>>1299 I watched K-on! a couple months ago and was really unimpressed. I was never into cute girls doing cute things, so I expected I would dislike it, but die-hard KyoAni fans insisted that my love for Haruhi and Lucky Star would carry over. I now know that these people watched those shows for the totally wrong reasons. The character interactions are padded for runtime. There's no logistics that go into managing a band or a club. The central joke seems to be "haha they do nothing and still succeed", but I don't think that's funny. I want to see them struggle and make hard decisions. The idea of an anime following an upstart band is great but the execution here really let me down. Along similar lines, I watched the "How many kg are your weights" anime and while I also found it trite and lacking substance, at least the plot was built to be semi-educational and encourage the audience to pick up a new hobby. I think it could have gone much, much further in providing some science and guides to get started, but at least the "edutainment" aspects made up for the lack of real conflict. I get it, these shows are for people to feel "comfy", but this is my issue with recent anime, especially seasonal anime: it's designed around comfort, not good writing. That doesn't do anything for me.

I tend to miss the boat on seasonal stuff pretty frequently, which is a shame because most of the discussion happens then, and then it craters off a cliff. >>1299 I hear very mediocre things about Darling in the Franxx whenever it gets talked about, it seems like its honeymoon/FOTM period wore off and so many people hate it now; I know next to nothing about it though besides what that one chick character looks like, and the fact that Trigger made it. >>1300 I mean, good writing from slice of life/comedy anime already sounds kind of like a weird thing to be expecting. If you want things that actually "try" to be well-written, shouldn't you look for more plot and continuity-focused anime? It sounds almost like you're expecting these things to be something they are not. Its also very hard to integrate highly specific knowledge into a show without being autistic and turning off much of the audience. In terms of something like that, I've only seen Yakitate!! pull it off successfully as of late, which I really liked a lot.

I'm feeling pretty nostalgic to zero no tsukaima but thinking back on it there was a lot of things that sucked about it. I kinda wish I could for something like it but actually good. Also besides the first Macross what else is recommended in that series.

>>1301 So DITF is great if you're into character-driven stories. They nailed a unique take on tragic romance, and there were a couple scenes that nearly jerked tears out of me despite all the action and explosions. But then the last 4 episodes or so just go full Gurren Lagann out of nowhere, pulls new villains out of its ass, and feels like an ending made for a completely different show. That stunt soured a lot of people on it, and while I still love it, it took the series from a 9/10 to maybe a 5-6 real fast.