The Best and Worst of the Spring season

Okay this review is weeks late but it’s here now.

Disappointing
Crossing Time – Episodes 1 and 12 were good, everything else not so much.

Tada Never Falls in Love (TadaKoi) – A poor attempt at a romance that seemingly forgot it was a romance until the last few episodes.

My Sweet Tyrant – An interesting concept that got boring quickly

Tokyo Ghoul:re – Another lacklustre Tokyo Ghoul adaptation

Real Girl – How can my animation be this bad: the series

Good
Magical Girl Ore – A silly meta parody series on magical girls and the anime industry

High School DxD Hero – The ecchi harem nonsense returns, now with better art

Darling in the Franxx – I actually liked it despite its flaws. It kept me returning for two whole seasons and somehow provided one of the best romances of the season.

Very Good
Love is Hard for Otaku (WotaKoi) – The true romance anime of the season. There really is a lack of series with more adult characters so series like this and MMO Junkie are always welcome.

Megalo Box – Emulating the sound and aesthetic style of older series like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo this series is welcome in the current anime climate. The last episode has perhaps one of the best fights of the season.

Magical Girl Site – As a fan of the manga I really appreciate what the studio did with this adaptation. Though the ending was anime original it actually makes for an interesting alternative and though it’s unlikely at this point I’d like to see a season 2 exploring this version of the story.

Hinamatsuri – A great slice-of-life that takes the bizarre combination of yakuza and psychic and turns it into a heartwarming series on family and relationships. Anzu easily stole the show as her story was far more endearing to watch than Hina's.

Excellent
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Season 2 – The return of the gag comedy introduces more characters to bring pain to our tired protagonist and manages to feel fresh and wastes no time getting to the point.

Gun Gale Online – Despite not seeing any SAO content beforehand this quickly became one of my unexpected favourites with great characters and execution both in-game and in the real world. As I've said with Flip Flappers, Studio 3hz is a studio I'll watch out for and I look forward to the inevitable second season.

Golden Kamuy – After a while CGI bears just add to the fun of the series. Working well as both an action series and a comedy series this show found time to also explore the Ainu culture. A very fun cast of characters that I look forward to seeing again in the fall season.

Comic Girls – As a fan of CGDCT series this was a good follow up to fellow Kirara series Laid-Back Camp of the winter season with another likeable cast and fun times. ABABABA

The Surprise Winner
UmaMusume: Pretty Derby – I didn’t expect the outlandish horse girl sports idol anime to be my favourite of the season but life comes at you fast. Reading up on the lore behind the series was quite the trip in addition to the unexpectedly good direction. I guess you could call it the dark horse of the season.
 
Update post.
Second Cours
Darling in the FranXX
eps 16-24
Well that slowed right down then sped up so fast it fell off the rails! And they screwed over Zero Two's character (before turning her into a massive robot unicorn!)

Katana Maidens
Pretty much repeats the same plot as the first cour, but in a different way.

Single Cours
Aggretsuko 7/10
Lost Song 6/10
Hisone and Masotan 8 /10


Updated list:
  1. Hinamatsuri
  2. Uma Masume: Pretty Derby
  3. Magical Girl Site
  4. Golden Kamuy
  5. Hisone and Masotan
  6. SAOA:GGO
  7. WotaKoi
  8. Aggretsuko
  9. Megalo Box
  10. TadaKoi
  11. Comic Girls
  12. LotGH: Die Neue These
  13. Lost Song
  14. Caligula
Not much to add to the awards apart from the ED for Hisone and Masotan is up there with the best.
 
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