== Checking in on the Winter 2017 anime season 'midway' through

It's time for a slow-moving midway update on [[my early impressions
Winter2017Brief]]. This update has been delayed in part because I didn't
want to admit something, and that was partly because of [[the tacit
pressure of conformity ConformityTacitPressure]].

Excellent:

* *ACCA - 13-Territory Inspection Department*: This has continually
  been the most interesting show I've been watching this season. It
  wasn't always clear where it was going (and it's still not), but it
  had such a sense of style, atmosphere, and character that that didn't
  matter. And while I wasn't really looking, in its quiet, atmospheric
  way the show has covered a huge amount of plot territory, especially
  in the past few episodes. I can't wait to see where it goes next.

* *Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid*: This is still a comedy but it's a
  lot more than that too; at its heart it's about family. I don't
  like all of it, but enough of every episode lands that it's great.
  It has a real mastery of quiet moments, background things, and
  little gestures.

In ongoing shows, *March comes in like a Lion* has continued to be
quietly great. There are less fireworks now than there used to be, but
more development and progression. Shimada has been a great addition to
the cast.

Not for me:

* *Little Witch Academia*: In the end, this is basically a kids show
  (that's made by Trigger, and is airing at midnight because
  [[apparently the TV anime model is fundamentally broken
  https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2017/01/17/little-witch-academia-tv-episode-2/]]).
  There's nothing wrong with *LWA* being a kid's show, but kids shows
  generally don't really appeal to me and *LWA* has not been the
  exception.

  This is [[kind of what I was worried about before *LWA* started airing
  https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/811795500705910784]], although
  not exactly it. In the end it was less the cliched stuff and more the
  general style that didn't work for me. I have a bunch of issues with
  what happened in the episodes I watched, but in the end all of them
  come from looking at a kids show with the eyes of an adult.

Dropped:

* *Blue Exorcist - Kyoto Saga*: In the end, [[the slow pacing killed
  it for me https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/832454422663884800]].
  This has the leisurely execution of a show that knows it's adapting
  a manga arc and is thus ultimately not particularly going anywhere.
  I like the characters, but no.

* *Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2*: Episode 4 was all about
  Darkness and I hate what the show does with Darkness, so [[I bounced
  off it https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/828798896730173440]] and
  then realized I wasn't particularly interested in the show as a whole.
  The show had one core joke and mostly wore it out in the first season;
  the things it did in the first three episodes of the second season
  weren't enough to keep me (and some of them I disliked).

I have continued to not watch *Saga of Tanya the Evil*, and what I've
heard about recent developments have convinced me that this is the right
decision (partly because [[I'm on Tanya's side in one small aspect of the
show https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/828056376802934784]], although
everything else I've heard about her makes me think I'd dislike her).

In the past I've felt antsy when I was down to this few shows I was
watching. This season I have no such issues so far, and I think that
that's partly because the three remaining shows are all really good
ones. They each leave me happily contented when I watch an episode
and I eagerly anticipate the next one when it gets close.