I absolutely, whole heartedly recommend picking Sakurasou back up again.
It's one of my favorites, and it's one of the better romance series as far as supporting cast. That's not to say everything else isn't just as strong in the series, but Sakurasou is one of the few series I've watched where I felt like every member of the supporting cast was treated respectably as a character. They don't just exist to further the two main love interests, they actually have their own arcs and lives going on.
It's something really special, and I always worry that the generic JC Staff moe art style turns away more people than it should. I would say it's on par with Toradora, and I probably enjoyed it more as a whole.
Also, Grimgar is really clunky, but it has a lot of weight in the fights that most series of the same genre lack. They tend to hold the viewer's hand a little too much, and the characters aren't anything really special, but the fight scenes are definitely worth watching, at least on their own if you can't stomach the rest of the show. They also have some really great tracks in there that make some of the more important fight scenes feel like really well made AMVs. The music coupled with the battle scenes is probably why I had Grimgar in my favorites for awhile.
SAOII is hard to pinpoint though... If you liked the first half of season 1, you'll probably like the second half of season 2. Assuming you don't mind either sitting through some really lame episodes to get there, or skipping large chunks of the story to get to the really good parts. Mother's Rosario, the second act of SAOII, is better than everything thus far I've seen in the series. To clarify, I would say that I enjoy SAO, but I can also see a lot of where people are coming from when they say they have issues with it. Mother's Rosario is a very subdued arc that's also surprisingly character focused. It's a drama arc, and it's worth watching because I think it shows how much potential SAO has as a series when executed with care.
Kokoro Connect I haven't seen but I feel obligated to recommend it because everyone who knows what I like has said that it was a really, really good show. |