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Bakemonogatari is a timeless classic. Despite being the first entry in a wider series, it's a perfect standalone season. With an innovative visual storytelling style and a quirky, off-beat sort of pace, it's a master at leading you to the subtext of the series without spelling anything out. Every time you rewatch it, you will spot something new you never noticed before. While the erotic content can be a big barrier to entry for newcomers, Bakemonogatari is careful to tread the line of social acceptability. As long as you're mindful of what the show is saying - not just what it's depicting - you'll be ... fine. That's not to say that the fanservice is some kind of high art, just that nothing in this series can ever be taken exclusively at face value. Araragi's journey, and the way it evolves and intertwines with the other characters in the show, is really something one of a kind.

This might not be one to show your parents or siblings, but it's definitely something you deserve to watch and puzzle out for yourself.

Mahouka is a baffling creature. I think it does a few things quite well - it has a really fun magical high school premise, with a strong running theme, and vaguely science-flavored magic. In many ways it was ahead of its time. Nowadays shows with a premise like that are dime-a-dozen, and it gets some credit for getting there first. I think Mahouka is generally competent in terms of pacing and execution. I can sense that it doesn't linger as long on worldbuilding details or exposition as the novels must have.

Is Mahouka good, then? No. Watchable, sure, but most people won't find the message of ... the show very agreeable. Tatsuya, our main character, is the strongest, bestest mage alive. Even though people think he's underpowered (an "irregular") secretly he's... well, you get the picture. Mahouka is another prestige entry in the genre of fiction where a character who is the victim of social darwinist, spartan society overcomes oppression by secretly having been better than everyone else the whole time. Instead of a refutation of the system, Tatsuya is the most complicit out of any character in the show.

Mahouka is also bizarrely nationalistic for a show set in distant alternate future. The selling point according to light novel readers is that it's actually covert military fiction, but I don't think that's the redeeming factor they hoped it would be. Enemies are one-dimensional. When a casualty happens on the protagonist's side, it's a tragedy. When Tatsuya causes a casualty on the enemy side, it's a statistic. There's a real Starship Troopers moment towards the end that I won't spoil. Suffice to say, when this anime does it, it doesn't mean it satirically.

Watch this one for its cultural relevance, and because it can be funny. Maybe stay away if you're looking for something clever, rational, or aimed at adult audiences.

Danmachi season 1 was a cute little adventure show. The trouble with Season 2, I think, is that it ratchets up the tension and stakes without retaining any of the parts of the show that made it novel or fun. There's no progression, all of the status updates have been cut out of this retelling and Bell does all of his training off screen. There are three slice of life episodes which aren't integrated into the rest of the season very well. The role of the dungeon in this conflict is utterly superfluous. You get the feeling that any moments that could have possibly endeared ... you to the new characters in the cast have been meticulously, surgically removed.

Danmachi Season 2 is also constitutionally incapable of treating its own subject matter with the kind of tact that it deserves. It tries to explore darker themes regarding the violent underbelly of the Dungeon City of Orario, however, Danmachi doesn't know how to depict injury, death, dismemberment, violence, or sex. What's left is a confusing shell of a story too scared to actually interact with the themes and conflicts it brings up. The entire conflict is robbed of nuance. Bell runs from location to location having half-hearted conversations and badly choreographed fights until the arc stumbles to the finish line.

I sincerely hope the next season is better.

This anime definitely deserves more consideration. It's not necessarily that the plot knocks it out of the park - it's a comedy with fundamentally lower stakes than Log Horizon or Sword Art Online. But at the same time, the action is very invigorating. It's like Bofuri meets shonen battle anime. The pacing strings episodes together effortlessly. I finished the nine episodes that exist at the time of this review in a single night and it barely felt like any time passed at all. It perfectly embodies the joy of MMOs other shows have failed to fully capture.

This is the best looking anime from C2C thus ... far, and has all of the qualities fans of those shows could hope for.