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Quick Thoughts:
There was quite a bit of focus on character development/backstory this season. The balance between these stories and more lighthearted, SoL content was heavily skewed. It ended up feeling like a 20+ episode pity party.

Story:
The first several episodes establish what I think will be the central conflict the rest of the anime. The rest of season is non-stop slew of backstories for several characters, which help explain why these characters are so emotionally invested in this conflict. These got kind of repetitve/redundant after a while; I feel like the point could've been made in less than 20 episodes.

Characters:
One benefit of the large ... amount of exposition this season is that the side characters are more fleshed out than usual. Several characters are introduced this season, and we're given a good look at their interests and motives. It makes it easier to understand any actions they take that would normally be questionable. There's also a pretty complex web of relationships that's much easier to follow after this season.

Enjoyment:
This season a bit of a downer, but I did get some enjoyment out of it. I'm still a fan of the art style, the 2nd OP was really good, and I did enjoy how the main cast (Yuki and Kyou specifically) developed.

Quick Thoughts:
Promising start marred by pachinko.

Story:
Season 2 picks up some time after the end of the 1st season, with more debt accumulated. A familiar face picks him up and drops him off at an underground camp to work off his debts. This arc lasts about nine episodes and the second, and final, arc takes up the remaining 17 episodes. I think the first arc was solid; we get all Kaiji's mindgames, scheming, trickery and charisma displayed in full effect. The second arc was the worst in the entire series in my opinion, mainly due to its pacing issues. The first few episodes provided good setup/backstory, ... but main conflict was drawn out way too long. It didn't help that the type of gambling being done wasn't particularly interesting either. I thought the ending was good though, very fitting for someone like Kaiji.

Art:
Art quality seemed about the same as the first season. One guy's face bugged me a bit (like an ugly mix between Kaiji's and Hajime no Ippo's artstyle) but the rest of characters looked pretty good. I liked most of the visual metaphors, although I think too many were used in the second arc.

Enjoyment:
I didn't enjoy this season as much as the first, but that's mostly due to the pacing issues. I did enjoy the focus on more traditional gambling rather than the saw-like death games from before.

Quick Thoughts:
The less episodic format led to improvements in some areas, but ultimately this season still suffers from many of the issues I had with the first season, like character designs and the repetitive interactions between characters.

Story:
Instead of being mostly episodic like its first season, xxxHOLiC Kei is presented in loosely connected arcs 2-4 episodes. This should've helped by allowing more time for developing more in-depth stories and settings, but outside of one arc towards the end the arcs felt mediocre. The couple plot twists they attempted were too predictable, and most the new characters introduced weren't interesting enough to carry the story.

Character:
I think ... they dropped the ball in their attempts to develop Watanuki's friend group. In the first few episodes it seemed like the relationship between Doumeki and Watanuki would develop past the very stale, one-dimensional interactions they would have in the first season, but their dynamic hardly changed. The end result is basically an ability that's used sparingly throughout the season. Himawari's development was strange and almost nonsensical, that's all I can say without spoiling. Even with these developments though, nothing really changed with their interactions. Watanuki's still unreasonably antagonistic towards Doumeki, and swoons over Himawari any times she's mentioned.

Enjoyment:
I enjoyed just one arc, which was about 4 episodes. Everything else mildly enjoyable at best and boring/repetitive at worst.

Quick Thoughts:

This show did not need to be 24 episodes. A premise is established early on regarding the main character's (Watanuki) ability to see spirits as well as his destiny in relation to his boss Yuko, but the show hardly delved deeper into it. Instead, xxxHolic follows an episodic format whose formula grew stale just several episodes in.

Story:

Yuko runs a shop that "grants" wishes, and these wishes are usually linked to something spiritual. Each episode generally involves Watanuki using his ability to see spirits to help Yuko fulfill those requests. There are some variations; such as more slice-of-life centered Watanuki's friend group, or episodes with ... more lighthearted interactions with spirits, but Yuko's requests are the main focus. Episodes conclude with the wishes being fulfilled, usually in a monkey paw type of way, and then Yuko monologues about the theme of the episode. This episode structure isn't bad, I think the elements supporting it (characters, art) were too weak too carry for 24 episodes.

Art:

Visually, xxxHolic is underwhelming at best. It seems like they were trying to go for a dark, mysterious vibe, but things like most of the background characters being grey silhouettes made the art seem flat and lazy. I never got used to the characters designs either; they're ridiculously lanky. It didn't seem consistent either. They would look fine in closer shots, but it seemed like as camera zoomed out, their heads would shrink and their limbs would extend. Animation-wise this show was fine. nothing notable.

Sound:

The soundtrack was simplistic, but pretty good overall. In particular, it worked well with the parts of the show that were more eerie in tone. Voice acting was solid as well. I did find Watanuki's voice a bit annoying, but it seems like that's the kind of voice they were going for.

Characters:

I think the characters and how they interact were a large part of why the show got stale so quickly. The main cast reacts to each other in very predicable ways. An example could be Watanuki's friend group: Watanuki either overacts to other character's antics in his shrieking voice or swoons over his love interest Himawari, Doumeki eggs him on by reacting nonchalantly, and then Himawari giggles and says Doumeki and Watanuki look like great friends or something. That's basically the slice-of-life portion of the show in a nutshell. The more serious side isn't much better. Having someone as goofy as Watanuki be the main character takes away a lot of the tension they try to build. Yuko helps mitigate this when she's actually on screen, but she's usually in the background playing a more supportive role for Watanuki.

Enjoyment:

I kind of enjoyed the show for what was in the first several episodes, but it dragged on too long and got repetitive in the latter half. Can't say I enjoyed it that much overall.

Quick Thoughts:

It's a nice coming-of-age movie. We get to see themes like independence, jealousy, and self-awareness told through a young girl leaving home to develop herself as a witch. The movie is visually appealing as expected from Ghibli films. I think my biggest issue with the film is that it doesn't really stand out in comparison to similar anime. Even just among the Ghilbli catalogue, I think there a movies that explore the same themes in much more interesting settings.

Story:

The story is pretty easy to follow. Our main character, Kiki, leaves home to gain experience as a witch in the city. She stumbles along in ... the city, struggling to find a place to stay until she's meets a nice couple who lets her establish a delivery service in a bakery. That's roughly the first fourth of the movie and there's not much of a central plot after that. There's one more delivery which serves mostly for comic relief, a generic romance sub-plot, and some normal teenage angst. Kiki's witch abilities are the only thing that stand out in an otherwise bland setting, and even then all she really does is fly on a broom and talk to her cat.

Art:

The animation is smooth as expected. The art style is fine, but character design is pretty generic. Kiki looks the same as just about any Ghibli protagonist except she's in a black dress; the background/side characters are very samey as well.

Sound:

The soundtrack is pretty reserved and laid-back, which fit in with the seaside city setting. Not sure if it was an issue with the video source, but there notable lack of sound/music in the last scene which led to some awkward silence in what looked like a tense situation. The voice-acting was fine, didn't think were any standout performances.

Character:

Kiki as a character is fine for the themes this movie covers, but she doesn't do much to stand out outside of that. Like I mentioned before, her witch abilities are supposed to be what makes her unique but that aspect is hardly explored in the movie. She's very much just a generic teenage girl for most of the film. None of the side characters were that notable, they generally had too little screentime to matter, or just filled role as a plot device for Kiki.

Enjoyment:

The first 20 minutes or so were kind of enjoyable. I thought it would be cool to see witch adjust to city life and find a role, but the movie hits lull shortly after that it never really gets out of. I struggled to find much enjoyable about the rest of the movie.

Quick Thoughts:
Not much going on here, it's about 7 minutes of content spread between 4 separate "episodes".

Story:
There isn't really a story in any of these shorts. The first short is 40 second glimpse into Xiaobai's school life. The second short was something like an amv/fandub of main series content. The last two were just music videos, kind of seemed like longer, alternate eds.

Sound:
Each short's sound was entirely music based. The first had music fitting of its comedic tone. The second seemed to be voiceover related to an actual song, not sure though. The music in the last two shorts was pretty calming and relaxing; ... almost lullaby like.

Character:
Not really relevant. Xiaobai's goofy personality is present, but the main focus of these shorts is the music.

Enjoyment:
I didn't really care for any of these. The first and second shorts aren't enjoyable in comparison to the main series. The last two were fine, just seemed like it would've made sense to just use shortened versions as eds for the main series.

Quick Thoughts:
Much like the main series, the main appeal I got of this movie was its art and animation. Between its more well-defined characters, rich backgrounds, and smooth animation, it's a very noticeable improvement visually. That's about it though, the story hardly made sense to me. It's supposedly a prequel to the web-series, but I had a hard time this movie is even related.

Story:
I think the story was supposed to show us how Xiaohei gets over his hate of humans. It starts with him displaced from his home in the forest by humans, and shortly after he meets another group of spirits with similar circumstances. ... He's then kidnapped a powerful human who works with larger group of spirits who are attempting to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and spirits. The rest the seems to going for some heartwarming story about mentor-student relationship between Xiaohei and this human with Xiaohei gaining a better understanding of both humans and his spirit powers. It was hard to it view it that way though since Xiaohei had no real choice in the matter. The human literally kidnapped him; any attempt to get away was thwarted or impossible altogether due to his transportation method. The last 15 minutes or so made no sense to me either. It felt like they just were making stuff up along the way to ensure a happy ending for Xiaohei.

Art:
As mentioned before, I really did enjoy this movie visually. They took nice, simplistic style of the main series and turned it up a notch. The colors were vibrant, character designs much improved, and all of the fight scenes were explosive and exciting.

Sound:
I thought they did a good job with the sound effects. which is something that usually doesn't stand out to me. Voice acting was bit flat at times, but serviceable overall. Don't remember any of the music standing out.

Characters:
It was nice to see more personality out of Xiaohei, who was pretty one-dimensional in the web-series. None of the other characters really stood out to me.

Enjoyment:
I watched the web-series beforehand thinking context would be helpful, but I think it actually took away from my enjoyment of the movie. I spent a lot time wondering how they were even related to each other. The movie went in-depth about many spirit related mechanics that were hardly present in the main series, and they ended up bending their own rules towards the end of the movie anyway.

Quick Thoughts:
Outside of some nostalgia from the flash-style animation, I didn't get much out of this series. With its 5-7 min long episodes, cutesy art-style, and episodic format, It seems like the target audience was much younger than me unfortunately.

Story:
This series was mostly episodic. There's suppose a story-line involving someone pursuing the main character, Xiaohei, for a pearl he possesses, but it was too fragmented for me to follow. It ended up being a slice-of-life comedy type series following Xiaohei as he interacts with and learns more about the human world. A comparison that comes to mind would be Natsume Yuujinchou.

Art:
The art-style was simplistic, ... but nice to look at. Animation was pretty smooth overall, including the several fight scenes throughout the series.

Sound:
Voice-acting was serviceable I guess, a lot of meowing and other animal sounds. Music was fine during the fighting scenes, didn't notice it much outside of that.

Characters:
I didn't find any of the characters to be notable; they were all pretty basic. Not much development either, though that's to be expected considering how short the show is.

Enjoyment:
As mentioned before, I got some nostalgic enjoyment out of the animation; it reminded of the Newgrounds era of the internet. That ran thin after a few episodes though. Even with the series being less than 3 hours in runtime, it felt like slog to get through the rest of it.

In a few ways, it's notable improvement over the first season, but it still has many of the same issues I had with the first season.

The episodic nature of the series is still here, but the tone of the episodes are much more varied this time. There also seems to be less screentime of QT and Meow and more focus on fleshing out Dandy as a character, which was a positive overall. There are also episodes that are less comedic and more introspective. These didn't always land well for me, but the change of pace was appreciated. The last episode seemed to be tying together ... the warping storyline that's occasionally mentioned, but those bits were always too fragmented for me to understand and follow.

The production value of Space Dandy is still impressive, most of what I said about the first season still applies. Colors seemed more vibrant at times, but I think that's mostly due to the content of certain episodes.

While season 2 was a step up over the first in my opinion, I still found it unenjoyable overall. The larger focus Dandy is a positive when the alternatives are Meow and QT, but I still found Dandy to be too one-dimensional to carry a show for 13 episodes.

What good potential this show had was marred by stale, repetitive humor and forgettable characters outside of Dandy himself.

There's not much of a storyline being followed, it's a comedy where most episodes involve the main trio tracking down unregistered aliens. No core story means most of the focus falls on the various side characters and comedic elements; most of which fell flat for me.

From the main cast, Meow left no impression me, and QT kind of functioned as the straight-man to Dandy's antics but not much else. Dandy's more interesting by comparison, but his reliance on lewd humor and constant references to Boobies (Space ... restaurant similar to Hooters) is a large a part of why I felt the show became stale very quickly. Episodes that could've broken away from that trend, like the 5th episode which involves Dandy reuniting a young alien girl with her grandfather, are tainted by odd comments from Dandy about the girl herself.

The main draw to me was the presentation of the show. The classic, sometimes trippy art style was entertaining to watch, characters are distinct and expressive, and somewhat fanservice-y designs were fine as well considering the context of the show.

The music was a highlight as well. Voice acting (I watched the English dub) was solid as well. Dandy's voice was strong point, and QT's autotune-heavy voice made for some entertaining moments throughout the show.

Overall, I didn't find this show very enjoyable. The humor felt stale by fourth episode, and it never really recovered from there.