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):
1. Boku no Hero Academia Final
2. Kimi to Idol Precure
3. Who made me a princess?
4. Spy x Family S3
5. The Assassin's Status Exceeds the Hero's
6. Uma Musume Cinderella Grey S2
7. Egao no Taenai Shokuba desu
8. Chiramune
9. Nageki Bourei S2
10. Alma-chan wa Kazoku ni Naritai
11. Taiyo yori mo maboshii
12. Akujiki Reijou to Kyouketsu Koushaku
13. Chichi wa Eiyuu
14. Kikkaijikake no Marie
15. Yasei no last boss
16. Ranma 1/2 Remake S2
Hero Academy, Precure, Spy x Family, Uma Musume, Nageki Bourei and Ranma 1/2 are known quantities. So this post will discuss the 10 heretofore unknown series:
Who made me a princess? is a beautifully drawn work. It's an anime, but it's done by China and based off of a South Korean web novel. It's the first time a non-Japanese anime has impressed me. Maybe this is a signifier of things to come, or maybe it's just an exception to the rule. The story is similar to Tearmoon Empire except lacking in political intrigue. The art really carries this show.
The Assassin's Status Exceeds the Hero's also has good art. The story is the basic trope of a whole classroom of Japanese high schoolers traveling to another world and becoming various cool combat classes. The protagonist gets the assassin class and instantly starts outperforming his peers. It's fun to watch, partially because the assassin is judicious as well as strong.
Egao no Taenai Shokuba desu is the story of a mangaka's hectic and silly life. It reminds me of Seinfeld, in that the characters spend half their time wondering how to follow the unwritten rules of social decorum. It's funny and the girls are cute so it all checks out.
Chiramune was originally a light novel series and has a strong 'high-school romance' vibe. This high-spec guy named Chitose has a lot of girl 'friends' but no girlfriend, and the question is who will he eventually get with. The art is excellent and the characters are likable so this simple concept works really well.
Alma-chan wa Kazoku ni Naritai is a cute story of how a robot 'daughter' produced by a male and female collaboration calls the coworkers 'mother' and 'father,' and insists they all live together as a family. It's similar to Spy x Family in that sense.
Taiyo yori mo maboshii is a simple shoujo romance where a plain girl likes a high-spec boy. However, it's realistic that she could catch the boy this time, because she's also his childhood friend. I like the karma in this story -- she was nice to him before he was a catch, so now she can catch him when he is a catch. Girls, take heed.
Akujiki Reijou to Kyouketsu Koushaku is a story about a misfit boy and girl finding each other by attending a party and hitting it off. I like the basic premise that girls should seek out romance rather than staying single cat ladies, even if suitors are few and far between.
Chichi wa Eiyuu suffers from the common trope of a doting husband/father acting foolish around his wife and daughter. Ignoring that we have an interesting tale of a cute girl with vast magic powers taking on a world full of problems.
Kikkaijikake no Marie is Hayate no Gotoku in reverse. Instead of a butler having to prevent assassination and kidnapping attempts of an heiress, we have a maid preventing assassination and kidnapping attempts of an heir. The other cute twist is the maid is a normal human but pretends to be a robot because the heir is a misanthrope. That's a lot of fertile ground for humor.
Yasei no last boss is like Overlord or The New Gate. An overpowered player of a character in a game suddenly finds himself as that character in the game world in the far future of when he originally played the game. I generally don't like this premise but so far it's been executed pretty well.
Gnosia hasn't come out yet so it's possible the fall season actually has 17 decent shows. It's also possible that I'll tire of several of these shows and there will ultimately only be 10 decent shows. This is only a first impression post.
There are more watchable shows this fall than I expected, but it doesn't change the fact that there aren't any new great anime in this crop. This still indicates anime is on a descending slope and has been for quite a while.
In other news, one of my S-or-above guaranteed tickets fetched me the Celestial Seika SS Memoria, so I got to limit break her to level 1. Celestial Seika is quite strong, I've used her to win several important boss fights, but I so dislike Seika that I don't actually want to play her. This stroke of luck leaves me pretty ambivalent as a result.
There's talk of another Gaza truce, but what's to stop Israel breaking it like they did the original truce in January? I welcome peace in the Middle East, but call me cynical. Trump has overpromised on too many subjects for me to trust anything until it's actually happened. If five years from now Palestine is an independent state, free from Israel and Hamas terrorists, entirely rebuilt by foreign donors, able to peacefully trade with the outside world without any Israeli interference, then I'll say Trump did a great thing today. But if that's not the case then this truce is another nothingburger.
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