For the last couple of weeks, I've only been able to use a computer until 3pm due to my laptop being out for repairs, so I've had some spare time. So as well as keeping up with the simulcasts I've been following this season (Charlotte, Durarara!! X2, Food Wars, Gatchaman Crowds insight, Himouto! Umaru-chan!, Monster Musume and School-Live!), I've also been able to watch:
Akame ga Kill 1-24
Denki-ga 1-12
Symphogear 1-13
Symphogear G 1-13
Symphogear GX 1-13
I have to concur with the majority opinion surrounding Charlotte's final episode; it was just plain boring. The series definitely dipped in quality following the introduction of the whole time leap thing. The level of research was also completely absurd; if you have Big Ben in the background and can only use a generic tag like "A City In The United Kingdom", maybe you need to try harder? Then there was the Engrish that was totally unintelligable without Crunchyroll's subtitles!
Conversely however, I think Gatchaman Crowds insight managed to overcome its mediocre middle with a couple of fantastic final episodes; although I do think that Berg-Katze was severely underutilized.
The first episode of Akame ga Kill was absolutely phenomenal, while those following it managed to still be good, but neither amazing or terrible. It has definitely inspired me to check out the manga when I have some money though.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of Symphogear, even though I was niggled with how Hibiki, Tsubasa and Chris were all brought back at the end (At the very least, shouldn't Chris' body have been vapourised by Kadingir?). I didn't think the series really needed a follow-up, but Symphogear G was still a very enjoyable series with some brilliant character designs (Shirabe's Shul Shagana in particular looks amazing). Then Symphogear GX happened.
I find it hard to believe that the director and writer of GX are the same people who were responsible for the previous two seasons, because this third series was just one huge disappointment to me. The series really over-used common tropes like enemies emerging from smoke unscathed and characters being saved at the last moment; which actually connects to my next criticism. How many times is this franchise going to make us think a character has lost their life, only for it to emerge that they survived all along? At least Tsubasa surviving the first on-screen use of her Climax Song and Hibiki revealing she's still alive at the end of season one had emotional weight to them, but moments like when Maria et al were revealed to have survived the collapse of Frontier just felt like a cop-out. I don't think a "Climax Song" has meant anything significant since season one...
And speaking of cop-outs, the whole sub-plot with Hibiki's father felt like a complete waste of time. For how much longer are they going to drip-feed the Tachibana family's backstory before just telling us? Oh well, at least Galie and Micha were amusing characters.
