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I still have one more episode of Sound Euphonium to watch, and Classicaloid and March comes in like a lion are continuing into next season, but I think I've seen enough to give my opinion of the shows I watched this season:

Yuri On Ice - No surprise that this takes the top spot! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! It wasn't totally perfect -- twelve episodes wasn't enough time to really develop a lot of the characters, and despite paying lip-service to the scoring system, the scores were basically made up and unrealistic(Yuri would have almost certainly won Cup of China and the Grand Prix Final in reality)-- but it was still pretty amazing. I especially loved that three real-life skaters (Takeshi Honda, Nobunari Oda, and Stephane Lambiel) had voiceover cameos. And it seems very possible that we may be getting another season (or at least some OVAs), so YAY!

Classicaloid - I'm surprised I like this so much, but it is just so. much. freaking. fun! I mean, who wouldn't want to live in a music-themed mansion with a bunch of famous composers with mysterious Muzik powers? Well, besides poor Kanae... Okay, so maybe not, but still, her pain is the viewers' gain. (The modern remakes of classic pieces, though, can be a bit hit or miss.)

Sound Euphonium - Not quite as amazing as the first season, but still very good. I felt the first half was kinda weak, focusing on characters I did not care a bit about and a problem that would have been resolved a whole lot faster if the people involved would have just talked to each other. The second half, however, was great, especially since I'm a big Asuka fan. Also, the mid-season performance was just incredible.

Magic-kyn Renaissance - This was so...sparkly! And it was great to watch a reverse-harem show where the main heroine actually had some personality and you could see why all the boys fell in love with her.My one minor complaint is that they made a big deal in the first episode about the two best students being named Prince and Princess Artista, yet that never happened? The only prince and princess that were chosen were roles in a play, so that was kind of strange that they seemed to forget about that.Maybe another season is planned? I don't know.

Izetta: The Last Witch - A lot of people seemed to dislike this show for some reason, but I liked it just fine. Princess Fine, in particular, was a pretty awesome charcter.

March comes in like a lion - I would say this show is good, but uneven. It doesn't help that the shogi parts are really boring since it's impossible for somebody who doesn't know Japanese to understand what is going on in the game (although I appreciate the adorable cat song that attempts to explain the rules).

Miss Bernard said. - An amusing short. That's pretty much all I have to say about it.

Though not from the current season, I also finally got to watch the second season of The Heroic Legend of Arslan, which was very good. As for next season, I don't think any streaming announcements have been made yet, but if I can watch them, these are the shows that's I'm considering: second season of Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga, Fuka, and Scum's Wish.

And since the year is ending, I'm starting something new and picking my ten Best Anime of 2016:

1. Yuri On Ice
2. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju
3. Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3
4. ReLIFE
5. Flying Witch
6. Classicaloid
7. Sound Euphonium
8. Dance With Devils
9. Sweetness & Lightning
10. Orange
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Last day of 2015 and I still haven't finished the last chapter of Melting Ice... Oops. I do have quite a bit of it written, though, including the scene I was most dreading to write: the actual performance of the Lovers' Maneuver. I don't like writing action scenes so I expected to have a terrible time with it, but it actually came to me pretty easily. It's the romance part I'm having trouble with. Well, anyway, I really do plan to finish the story in 2016 (aiming right now for Valentine's Day), so hopefully this will be the absolute last time I make a New Year's promise to complete it.

Now, onto my final thoughts on the anime I watched this season. For me, this was the weakest season of the year, with only one title that I would consider buying if given a physical release. The rest were okay (except for Diabolic Lovers), but nothing I have the desire to rewatch. No real spoilers, but I'll cut anyway.

In no particular order )

As for next season, I'm definitely looking forward to the next season of Snow White With The Red Hair, and I'm tentively planning to check out Erased, Rainbow Days, and maybe Sekko Boys. Oh, and Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R, but only because I watched the original (which I didn't like) and now feel obligated to watch the sequel. (Maybe it'll be better with a full season to work with, though, rather than just a handful of OAV episodes.)
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Yay, the Yona of the Dawn (Akatsuki no Yona) manga has been licensed by Viz! I figured it was only a matter of time due to the success of the anime, but, wow, it's already up to nineteen volumes and still on-going? I didn't realize it was that long. Everyone's Getting Married also looks rather promising, being another josei title they'll be printing under the Shojo Beat banner. More josei is always welcome!

The summer anime season has (mostly) ended, so here's some final thoughts on the shows I watched:

My Love Story!! - Yep, I think this is another series that earns a Masterpiece ranking. I loved pretty much every single second of it. I still think that Rinko could have gotten a little more development, but she was fleshed out enough in the second half to satisfy me. Plus, it's just a really, really, really cute show!

Snow White With The Red Hair - For the past few seasons, there has usually been one really stand-out shoujo series (Akatsuki no Yona, My Love Story!!), and Snow White With The Red Hair is this season's. Shirayuki is a fantastic lead, and the romance between her and Prince Zen is really sweet and respectful. It also looks gorgeous as well. My one complaint is that there doesn't really seem much of an overreaching storyline so far, but that's okay. I'm looking forward to the next season anyway.

Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers - You know, when I first read a summary of this series, I thought the whole "seventh Brave" thing was just a hook to get people interested. I figured that the identity of the seventh Brave would be figured out around the half-way point of the show, then they would continue on to fight the Demon Lord, with the traitor sometimes getting in the way.
But actually, the ENTIRE show is devoted to the mystery of the seventh Brave and they never get the chance to fight the Demon Lord at all! (At least this season. It's based on a series of light novels and ends in way that pretty much demands a continuation.)
I was kinda annoyed by that, actually, since the mystery just seemed to drag on and on and on to the point that by the end I didn't really care who the traitor was anymore.

Heroic Legend of Arslan - A fairly average war story anime. I enjoyed watching it -- and I'll definitely be back for the upcoming new season that was just announced -- but there's nothing really memorable about it, except for the ending song "One Light", which is absolutely gorgeous.

To-Love-Ru Darkness - Lots and lots of fanservice, skirting the line of outright porn. What else is there really to say about it? (But it was still pretty fun to watch, if only to see how far they could push things.)

Hetalia: The World Twinkle - Again, not much to mention. If you enjoyed the other seasons of anthropomophized countries being cute together, then you'll enjoy this season.
As for what I plan to watch in the new season... Well, there's a new season of Diabolik Lovers for some reason. I don't really WANT to watch it, but my sense of completeness will probably make me anyway. (I can at least hope the lead heroine might have grown a bit of a backbone...but she probably hasn't. Or maybe they'll add a nice, non-murderous romantic interest for her? ... Probably not.) At least a vampire anime is suitably Halloween-y, which I enjoy in October.

Other than that, I'd like to check out Beautiful Bones - Sakurako's Investigation -, The Perfect Insider, and Dance with Devils (an anime musical!) -- all also suitably Halloween-y. One-Punch Man isn't Halloween-y at all but seems to be getting a lot of early buzz, so I might check it out. Starmyu also kinda interests me, being about a bunch of hot guys trying to become an idol group, but Dance with Devils seems the more interesting "singing bishies" show, so I may skip it during simulcast and wait to watch it some other time. And I actually would like to watch the second season of Noragami, but I haven't watched the first season yet and for some reason Hulu has all of the dub episodes yet only two of the subtitled episodes. (Usually it's the other way around!) I'd really prefer to watch the subtitled version first, so I'm not sure what to do about that.

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