== Looking back at the Summer 2017 anime season

[[Once again Spring2017Retrospective]] it's time for my traditional
look back at what I watched in this past Summer season, to follow
up on [[my early impressions Summer2017Brief]] and [[my midway views
Summer2017Midway]]. Overall I would call this a decent season with
one clear stand-out show that is far ahead of everything else I
watched.

Excellent with an amazing finish:

* *Made in Abyss*: While the show wasn't flawless, it was always
  beautiful and full of the strangeness of the Abyss
  (and often tense), and it built up to a jaw-droppingly
  stunning and emotional final episode. [[I have no words
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/913968509339815938]].
  [[The last track of Kevin Penkin's beautiful soundtrack
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeSbmS06k1k]] is going to stay with
  me for a long time.

  (In both its last episode and [[an earlier episode MadeInAbyssAndPain]],
  *Made in Abyss* managed to achieve the kind of genuine emotional power
  and impact that very few shows can even approach.)

  I would love to see a second season of *Made in Abyss* that was as
  well-made as this one, but if we never get any more, the send-off
  we got was everything I could have asked for. It is and feels like
  a real turning point and transition point in the story, and that's
  a good place to stop.

Pretty good once the dust settled:

* *Princess Principal*: The show's overall execution was very good,
  but in the end I stand by [[my view that it's more of a prequel than
  a story https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/913222435889192960]],
  and that somewhat lessens the impact. It's not as simple as there
  not being enough story and plot; the very short version is that while
  everyone is a [[dramatic character ThunderboltFantasyCharacterArcs]]
  and they all had character development, none of them went through a
  full character arc.

  (The character who comes closest to having no development is
  Beatrice, but the show goes out of its way to show that she's
  working to change herself.)

* *Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ*: By now you're either on board for
  the *Symphogear* experience or you're not. If you are, this was a fine
  installment, full of all of the elements that make the show itself. [[I
  liked https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/915040226908807168]] how the
  show was spared the need to give things a big ending and wrapup due to
  there already being a fifth season on the way. See also [[Evirus's
  writeup https://karmaburn.com/?p=7651]].

Enjoyable:

* *My Hero Academia*: I enjoyed the show overall and I do generally
  like hanging around with the characters; I'll probably miss them while
  they're gone (there's yet another season coming, of course). I'm not
  really happy about the cast being pulled into epic, world-spanning
  plots and stories; I would rather see them living a high school life
  and occasionally being on the periphery of greater events. But this
  is a Shonen Jump title, so we get what we get.

  (I continue to be happy that [[*MHA* didn't try to give Bakugo any
  sort of tragic backstory
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/911822503739297792]].)

Fine popcorn watching:

* *Knight's & Magic*: It was very earnest and did what it set out to
  do pretty well. It was also [[surprisingly forthright
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/912144274048929792]] about the
  fundamental irrationality and unreality of giant robots, and in the
  context of the show I don't object that romanticism won out because
  the thumb of the plot was clearly on its side; the plot has been on
  Ernesti's side all along.

Survived to the end of the season by the skin of its teeth and then
dropped:

* *Fate/Apocrypha*: I finished out the nominal season and turning
  point (episode 12) and then stopped because [[there
  was very little about the show that I was interested in
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/910943868128038915]].
  I think I may finally be done with the Fate ride as a whole; it
  basically always ends the same way and I can read about the plot
  twists and the spoilers on my own if I want to.

By the end of the show, *Made in Abyss* single-handedly justified this
season (to the extent that seasons of anime need any justification).
I'm generally happy with everything else that I watched except
*Fate/Apocrypha*, and continuing to watch that past the first episode
is my own fault. I knew what *F/A* was from the start, but I let myself
be talked into continuing with it for the splashy animation; by now I
should know that that doesn't work for me.