== Checking in on the Fall 2016 anime season 'midway' through

It's time for a slow-moving midway update on [[my early impressions
Fall2016Brief]]. This is late enough that shows are generally moving
towards their climaxes instead of wallowing in the midway point, but that
just gives me a better idea about them (and perhaps more room to get let
down in the end, but I don't really want to be pessimistic this season).

Great:

* *Flip Flappers*: This is [[my kind of show
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/794373698773991429]] in the
  same way that *Kyousougiga* was, in part because it's a show that's
  whole-heartedly embracing the potential of its media and could
  only have been done in animation ([[and I'm biased towards that
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/804047920601460736]]). But
  as *Space Dandy* taught me, mere animation firepower isn't enough
  to hold my attention; what really matters is the characters and
  the story. And that has been compelling and [[thought-provoking
  FlipFlappersPIWorldSources]] all on its own. This has easily become
  the show I anticipate the most every week.

  (It's also one of the rare shows that gets
  me to actively think and talk about it a lot ([[cf
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/800532264094339072]]).  Mostly I'm
  a quiet consumer of anime, so a show that I can't get out of my head
  is unusual.)

Very good:

* *Sound! Euphonium* second season: This is stuffed with all of the
  things that KyoAni does so well these days; it is beautiful, full of
  lovely character touches, loaded with great scenes, and so on. But
  the story has not (yet) come together with the power and drive that
  the first season had, with everything sprinting forward to a single
  destination.

  (Also, [[I have grumps with the most recent episodes
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/807040836336779264]].)

Good:

* *March comes in like a Lion*: As with [[my early impressions]],
  ultimately I continue to just like it. The show's shifted from
  painting portraits to moving Rei forward (even while it looks
  back to explain him), which is a good and necessary development.
  Unlike some people, I'm not bothered by the periodic funny
  interludes; if anything, I think that they're an important part
  of making the show work as a whole.

  I'll wave my hands here, but I think that without these interludes I'd
  find the show too unrelenting. And in a way they're true to real life,
  because in real life ordinary and even funny things go on around us
  even as we go through our own darknesses. *March* lives inside Rei's
  head a great deal, but there's more to the world than just that.

* *BBK/BRNK*: The show remains solid and fun, along with sometimes
  being beautiful and sometimes surprising me. It can also be
  exceptionally silly and funny, which is part of its goofy charm.

Popcorn entertainment:

* *Brave Witches*: Yes, I know, I dropped this after the first episode.
  I changed my mind, because apparently I wanted some [[popcorn
  entertainment https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/798728692876845056]]
  this season and [[this is inoffensively tolerable in its genre beats
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/798396415416406016]]
  (although [[sometimes it stumbles a bit
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/803816835762290693]]).

  Why this and not *Regalia*? In part, apparently because flying witches
  dogfighting CGI aliens is more my thing that giant robots are (even
  with the no-pants thing).

Dropped:

* *Regalia - The Three Sacred Stars*: I'm going to wave my hands here, but
  certainly a large part of it is that giant robots are not really my
  thing and some of the characters were overly annoying. (I basically
  dropped this as the result of writing up [[my early impressions]],
  as I suspected would be the case.)

Part of me still wants to take a look at *Fune wo Amu*, but I've been
sitting on this for most of the season and haven't done anything about
it so if I'm being realistic it's probably not going to happen.