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I’m not gonna lie, this season had to do some work for me to get into it. Initially, I was happy that it seemed like we were going to get a deep dive into some great character development pieces throughout the season—which we did—but I was bored for a good chunk of the first few episodes. Which, in retrospect, isn’t necessarily an accurate perception of the beginning of this season. The pace of this season was quite slow, and it took a while for me to start caring about what was happening, but once I got acquainted with what this season was trying to do, ... I started to enjoy what we got. Do I wish this season had been fast-paced more often than it was? Yes, because I think Vinland Saga does that really well, but it also does emotion well, and this season is no exception to that. Not to mention, a lot of provoking and intriguing conversations can stem from the journey of this season. It’s definitely different from what I was expecting, but Vinland Saga created something beautiful here.

I don’t feel like I watched The Ancient Magus’ Bride. I don’t really understand why there was such a shift in tone and content, especially not if that shift in tone and content wasn’t going to be done super well. Don’t get me wrong, this anime is fine, but I feel like I’ve seen it before. A lot of the magic of this world was washed away for me this season; to be fair, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this series in the first place, but I was still excited to get back to these characters. Instead, I found this season to be quite ... bland and lacking excitement. I didn’t care much for the new characters, the world was not explored in a way that interested me, and as I said, I kept feeling like something important was missing. Probably an interesting romance plot, if I’m honest, because that didn’t keep me all that engaged either. I’m mostly disappointed with the setting shift of this season, I think, and because of that, I couldn’t really look forward to much throughout the run of the season.

I understand that this is a Shounen anime, which are notoriously bad at pacing (fights that last for ten episodes, for instance), but you’d think for such a short season, this wouldn’t have felt like such a slog to get through. Full disclosure, I’m not a Demon Slayer super fan, so maybe this one’s on me, but I wanted to feel like there was more forward progress in this season than simply having a few beats with the antagonist and spending the rest of the time battling yet another demon that seems simultaneously too hard and too easy to beat. At the end of the ... day, it was still awesome a lot of the time to watch the fights and see how they ramped up to ridiculous heights by the end of it—that’s the fun of Shounen, right? But between those and the episode-long backstories we got that I didn’t care about at all, not to mention the slower paced first few episodes of the season, I couldn’t help but wish that something more significant was happening in terms of plot. It’s all building up to the end, of course, but this season on its own fell flat for me. Even if there are still some character moments that I ended up loving a lot.

Yeah, I don’t know about this season, friends. I love this series, I really do, but something about this season didn’t hit. Part of the issue was just that it felt so repetitive, despite the fact that we are getting to see new places and concepts with this season. But, instead of this season taking on a bit more of a serious—or, at least, more intense—tone, it remained silly. That kind of made it difficult for me to care about everything that these characters were discovering this season, including clues to do with how they ended up in this world in the first place. I ... did still enjoy spending time with these characters because they are all fun, and some of the inventions Senku is able to create are still interesting to see. I just felt like a lot of this season was taken up by stuff I didn’t care about (meaning the pacing was off), and the rest of it didn’t feel like a true, intriguing story. There were a lot of missed opportunities with this season, especially because there are some other plot points I was hoping to get to that we simply didn’t ever see. Perhaps this series was always going to stay silly and lighthearted, but the emotionality of the previous seasons was lost here, which was unfortunate.

I mean, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this anime to begin with, but am I the only one who’s wondering what in the world happened with this season? Listen, my gripe with Tokyo Revengers has always been the same, and it’s no different with this season: restarting timelines, as a narrative mechanic, gets old real fast. I came into this season thinking it was time for something new to come out of this story, something with actual weight behind it that held my attention and didn’t simply get washed away and made irrelevant by the next timeline reiteration. I was not, as it turns ... out, granted that luxury. Instead, I couldn’t take anything seriously this season because I couldn’t count on it lasting for very long. Not only that, but Takemichi’s over-dramatic reactions to everything were exhausting. I don’t know if I could say that I liked Takemichi as a character to begin with, but I found him absolutely grating this season. The plot itself, beyond the timeline ridiculousness, did not once feel like something that I should care about. The beginning handful of episodes, especially, felt entirely inconsequential—I know they technically aren’t, but they felt so bland and weak that I couldn’t figure out why I should care about the newest timeline. Honestly, I was just holding my breath for something to feel like a real step toward the ultimate goal of this series, and I was left wanting, for the most part. There are still emotional or dramatic moments that I can get behind with this season, but really, I was just waiting for it to end.

I can't be the only one who got Squid Games vibes from Blue Lock, but I hope someone else besides me also got Fall Guys vibes, too. I watched this anime because of how absolutely ridiculous it seemed, and I was entirely ready to watch an insane sports anime that made no logical sense, and you know what? I had a great time doing just that. It's about as unbelievable as Kuroko no Basket is in its representations of skills and abilities, but that's what made it so fun. Not only that, but it crafted this atmosphere of desperation and high drama that made it ... stick out from others in this genre. It was a sports anime, sure, but there were plenty of moments that made it feel like an action or a horror. But, Blue Lock wasn't just about being crazy in its concept--I also found that it shatters a lot of the conventions we see in other sports anime. One of the bigger ones is the greed all of these characters carry--generally, we get sports anime that focuses on teamwork and winning as a collective, but not in Blue Lock. Of course there is teamplay going on throughout the story, but what these characters crave and what the story praises is a sort of narcissism on the field. Characters have to be merciless to advance, and this is actually presented at the goal of the anime--discovering which character is egotistical enough to win. I just found that so fun, even if that isn't something you'd want to see in other sports anime.

I did find the use of analogies, metaphors, and abstract imagery in Blue Lock to be a bit too heavy-handed a lot of the time, which I did find slightly irritating, depending on how often they were hammering it in throughout the matches. Sports anime are no strangers to creating unique languages and concepts to explain extraordinary techniques and plays, but Blue Lock stamped it into the ground a bit too much for my tastes. Really, that's the only negative I have about the experience--the pacing of the matches were amazing and didn't drag on too long, the important characters all felt unique and prominent enough for me to care about them, and the story left me with enough to be intrigued by to get excited about the next season. I knew, once I saw that this was coming out, that it was going to be a good time, but I didn't expect to find so much to love about Blue Lock. I'm glad the anime turned out to be a diamond in the rough.

I find this anime such a joy to watch; it's not only that it's wholesome and calming to watch--I've always found it easy to be connected with this series. That's mostly due to the lovely characters we see throughout, but it's also the fun of learning about and watching kyudo. I thought this season did a good job of shedding a bit more light on certain characters and their relationships, even developing the female members of the kyudo club for an episode, but what I loved most about getting back into this anime was watching the team grow. This isn't a high-drama anime, so it ... isn't like there are crazy conflicts between characters or antagonists that grind your gears, but the issues we see this season between the kyudo boys lead to some lovely scenes and even some interesting relationships. I will say the way this season treated the kyudo matches was a bit odd--there were certainly moments where there was a weight in the scene as the characters took their shots, but much of the time, I was missing that gripping tone. Also, I was hoping to see some significant development for Shuu this season because he seems both an important character and one that's underutilized, but unfortunately, those developments did not occur. Still, Tsurune feels good to watch, and I find it's easier to enjoy and binge than many other anime precisely because it manages to elicit emotion without being extremely dramatized--it's easy, but in its simplicity, quite a beautiful story and cast have been created. I hope to this series come back sooner, rather than later.

I have such fond memories of this series, and I was so excited to return to it—finally!—but then I remembered all the reasons Bungo Stray Dogs is a “have to be in the right kind of mood” anime for me. Here’s what I loved about it: the humor this season did all it needed to to encapsulate the charm of Bungo Stray Dogs, and I was happy we got to see that through a few new avenues. Well, new and old avenues, but the old avenues (like Ranpo) got more of an opportunity to shine this time around. I also was happy to see an ... uptick in the drama department and a bit more of a stabilized plot than we’ve seen in the past because I think, with the plotlines this anime deals with, it can handle high drama pretty well when it wants to. And it did.

That being said, I’m still not a huge fan of the season starting with a story from (x) amount of years ago before moving into the present-day storyline. I just feel like it fragmented this season a bit too much and didn’t give me enough time to be reacquainted with the characters I’ve missed for so long. I also wasn’t always the biggest fan of the new characters we got to see in this season or even with the division of screen time allotted to the already established characters. I don’t know, I suppose I found this season a bit more lackluster than the others. The antics were quite as pronounced, either, which I suppose is a sacrifice needed for increasing the drama, but still. I don’t know, if the series continues, I’m going with it, but I hope it brings back some of the charm it lost for me this season.

You know, I really thought this season was shaping up to be another extremely high quality experience, just like the beginning of the series was, but I’m left with mixed feelings about the arc this season. We started the season quite well, and I was happy to see a good bit of action that I feel like has been absent for a long time—not action in general, but action I can get excited about. There were far less, what I would call, inconsequential episodes this season, which left room for all the awesome major story developments. I don’t want to spoil those for anyone who ... isn’t a manga reader, but let’s just say the thing I was most pleased about with the new season was having Shigaraki finally feel connected to the main characters and their stories again. In fact, one of the other great aspects of this season was the fact that it no longer felt so aimless.

In addition to that, the character work done with, yes, Midoriya, but all of the—what I would call—most intriguing protagonists and antagonists provided such an interesting experience as a viewer. I haven’t felt connected to this anime in general in a long time, but especially with the characters, I was super excited to finally find something about them to be invested in. Sort of as a byproduct of that, there were lots of emotional moments throughout the plot of this season that lent gravity to this stage in Boku no Hero’s story, and I think that was done very well overall.

But, like I said, I still have mixed feelings about this season because I still felt like the focus was off more than it should’ve been. We’d get mini arcs of new characters that I didn’t find relevant at this point in time, battles would be stretched out at questionable points instead of the more interesting moments being expanded on, and the pacing made it difficult for me to watch week-to-week. Granted, a lot of that has to do with my anime-watching behaviors, but there often wasn’t enough intrigue in each episode to keep me coming back each week (even though I did). So, I don’t know, I think it’s fun that we’re finally getting to the point of Boku no Hero, but I just hope to see the action, emotion, and pacing pick way up from here on in.

Here’s what you should know about me: I don’t watch filler episodes. Generally. I mean, for the beginning of Boruto I did every so often, but by the end of it, I was strictly watching the manga canon episodes. Some people might find this stupid, but whoever is reading this review needs to know that to understand why I’m reviewing this as I am.

Listen: Boruto is good. And, by that, I mean the manga canon is good. There are some anime canon episodes that were super fun to watch, but the manga canon episodes really convinced me that following Boruto’s story was a good choice. ... If I was solely rating the manga canon episodes—as I did when I watch Naruto and Shippuden—I might be tempted to give this somewhere between an eight and a ten. I thought the concepts introduced over the course of these episodes were really intriguing, and the balance they struck between showing how unencumbered Boruto’s life was growing up and the harrowing events of his adolescence really drove home the impact behind the story. The character dynamics, as well, especially with Kawaki, were super well-done. I cannot wait to jump back into this story in the future and see what we saw at the very beginning of the very first episode realized.

But I just can’t look past all the filler. If I’m rating this anime as a whole, the filler content—and yes, I include the anime canon within this, even if they were approved-by-the-magaka storylines—I can’t ignore all the times the anime veered away from what was really interesting and compelling about Boruto, his life, and his abilities. I understand why we got so many episodes that had nothing to do with the main plot, but it really hurt the viewing experience. I don’t really have much else to say on that front, but I do want to tell anyone who’s reading this and wondering whether to watch the series for the manga canon episodes, I’d highly recommend that you do. There are some properly heart-wrenching, incredible, fascinating, and exciting moments in them, and I only hope that, when we see Boruto on our screens again, those moments are the only ones we’ll see.