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For all the busy animation going on, it's honestly entertaining.

So, yes, the animation is really the main thing of note when discussing this show. It's so extra, but charming as well. It's like a frequent visual gag. Everyone's hair could be its own character. I'm not sure if that's the intention of the animators, but I choose to believe it is.

Hmm hmm hmmm... the story and characters are what you'd come to expect from an isekai. If you're looking for something new or more unique in the genre, this won't quite provide. For me, it's what I expected, which is perfectly fine because it delivered. ... To summarize in vague but recognizable terms: a guy regains memories of his past life during his new life in another world, he discovers powerful abilities that go unrecognized, and he progresses towards actualizing his power when which others finally recognize him (with mixed denial or awe) and he demonstrates humility to remind you he's a good guy. All right, that last part was tacked on as a general critique of heavy-handed good-guy-ness typical of isekai main characters, as this main character and story doesn't push his goodness onto the viewer.

The thing I'm most bothered by (so far) is the pacing. Oddly, the pacing in the story itself is not the issue, but rather the format of the episodes. As the episodes go on, I feel like the recaps are getting longer and longer. In the ninth episode it's almost a third of the runtime that is essentially nothing new. That's very off-putting for an otherwise generic anime that's simple fun.

This action-comedy is the hidden gem of the season.

Unlike a lot of shounen that attempt to insert comedy and fail (hmm hmm Demon Slayer), the comedy has a fair amount of laugh-out-loud moments and consistent funniness. The animation quality is great, which pairs really well with the action sequences that are unique, entertaining, and even, one might say, thrilling. The characters are also refreshingly natural, which is to say they aren't over the top or caricatures typical of a story largely set in a school. The end of the season provides a nice theme that deepens the overall story beyond an assassin simply being in ... an unprecedented situation, and it shows great promise for where the show can go.

All around, the quality is great and it is an easy recommendation to anyone.

A compelling premise that is diminished by a circuitous if not repetitive plot.

Four individuals, or "agents," are responsible for managing each of the seasons respectively, and each have retainers that are part of a broader organization called the FSA who mitigate potential threats to the agents including fanatics and terrorists. The wider FSA is (thus far) more of a nebulous, incompetent entity as the story follows the agents getting repeatedly dogged on. The primary plot is splintered by a deluge of flashbacks that are, regrettably, excessive. It feels like there are several false starts for many episodes before the story actually picks back up, but ... the progress is cut short due to another flashback, a character needing to explicitly state (or restate) their feelings/motive, or the credits. There are bits and pieces within each episode that provide that sparkle of a good story, but I can't confidently say that the majority of the story is good. To me, the story felt like it didn't really decide to go forward until roughly episode 10. The animation and music are good, though.

The animation is lively, the plot not so much.

It starts well enough with the two main protagonists being thrown together due to awkward circumstances, though they shortly take a backseat to the story focusing on side characters' romances. I'm down with stories having an ensemble cast and prioritizing subplots here and there, and obviously there's gotta be more than one losing heroine given the title, but I still expect the main plot and characters to develop in the meantime. They don't. The only character that seems to have growth is Lemon, and she arguably has the most meaningful plot. As for the third losing heroine, ... Komari, she's just annoying and her plot is meandering and pretty pointless. Come the last two episodes, I was wondering how the show would wrap back around to the two main protagonists and their relationship. It doesn't. (Notice how I named two of the three losing heroines--I genuinely can't remember the first who is one of the two main protagonists. That doesn't reflect good on the show.)

Tone-wise, it delivers just about what you expect, albeit for me in insufficient amounts: some comedy, some teen drama, and some slice of life. While the genre is romance, that's not really the point of the show (again, the title is the tip-off for this). I would have enjoyed it more if there were more romantic elements, of course, but given that's not what the show was trying to do I can overlook that. What I can't overlook is the lack of platonic relationship development, what I imagine the show was really trying to do. The question of what each person is to another following a confession, a breakup, and a rejection is posed, yet is hardly explored (excepting Lemon). I think I said it best initially, in that what's given, while fine, amounts to being insufficient.

Overall, it's a fine show, but ultimately felt like something that distracted me from doing or watching something better.

It meanders and lacks a reason for its conflict, but it remains enjoyable as a whimsical side quest.

Consider this movie a Gobta arc. To sum up the plot without spoiling anything, Rimuru and co. go on vacation on an island where they become wrapped up in a mysterious conflict with an underwater kingdom. As said before more succinctly, the plot meanders while following the characters doing vacation-y things that slow down understandably slow moments a little too much. I nonetheless enjoyed the tone this slowness set in creating a lighthearted experience; that said, these moments could have been better spent developing the motive and backstory ... for this movie's antagonists as well as developing the relationship between Gobta and a priestess from the underwater kingdom.

Characters that have been established thanks to the anime's prior seasons are the most compelling, while the new characters (i.e., everyone in the underwater kingdom) are quite flat. This is understandable, as the movie's story does not significantly impact (or influence in any way, really) the wider story the anime has going on--hence, this movie is a side quest. And this is fine, in my opinion, because the movie is self-aware enough to recognize itself as not being significantly important. The plot and characters simply serve the purpose of providing more time for enjoyers of the anime to have with said characters. Anyway, I'll still criticize the king of the underwater kingdom for being a do-nothing, the antagonists for being antagonistic without an apparent reason, and the priestess for not having enough depth for the relationship with Gobta to feel emotionally impactful or earned.

The soundtrack and animation are probably the strongest points of the movie, which raise my rating from a "fine" to a "good". The climax is visually great, and I enjoyed the imaginative details and landscapes, particularly of the underwater kingdom.

So, yeah, it's not something fans of the anime and anyone else need to see, but it's not something I imagine people will regret seeing if they choose to.

Aura farming, the show.

I know nothing of the wider work of "Fate" and so my judgement of this anime is purely based on what these 13 episodes provided. There is quite a lot of good world-building and character setup interwoven in the attention-grabbing action. The major problem is that most (if not all) of it has no payoff. Rather, the payoff is the aura exuding from the action set pieces, which is very flimsy. The over-reliance on cool vibes does make for a superficially entertaining show, but the absence of arcs, depth, or payoffs diminishes that entertainment. Which leads me to grant a "fine" rating ... to the overall show.

It's strange how characters are competently set up yet are incompetently handled, which might be where the "strange" part of the show's title comes form. One MC, Ayaka, is a consistent mystery for the events of the story, and while she gets positive development much of it isn't really earned and is vague. Another MC, Flat, has a very hasty setup and then receives a rather unceremonious surprise in the show's finale that left a sour taste in my mouth. The finale overall evoked negative impressions, mainly because it wasn't a finale. It was the show just ending in a place that made no sense. I named two characters that lacked proper arcs, but really every single character lacked arcs thanks to the ending happening. It's like if I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and when the Haradrim showed up after Rohan forced the orcs to retreat from Minas Tirith the movie decided to end in the midst of the oliphaunts mowing down the cavalry. That's just ridiculous.

There is a ton more to criticize the story and characters for (e.g., Gilgamesh and his master, Alcides and his master, that random green-haired person and the random wolf who I guess was his/her master(?)) but I'll just sum it all up as them being there for aura rather than any other significant purposes and most-to-all of them lacking payoffs. There's not much else to say about the show other than the animation being great and the soundtrack being good.

While the story is largely sacrificed for abstractionism, the series delivers an entertaining finale.

I'll admit mild disappointment that much of the events stemming from the second season grew to unravel a lot of what first drew me in to the series. The premise of fire soldiers fighting monsters created from spontaneous combustion and its inherent mystery was super compelling; like many mysteries, the explanation is rarely as satisfying as the question. The explanation was not bad per se, as I found the ideas very ambitious and some very compelling (I won't say what specifically because it's a SPOILER, but I'll hint to it having to ... do with the history of the story's world). This final part also provides fun action sequences. When it arrived at the climax, I found the almost literal "battle" of ideals anticlimactic and a bit silly. I guess this might be fair given the show seemed to not be taking itself seriously after some apocalyptic plot developments and normalcy going out the window. I was just hoping it would've been more serious. My thoughts of the story can be summed up as it biting off more than it could chew.

On one hand I've enjoyed the animation of this show, particularly the action elements, but on the other hand I've not enjoyed the animation, particularly the cartoonish and stylized elements. This circles back to the story veering far away from seriousness and normalcy; more than just people's eyes having unnatural things in them (e.g., stars, clovers, circles, X's), a lot of the world gets stylized elements I just don't really like. This is a minor complaint. The soundtrack, I think, was good.

The pacing also gives me mixed feelings. For the events leading up to the climax, it was good. During and after the climax, it felt rushed. Again, the climax itself was silly so it makes sense to breeze through it, and the outcome was fairly absurd so it makes sense to not spend much time with it either, but the swiftness of the ending and its wrap-up contributed to the feeling of it being anticlimactic. I will say, the character development of Arthur and his relationship with Shinra felt satisfying. As for the other characters, many of them were not given enough time to develop (I'm mainly thinking about Charon and Haumea here, but also Iris, Amaterasu, and Inca).

Though I have my problems with it and think the show peaked with its first season, Fire Force is overall good, and this final season is overall good.

Dungeon Meshi? More like... Dungeon Meh-shi.

The premise of a ragtag party of adventurers living off dungeon monsters while attempting a rescue is entertaining on the surface. For the first few episodes, it seemed to work. As the episodes went on, it stopped working.

Starting with the characters: the antics between them all never developed any of them. Sure, there may have been moments dedicated to character-building or backstory, but the characters didn't actually change throughout the story. The show gives off the illusion of change when other characters react to things with emotions (e.g., crying, laughing, various dramatics), but dynamics shortly revert back to how each ... behaves about things and around each other since the start of the story. Very much KonoSuba vibes where the repetitive antics are the story's gimmick and they make or break it.

The pacing felt all right, as there are events happening at relatively appropriate intervals throughout the season. No episode felt boring per se, though the relevance and importance of events are another story. Which brings me to...

The story. It was janky. The driving plot regarding the rescue is for the most part forgotten about in favor of showcasing the characters derping around with monsters and cooking sequences. I get that the title of the show is about dungeon food, but the time dedicated to the literal step-by-step process was too much for me. I chalk it up to the same problem with the characters: repetitiveness. It also doesn't help that most events or plot beats don't really amount to anything. It'd probably help if the tone wasn't so lighthearted that the driving purpose of everything didn't seem to be absent if not forgotten about by all the characters most of the time. Anyway, if you're content with watching events happen, regardless of their banality and significance toward the characters and plot, this show certainly provides that.

It's not bad, but overall I was unimpressed and barely had enough interest to finish watching it (it took me two years).

A story-less story with a pervasively apathetic, nihilistic air about it that progresses at a geriatric pace.

Before anyone gets offended, this kind of tone and approach definitely has an audience. I'm just not part of it. If it makes anyone feel better about my opinion, I'll own up to potentially being stupid as I did not and still do not understand the infrequently increasing ratio throughout the episodes. For me it simply represented an abstract artsy-fartsy way of conveying things progressing. This fits with the general style this show seems to be going for.

The characters are flat both in terms of their affect and their ... depth. They emote as if they are waiting in line at the DMV. To say they have reactions would be an exaggeration. Whatever brief insights are given into a character's background are fleeting and illuminate their personality as well as the static in a perimetry test. Although the premise of the anime involves death games, meaning characters are expected to be short-lived and thus not necessarily needing depth, it would be more compelling if there was at least someone to root for if not against.

The main character herself is the most likely to be compelling, as the reason for her motive is a mystery. The thing is, it's not enough to keep me invested. As it stands, the title of the anime provides more story than what's in the first 3 episodes (insofar as the main character is concerned).

As for the animation, it's fine. There are moments with a minimalist approach that circle back to the anime being somewhat artsy-fartsy rather than being genuinely interesting to look at, but these moments being different than the rest of the time provides some interest in itself for whatever that's worth. Ditto for the soundtrack.

Finally, the story seems to be hitting its stride.

The stakes are high and the prospect of success looks bleak (much like prior seasons), however that doesn't let this season stray into a gratuitous misery mill churning out innovative ways to torture the main cast (unlike prior seasons). Indeed, this season has discovered the key to a compelling story: progression. I understand why it was difficult to pull off up till now, given the whole premise of Return by Death is antithetical to the possibility of progression, but I'm glad the writing made use of it sparingly for once. The story is all the better for ... it, allowing characters to breathe and develop, and allowing the plot to do the same. There are somewhat strange moments dedicated to certain characters that don't land very well--as a vague example, the whole van Astrea family thing--but even missteps deserve the chance to happen rather than never happening at all.

There's a standout scene featuring Garfiel that made me glimpse the brilliance most people regard this show having, and I'm glad I stuck with watching Re:Zero to experience it. Granted, the animation of the scene carried a lot of the awe for me, but even if the character foundation was weak and not quite reaching the substance for a truly delightful moment of character growth, I at least saw what it was going for and appreciated it a lot for somewhat succeeding. There is a cliffhanger that also lands nicely (well, not exactly nicely, but it landed the way it was intended, so it was done nicely). It actually made me excited to see what comes next.

So, aside from the few odd instances of weird pacing and lax characters, the story does very well; furthermore, the animation is well done and the music is fitting. All in all, this season is the kind of quality I expected when I first got into the show. Better late than never!