This has been the worst 6 weeks of anime I have seen in a long time.

I have also dropped 5 shows during the past two weeks. Anyway, I think this is still better than the previous season.

You dropped Dungeon Meshi. Seems like a you problem.

Disagreed. I'm watching more current seasonals than I have at any one point since I believe spring of 2021 and that isn't all by random happenstance. There are a lot of interesting new series currently.

What I'm not interested in really is the remakes or reboots of older shows (Spice & Wolf, Bartender) or all the new seasons of shows I never watched (Slime, Boku no Hero, Kimetsu no Yaiba, etc.) - I'd currently rather watch new series, so am not even currently watching new seasons of older shows that I have watched and do follow, for various reasons (Yuru Camp and Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation) so can't comment on those, but just as far as the actual new new shows go, it's been promising and a pleasant foray into new worlds of the animeverse.

The standouts for me have been T.P. BON, Tonari no Youkai-san, Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?, Astro Note, Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai, and Girls Band Cry.

And I'm continuing Dungeon Meshi from the winter season, which is also up there.

In my case, as long as there are at least a few 7/10-tier series, I'm good.

Actually, the amount of new series which, for what they are, have been either thought-provoking, left an emotional impression on me, or both, made me recently realize in retrospect how sparse and lacking in that respect that at least the past winter of this year and autumn of 2023 seasons actually were.

Non-seasonal anime watchers winning as always.

@Zedlin lol I mean mostly but:

>go to watch a series
>oh good it's completed
>watch the whole thing
>f***ing ends halfway, no updates

@StateofOhayo
Hahaha, this is why I always check the series ahead of time to see if it's a full adaptation otherwise I just read the manga. :p

Dungeon meshi alone would make the season good,at least to me.

Idk what you mean by konosuba being just ok, I'm having a TON of fun with it.

and honestly, s4 and s5 have been a complete treat for date a live fans. the show has never been better.

Spice and wolf has been FANTASTIC, my hero is a show that i personally really like.

I'm not caught up with mushoku tensei, but that is also great from what i have seen.

kaiju n8 and wind breaker seem to be pretty well liked. i haven't started them though.

go go looer ranger could be great by tje end, same with train to the end of the world and the raven does not choose its master.

and then we have the new season of black butler, slime, sound euphonium, and yuru camp.

along with jellyfish can't swim in the night and girls band cry both being banger girl cast music anime.

Not to mention TP bon which looks really interesting, the grimm varitions which was really solid, and baki vs kengan ashura which for the right people is probably the most hype anime of the decade lol

and then all of that is topped with the look back and blue lock movie.

Oh certainly. You'll essentially never see me behave rudely or engage in insults or personal attacks on here or anywhere else online or offline unless and until attacked first, because I'm not that kind of person. There are few things I abhor and detest to the core of my being more than unprovoked rudeness. I wish everyone here on the forum could be civil at all times until someone gave them an actual reason not to, which to me is only being attacked first, so if no one ever did then that reason wouldn't exist for anyone in the first place. It's very sad and annoying - a lamentable state of affairs indeed, that people simply having different interests, opinions, and beliefs gets them attacked.

As for disagreeing, if anything I'd say it's even desirable where honest and fitting. Because it provides an impetus and space for interesting discussions rather than just circlejerks of us all repeating the same things agreeing in unison. And that provides sparks and life to a place. We should always look to be challenging our own ideas and each other's.

The train anime is an anime original and other than a very vague description for a synopsis and a poster which didn't tell people anything, it was basically shrouded in mystery in its extremely minimal advertisement and promotion campaign (at least in English-language material online) in the run-up to its debut. It was basically implied to be a CGDCT Slice of Life about girls riding a train and there was no reason to suspect it would even necessarily have much of a story. I was still planning to watch it because I watch a lot of SoL and don't mind shows about little to nothing or just random conversations and antics, so yeah. But then the first episode went in a radical mindbending direction which completely flipped the expectations of everyone watching it on its head. So it's just one that isn't what it initially seemed.

Regarding Astro Note, it's also an anime original series, but I don't really know why it's so under-discussed and acknowledged this season other than that it's an original (so no manga/light novel/video game/other source material fans to hype it up leading up to it), probably also had little to no promo campaign, and a lot about it feels like more of a retro throwback which maybe isn't as appealing to the majority of the current primary audience of anime viewers? It's a Sci-Fi romcom, but you could gather that just from reading the genres on its archival webpage on MAL.

To try to inform someone what the series is like without spoiling anything, I'd say that it feels almost like if Lilo & Stitch was a romcom anime, for anyone who has ever seen that Disney film. It's about family relationships and different kinds of relationships - strangers to friends, potential romance and multiple different love interests at play, boarding house mates, father and son, people in and trying out new jobs and new homes - a kind of large dysfunctional family brought together by the commonality of a shared residence. It has a more traditional/old-fashioned art style for the characters which I like compared to the look of a lot of newer anime (like more fully-featured faces for the character designs instead of the more sleek extreme minimalist super modern designs) and a colorful and bright vibrant color palette (which some people didn't like, but I do, at least for this series). With the central premise, some things that happen in the plot, and some of the classic and familiar tropes of the romcom genre it feels like a kind of tribute or homage to older 1980s and 90s anime which were its predecessors and people have likened it to Maison Ikkoku (which, I haven't personally seen, but I know what it's about, so the comparison seems accurate enough). There are even some fun Sci-Fi film references and such.

It actually has a pretty elaborate political and Sci-Fi-style plot which influences events every episode and playing out in the background, but at least up to now where we are halfway through its run, it doesn't always strictly focus on that with a lot of dramatic intensity and is more of a lighthearted Slice of Lifey comedic romp with the important and more serious parts of the plot trickled in and balanced out, so my point is that someone doesn't have to be a hardcore SF fan or in the mood for a complicated and intense story to get into it, as it plays it from a pretty fun and laidback angle while having that worldbuilding stuff as a backdrop.

Let me know if that was confusing or if you want/need something else addressed.

@WatchTillTandava Yeah, slime being just like 6 episodes of slow running exposition has been basically torture. Not endless 8 torture, but painful nonetheless. There are some that I am really surprised about like wind breaker, so that's nice but there are others that feel as though they were half baked and churned out by an algorithm. Idk anything about the train one, it just didn't appeal to me in the synopsis. Can you tell me about Astro Note though? And thanks for being congenial, it's always good to disagree, I mean this is like a very diverse community right?

@APolygons2 date a live 5 definitely the best anime of the season. No question. Just look at the poll rankings or corner, trending sugoi. Only shows that were able to pull it off were bleach tybw, oshi no ko at insane hype or bokuyaba.. You practically cannot go on social media without stumbling on spoilers on major things happening.

I think the blue lock movie flop.

But gundam seed freedom probably beats makoto shinkai in pure satisfaction and payoff

Idk about best (although I am a little behind and haven't seen the episode that got to top of the charts yet), but honestly, it's probably my favourite.

Konosuba and spice and wolf are close, but I am a huge fan of date a live. It's not the best anime ever or anything, but damn It I would be lying if I said I haven't enjoyed every single second of it.

And going from jc staff to this new studio was like a HUGE upgrade.

And even though I don't think I would call date a live as a whole one of the best, kurumi is unironically one of the best written anime characters lol

It's not great but there are definitely much worse seasons out there at least for me, seasons where the highest I rated a show was like a 5 or 6 (and it was only one) and the rest ranged from incredibly forgettable to downright awful like the Summer 2022 season a while ago and even the Winter 2023 season where I only liked NieR:Automata and disliked every other show (and that anime was affected with delays and I saw a good chunk of the show much later than that season). Mushoku Tensei alone makes this season better than those for me, and there are shows like Yatagarasu that help in giving me more options to care about.

I'm glad im enjoying a couple of anime this season, pretty satisfying actually

Also Kaiju 8 is a pretty nice surprise, very enjoyable

@Nanami0007 I agree, there are quite a lot of options, especially if you give the creators/animators some leeway and understand that there is a shift happening and stuff like Kaijuu, Wind Breaker and Re:Monster (which I really like 'cause I'm a sucker for that genre and now there's a rougher main character) are just the beginning, we'll see a lot of good animes in the nearby future.

@Binger001 My only gripe with Kaiju is the dude is 32, which is really young, and considered peak male age. There is no reason he should be so weak and slow given that he's been gunning for a position his whole life. There's just no excuse and I feel the ageism is not really addressed at all.
Also Re: Monster may be the worst isekai I have ever seen, I really don't know what you see in it. Wind breaker I totally agree it's been a pleasant surprise.

This season hasn't been especially good, but then I only tend to pick up a handful of shows as they're airing. Also I feel like Fall 2023 and Winter 2024 were exceptional with Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Dangers in my Heart S2, Girlfriend Girlfriend S2, Ancient Magus Bride S2, Metallic Rouge and Dungeon Meshi. Tsukimichi Moonlight has been pretty good as well.

Only show I'm really enjoying so far is Astro Note, particularly as it reminds me of Maison Ikkoku (which I finished last week) and Urusei Yatsura mashed together. Mushoku Tensei S2Pt2 is good and Konosuba is funny. Waiting for Date A Live S5 to finish airing then I'll binge it. Everything else I'm watching that's airing (Train to Nowhere, Angel in my Apartment, Archdemon's Dilema) is just ok.

In terms of new shows it hasn't been the best. Also waiting for Jellyfish Can't Swim to finish then will binge that one also.

Can't wait for Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest next season, been too long since Erza graced our screens.

This season hasn't been especially good, but then I only tend to pick up a handful of shows as they're airing. Also I feel like Fall 2023 and Winter 2024 were exceptional with Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Dangers in my Heart S2, Girlfriend Girlfriend S2, Ancient Magus Bride S2, Metallic Rouge and Dungeon Meshi. Tsukimichi Moonlight has been pretty good as well.

Only show I'm really enjoying so far is Astro Note, particularly as it reminds me of Maison Ikkoku (which I finished last week) and Urusei Yatsura mashed together. Mushoku Tensei S2Pt2 is good and Konosuba is funny. Waiting for Date A Live S5 to finish airing then I'll binge it. Everything else I'm watching that's airing (Train to Nowhere, Angel in my Apartment, Archdemon's Dilema) is just ok.

In terms of new shows it hasn't been the best. Also waiting for Jellyfish Can't Swim to finish then will binge that one also.

Can't wait for Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest next season, been too long since Erza graced our screens.

@StateofOhayo Considering the anime casts are always high schoolers/middle schoolers this is an improvement.