This struck me as somewhat odd, but the more I thought about it, the more I had to admit the practice is much more commonplace on, say, the Twitter, than I had noticed. Because I am not a 'shipper, I guess I never appreciated how prevalent 'shipping happens to be, and that fans who reflexively 'ship characters of shows they watch might respond with greater aversion to implications that I might ignore.

Asuka drops her facade for a moment.

For the most part, I think viewers of Hibike! Euphonium consider Asuka to be a bit of a comic relief character. This is an understandable position given that she's constantly fucking with people and generally has one of the more energetic personalities on the show. Nevertheless, there have been numerous hints dropped both in the first season and in the current one suggesting that Asuka has some sort of shit going on that the viewer doesn't quite know about yet.

A more typical Asuka.

Not being familiar with the source material, I don't have any idea if there's anything to these hints, or whether we'll see them addressed this season in the remaining episodes of the show, but it seems likely. Perhaps Kyoto Animation has been showing off Chekhov's euphonium all this time with no plans to toot that horn, but I like my chances. You know what's not gonna get resolved? Reina and Taki. Never gonna happen, Reina.

This butt is over-18.

Anime sure loves high school boys. Arguably, the only characters anime loves more than high school boys are middle school girls. Whether you agree with this assessment or not (and don't take it too seriously, okay, this is why I don't have comments enabled), I don't think I'll get much opposition if I claim a lot of (mostly shitty) anime skews towards school-aged protagonists in school settings. In the extreme, you even get shows such as Guilty Crown or Kakumeiki Valvrave where preserving a school's social structure is the single most important goal of the characters, despite living in a state of war.

Kotori doing something domestic again.

Cooking shows aren't exactly a rarity in anime, but Amaama to Inazuma (Sweetness and Lightning) is unique in its slower pace and fairly unremarkable recipes. Rather than the usual over-the-top incredulous reactions to newly discovered flavors, Amaama to Inazuma focuses instead on the simple pleasure of preparing food and eating together. This, it does extremely well, and it's very satisfying watching the characters learning how to cook for each other. (Although it still bugs me they never wash their hands first.) However, there is an elephant in the room: the looming potential romance between teenage Kotori and her teacher, Kouhei, a recent widower. Nevertheless, through nine episodes, there has been no hint of any such subplot, so it's possible no such romance ever develops.

Surprise, everyone.

If you've been paying attention to the winter 2016 anime season at all, you probably noticed Boku dake ga Inai Machi (officially localized as ERASED, but sometimes colloquially Bokumachi) was a heavy favorite early on to be the season's best show. Personally, I had a few problems with the series preventing me from rating it quite so high, and a significant number of fans also grew dissatisfied with the show's second half, but ERASED is still regarded as one of this winter's best anime, despite some issues with the ending.

Sure, Window, go ahead and sit this one out. Cure Lovely has got this.

After more than 10 years of Pretty Cure, it's sort of amazing how quickly its one-year seasons pass now. It seems as if it wasn't that long ago when Window was busy making a name for herself as the new Worst Cure Ever. She turned out all right, though, and of that I am glad. A girl can go a long way once she starts distinguishing herself by punching people in the face. As a series, Happiness ChargePrecure! distinguished itself in three major ways: (1) Its filler episodes were actually pretty good, which is fortunate because its high marks didn't hit all that high. (2) It reminded viewers that Pretty Cure as a franchise is decidedly in favor of heterosexual schoolgirl crushes on older boys, no matter what manner of lesbian dreams some of its male viewers might have. (3) There were shit-tons of scrub Cures from all around the world—enough that I fell into despair when I thought about trying to keep my Cure Rankings list updated.

Relax, kid, you'll get used to it.

Following the HappinessCharge Precure! conclusion (which was fairly lackluster in my view), Go! Princess Precure sprang into action, ushering a level-up in CG integration. Thus far, I have a fairly positive view of the new series, partly because of the gokigenyouing, partly because of the ballet, and mostly because it seems to be more about beating ass than cultivating feelings. I know I'm supposed to be opposed to the CG integration as a matter of principle, but so far it's been a net gain. None of the characters seem to stand out all that much for me, but that's the sort of minor complaint they can cure by devoting a few episodes to kicking deadbeats in the neck. If they keep up their early episode aggression, these erstwhile princesses and I will get along just fine.

As if there is any chance in Hell of Sera turning out to be bad.

Because of "circumstances," I find myself dropping about half the shows I was following this season. Well, perhaps not so much dropping as putting on hiatus for the time being. Maybe I'll catch back up during a particularly lousy season that coincides with greater anime-watching opportunities. (Won't be next season, because next season looks pretty sweet.)

I'm pretty sure this is how cooties are transmitted.

I only started watching Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de because of Studio Trigger. Thus far, it comes across as fairly unremarkable, although the basic setup is sort of amusing. This is no Little Witch Academia or Kill la Kill, so I'm left judging the show on its merits. It's fine, but the turbo-dere crazy girl was the only one I really liked. Since she's basically never in the show, what's the point? This is an easy one to put on hiatus, because I don't expect any spoilers down the road to ruin my chances of enjoying it. If it turns out to be a stinker, then I'll have dodged a bullet by ducking out early now.

Succor.

As much as I enjoy watching a runty old man brazenly fondle a nubile, 16-year-old princess who suffers from poor depth perception, I'm dropping Nanatsu no Taizai because I'm already reading the manga. There are currently more than 100 chapters out, making it a cinch that even a two-cour show will just trail off at some convenient stopping point without resolving anything. The anime adaptation is pretty good, and the fights have been entertaining, but I need to clear up some room in the ol' anime block.

Oh ho ho.

I'm putting both Magic Kaito 1412 and Detective Conan on hold. I consider Magic Kaito to sort of be a Detective Conan property anyway, even though that's not technically accurate, and I've got a huge backlog of Conan episodes numbering into the hundreds, so it's easy to set both shows on back burners. Really, most of y'all should probably be watching both of these shows. It just goes to show that "nobody watches shows if they're really popular."

Bad dream?

I haven't been enjoying Amagi Brilliant Park nearly as much as most viewers, largely because the current flavor to Kyoto Animation's work doesn't quite agree with me. That said, I have enjoyed it more than Hyouka (which I think most viewers would describe as vastly superior), and I've definitely liked it more than the episodes of Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! that I watched. (I skipped Kyoukai no Kanata, Free!, and Tamako Market entirely.) Kyoto Animation is very good at what they do, and I can tell the original light novel probably would have fared much worse had it been adapted by most other studios. Nevertheless, I can't ultimately care too much about the show and was mostly watching for Ayako. 50 Cent was pretty good until the series decided she needed to fall in love with Kanye West. The dude simply isn't charismatic enough to get me to care about this relationship angle. Even if he is at least better than the typical Potato-kun, that's a low standard to reach.

I'm pretty sure the entire thing is Hitoe's fault somehow.

I will definitely undrop selector spread WIXOSS at some point (providing it doesn't get another season). I intend to follow this suffering to the end (of this cour anyway), even though I basically get no enjoyment out of the show anymore. These are broken characters stumbling their way through an asinine situation for implausible reasons. I'm mostly just waiting to see if Akira is going to kill somebody before Hanayo gets pregnant. She is going to get pregnant and spawn stupid playing card babies, right? Oh, like you have a better reason to watch this show.

The Lion King.

I was going to pause Sword Art Online 2 because I've read the Mother's Rosario arc and already know what happens. Still, this arc should be about as good as Sword Art Online ever gets, so I might as well keep watching. I'm not sure how standard (read: Kirito) fans will react to the Asuna-led focus of these remaining episodes, but I hope they at least enjoy these episodes more than they like the second half of the first season. (You know, the one where Asuna spent all of her time sitting in a chair and waiting to be rescued when she wasn't too busy being sexually assaulted.) Unfortunately for people watching the anime, there are spoilers for this arc that will be difficult to avoid because they're of the variety that detractors of Sword Art Online won't be able to resist revealing.

Aim for the face.

Actually, there's a good chance I'll place Sword Art Online 2 on hiatus anyway.

P.S. Asuna dies.

That is totally the Sailor V costume from the back...

...but it changes to the Sailor Venus battle
costume when we see it from the front.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal was an easy one to put on hold because it only airs every two weeks and because I frankly don't like it. I like the idea of Sailor Moon, but I can't claim to particularly enjoy the manga, the 90-some episodes of the original anime that I've watched, or the Crystal Bullshit episodes of the remake that I've seen so far. With Chibi Usa about to make her appearance, this was a no-brainer. I still haven't officially dropped it (or the original anime, for that matter), since I feel I should watch the entire thing as a matter of principle, but it is a slog.

Busted. P.S. Spoilers.

You know what show I'm not putting on hold? Motherlovin' Cross Ange. This is some good shit, yo. Week after week of solid entertainment. Two cours, baby!