Undead Unluck: Rape isn't funny. Fail.
Hametsu no Oukoku: The initial premise of this story is completely unbelievable. Why would you genocide a group of powerful people who only want to help you and have an impeccable track record of benevolence? If you're going to do that, why would you spare someone who sympathizes with the genocided tribe and let them go even after they've sworn to kill you in revenge? When the initial premise of your story makes no sense nothing good can follow. Fail.
Keiken Zero: This is such a sweet romance story. A girl who's had only bad luck with boys and a boy who's had only bad luck with girls through a fluke of fate try becoming a couple together and for once they don't instantly and maliciously hurt each other. As though boys and girls could get along if they only once tried for people that don't exactly meet hierarchical standards. It's such a hopeful story for everyone who's lost at love out there. Pass.
I will survive using potions: The budget for this adaption is abysmal. It looks so awful. I admit it's following the plot of the original source, unlike 'I want to be average in another world', but why not just read the manga which also follows the source and looks better? Fail.
Tearmoon Empire: I knew this would be a great anime before it aired and it didn't let me down. The art is tremendous, the detail they put into the gaudy palace surroundings is overwhelming, and of course Mia is beautiful. The seriousness of the situation is made abundantly clear, giving weight to this otherwise comedy. Mia and Anne's last words before she went to the guillotine bespeak of the very best of mankind, the highest virtues, their sincere goodness brought me to tears. And this is a comedy. It just goes to show when a series is high spec enough it transcends the concept of genres. Pass.
Heat the Pig Liver: A masochist guy who likes to be called a pig and spanked by girls ends up actually being reborn as a pig in another world. There he happens to meet a telepathic girl who is willing to serve his every desire and doesn't have anyone else so spends all her time with him. Yes, there's a plot this dumb and overly convenient. It's like the horny creepiness of Mushoku Tensei except with no special powers and he's a genuine pig. Who comes up with these things? Why do they sell? Fail.
Ameiro Protocol: It's the same objection as before, why would I watch an anime about people playing FPS games when I could just play an FPS game myself? I actually have played a lot of FPS's -- Halo, Quake, Doom, Rainbow Six, Hexen, Star Wars: Dark Forces, some more obscure ones -- but I was never any good at them, and eventually they stopped being remotely fun, maybe because I wasn't any good, but I think really because it's just a boring and repetitive and empty game genre. But there's no way in hell, if I don't even want to play an FPS, that I'd resort to watching someone else play an FPS for fun. Especially one with such terrible graphics as this game. Fail.
Hikikomori Kyuuketsuki: I admit it, this vampire really is a once in 100 million years bishoujo. But an anime isn't a single pretty girl, it needs a reasonable plot and setting, interesting questions with insightful answers, an immersive alternate life. This show has none of that, it just has blatant fan service (in terms of cuteness more than lewdness) and shallow humor. There's no way she would actually manage to keep deceiving all 500 underlings who want to overthrow her. She's a terrible liar and it's just stupid. Fail.
Kikansha no Mahou: Unlike Hikikomori, this anime doesn't even have good art. It's got the same mechanic as Re:Zero, return by death, except the guy returns all the way back to the start of his adventure instead of some unreasonable save point. He's now got all his knowledge and skills he picked up after all those years, and he already beat the last boss despite dying, so this playthrough should be incredibly easy. Which doesn't make for a good story. In fact time travel never makes for a good story because it reduces the stakes to zero, if you lose again just time travel again. Nobody really faces any risk. So stupid. I imagine there will be some long complicated explanation for why he can't time travel again and this time he needs to get serious, but it's already bad enough getting to time travel once. Now you might object that Tearmoon Empire is also based on a return by death time travel event, but there's a big difference. In Mia's case she's just a normal girl without super strength, and the problem is politics, human relations and economics, something she has little sway over. Time travel doesn't let her breeze through life on cheat mode, in her case it's no more than a prophetic warning with no obvious solution. In this guy's case the only problem is a powerful dragon who he is now powerful enough to beat already, so all he has to do is waltz over to the last dungeon and crush him. Also, Tearmoon Empire is a comedy so it can get away with things shonen action series can't get away with. The point of a comedy is to be funny, but the point of an action series is to display wit and courage for a come from behind victory. You don't need any wit or bravery to beat someone you already know how to beat, and it isn't a come from behind victory anymore. Besides, with the godlike power of time travel no one could ever challenge you anyway. Who has ever heard of a fighting series with no tension and foreknowledge that you'll easily win the coming battle?
Oh and on top of that, even though the world is in peril, most of the characters are spending all day in stupid status competitions and trivial personal drama instead of focusing on victory. It's absurd and pathetic. Fail.
100 Kanojo: Also known as 'Hyakkano', this is another great anime that proved itself on its first episode. It explains the fun setting that led to this unorthodox outcome in a convincing manner, and does a good job showing how canny and proactive the girls are, proving they aren't exploited victims in the least. Unfortunately this story doesn't really shine with two or three or four girlfriends, the real fun begins when there are eight and they go play a baseball game together. The humor keeps exponentially increasing as the numbers keep growing, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. . . So the first season of 100 Kanojo really isn't the heart and soul of the central concept of this story. But I don't mind, my favorite kanojo in the series is Shizuka and she's the third girl out of all 100, so we're about to spend a lot of quality time with a quality person. Basically bring on episode 2. Pass.
Megumi no Daigo: On second thought I have so little interest in firefighting that I can't imagine watching this show all the way through. Fail.
I'm in love with the villainess: On second thought I'm not a fan of female masochists or stalkers either. Fail.
Ragna Crimson: On second thought banishing the loli I liked so he could hang out with some elderly man I don't like totally ruins this show. Fail.
Hoshikuzu Telepath: How many shy girl anime do we need? There's already Shy this season, and now this. Before this season there was Bocchi the Rock and a million other series where a girl has crippling social anxiety issues and can barely talk while in a constant state of deep red blush. How many girls actually face this problem compared to how baseline it is in anime? How about a show about a girl who can't make any friends because she holds true but unpopular opinions about various taboo topics, like global warming is a hoax? She can speak all she wants but the moment she does she alienates herself. Then she dreams of meeting aliens who are rational and accept her for believing in the truth instead of punish her, and lo and behold, that very day an alien arrives and tells her she's right, global warming is a hoax, and as a representative of alien-kind she loves the heroine and wants to be her friend, because she's the only rational human on the whole damn planet. Oh and because she's the only human worth saving they've decided to transfer her to the planet Zwiboo and blow up the rest of the planet as a toxic den of lies, a thought-pollution scape which represents a threat to all sentient species because they might be deluded into believing the same lies just like humans were. Now that would be a good series. . .
But as far as this old formula goes, basically there's a cute shy girl who meets an energetic outgoing girl and they have lots of yuri scenes while never explicitly being sexual, and everyone gets to bask in the aura of their moonlight-intensity romance. It's not a bad formula and I've enjoyed it before, so I guess I can enjoy it again. Pass.
Add it all up and there are 20 shows worth watching this fall season, 9 of them in my top anime rankings:
Here's the good anime that's currently airing this season and is worth at least a try, in the order of how exciting each episode is week to week (not in the order of how good the series is overall, which would favor older/longer series too much):
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