Quick Catch Up: Because I'm a forgetful one.

ALRIGHTY THEN.
Seeing as I forgot about this for...*checks time stamps* about 3 months? Let's just quickly catch up on some stuff.
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[Ended] Goblin Slayer: Fantastic. In hindsight, I feel like they could have saved themselves some of the drama if they had provided more build up for that first episode punch in the face. Having received all of the available Goblin Slayer Light Novels as a Christmas present, and having read all of them, I am happy to report:

Goblin Slayer anime is good.
Manga is better.
Light Novel is best.

The Manga takes more time to emphasis the eponymous Goblin Slayer himself struggling to maintain his humanity, and just how monstrous he appears to the Goblins themselves, by stepping inside of their heads more often than the Light Novel does, and basically at all, as far as the Anime goes.

The Light Novels take more time to flesh out the world and properly explain things. If I hadn't already read the Novels by the time I watched the Sword Maiden scenes, I wouldn't have understood basically anything that was going on, and would have wrote most of it off as tasteless fan service. As it is, I still think all of her scenes were rather terribly rushed, especially since I think she's a great character overall, very well put together in motivations and personality.
Still, the anime's not bad in any regard. Just not as polished as I would like it to be.
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[Ongoing, Episode 14] Slime Reincarnation: Why. Aren't. You. Watching. This. Masterpiece.

Once again, I purchased all three books as soon as I finished the second episode, and having done so, I can happily report that the anime is doing an absolutely fantastic job of literally everything. In fact, they may even have done a slightly better job with Shizue's story.

It was mostly done to make it work for a live motion medium like Animation, and I do feel like maybe her story had more punch spread out bread-crumb style like it is in the books, but that most certainly wouldn't have gone as well in an anime. So far the only changes I've noticed have all been quality of life touch-ups, things done to smooth over the adaptation, without damaging the main impact of the story and characters. Hell, it may even have improved at least one scene. The Orc backstory was actually a bit misleading with how it was worded in the book, I didn't realize I had misunderstood until I saw the anime episode equivalent.

The animation is  gorgeous, and I say that as someone who literally couldn't give a rat's ass to a cat to care about graphical appearance 99% of the time. I tend to always drop graphics quality on all of my games first thing, to make sure they run smooth and never risk hiccups while playing. In that context, you should properly understand just how god-damn-me pretty the show is. The last show I remember thinking was this pretty, was Ancient Magus Bride. WATCH THIS SHOW ALREADY, AIGHT?
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[New, Ongoing, Episode 13] SAO Alicization: Eh. It's okay. It's more Kirito, the black hole of Plot Armor, so I don't expect a lot. I actually really like the GGO alternative season they made recently, but I don't have high hopes or anger for mainstream SAO stuff.

I really don't understand how Hyped and/or Rage'y most people get about SAO. It's just a slightly more pretentious shounen show. Shut off some of your brain cells like you do for the rest of the shounen genre, and just enjoy. (I still call bullshit on season ones 'I can hack this Operating System I know literally nothing about!', and the tentacle hentai in a later season, I have not forgiven, I have not forgotten, I just don't fucking care anymore).
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[New/Ended] KONOSUBA season 2: I had to stitch my ruptured sides back together after I collected them from all over the room after I started watching, and then proceeded to binge-watch this, stopping only to go to work, sleep, and maybe occasionally remembering to eat. This show is comedy Grade A gold, and if you've skipped it for whatever or any reason at all, like I did, you owe it to yourself to go back and correct this mistake you have made. By all that is good, this show is amazing. I love it to pieces, and I dearly desire another season. It's straight up comedy genius from start to finish, so don't expect any high-brow deep plot or such, but it has a good story and I really like the main character, and for that matter, pretty much the entire cast. I'm pretty sure you're suppose to hate on Aqua though.
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[New, Ongoing, Episode 14] Majutsu no Index, season 3: HYPE! or I'd like to be.

I'm super glad to finally be getting more of one of my favorites, but jesus there is a lot going on, and its going by fast! I tend to be great at keeping up with things, and even I think they're rushing through a lot of stuff, really god damn fast.

But hey, I got another hit of my Accelerator addiction right into my veins, so whatever, I don't care. Fill the next needle and stick me up baby, I'll take all the side effects and then some for some more of that sweet, sweet, Accelerator goodness!
And yes, that is most assuredly a complete and total personal bias. So sue me.
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[New, Ongoing, Episode 1] Mob Psycho 100, season 2: Tentatively hyped! The first episode started out kind of weak, then got really good really fast. I am most pleased. I expect good things from this show!
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Up next...a proper post for the most hype show currently airing....

[Ended] Sword Art Online II: Most of the same thing, with a bit new addition

As part of my return-to-anime rehab, I literally ran through the entire Sword Art Online II in several days. If an anime can keep me watching without having to take a break to go watch something else, I'd say it's at least a somewhat interesting series. However, I think SOA II stops not very far beyond that.

If you have seen the original SOA, you'd find it's really not much new in this second season. The series is actually made of several arcs, with the first one occupying the entire first half of the series and several smaller ones all stuffed into the second half.

Throughout the first half, I found myself keep asking questions like "Why don't they just..." and "How could they not know..." and "How come nobody see...", because even for the SOA world, some of the things they did are just a bit too farfetched to believe even though I was already in the willing suspension of disbelieve.

Each of the arc is more of less independent from each other, because the arcs that has plot dependencies from previous arcs has just as much of the tie-in as some of the random out of nowhere add-ons. So if you haven't seen the previous arc, you could just assume it's something they added for plot purpose without knowing the background of the add-on.

On a side note, if you feel like in need of a crying fest, you could jump directly over to the last arc of second half of the series. As someone who appreciate stories play out tragic plot lines without using cheap escapes to avoid them, I do like how that particular arc was developed into.

Final Scoreboard:

Drama: 83 (Depending on the arc)
Comedy: 85 (Some, but it's not the focus)
Action: 81 (Virtual reality = somewhat far-fetched) 
Art/Animation: 82 (Typical for this genre)
Sound/Music: 84 (Some emotionally fitting pieces)
Character: 81 (Not exactly cookie cutter, but close)

Plot: 80 (Become a bit repetitive)

Ending: 89 (A good emotion end)

Re-watch value: 70 - Not much to re-watch

Overall: 82 - A good enough follow up that didn't ruin the name of the franchise

Recommendation: If you have become somewhat emotionally attached to the characters from the first series, you'd probably want to follow up on this. Even though it doesn't add much more depth to character development, it is interesting to see what is the life after SOA is like for those characters. But if your opinion for the original series is "Meh", the it's safe to just let this one go, you probably won't get much more out of this franchise.

[Ended] Sword Art Online: Lesser Epic

Sword Art Online is probably one of the most talked about anime over the internet in this year. For the most part, I think it's caused by audiences possess different level of background knowledge about SAO series prior to the start of watching the anime series. Sparks fly as people who have seen the story for the first time clash with the light novel loyalists who see this as an adaptation of the original work disagree upon whether certain things in the series have been done well. Since I've never read any of the light novel, my opinion is purely based on the anime itself, not how well the anime adapted the light novel like much of the online discussions are about. On top of that, I've been intentionally avoiding any online discussion related to this topic just so that I won't be tainted by unnecessary information.

Overall, Sword Art Online is a very enjoyable experience. Honestly, you can't talk about SAO without thinking about or comparing to the anime started this genre, the .hack//sign. In fact, SAO is a lot more similar in concept to .hack//sign than many others in the same genre since. But the SAO really brought this genre up to a new level. First half of the series, it focuses mainly on the struggle of how people would behave when they found themselves trapped in a virtual world, while the second half introduces a slightly complex picture where family and friends are involved and the virtual reality is no longer life threatening. You can definitely tell SAO's heritage in light novel as you wouldn't exactly call the story smooth flowing. It feels quite...chuncky. Because of that, there's a lack of "epicness" where it usually require a bit more continuous build up to achieve. Also, I think lack of climax of in the final fights attributed to it as well.

During the final episode, there's an interesting situation, where I think soon we might have to start to coup with in our own world: when the virtual reality you have experienced is so real, even life and death becomes part of it, how would you be able to hold your emotion within the virtual reality without letting it spill over into the true reality.


Final Scoreboard:

Drama: 93 (Highly dramatic)

Comedy: N/A

Action: 94 (Rather epic battles) 

Art/Animation: 90 (Pretty good)

Sound/Music: 96 (Great music)

Character: 94 (Character centric)

Plot: 88 (Arcs)

Ending: 86 (Slightly anticlimactic)

Re-watch value: 60 - Could still be interesting

Overall: 89 - Lesser, but still epic enough

Recommendation: Purely from the anime itself, I think this is a rather epic and enjoyable. Maybe your opinion would be different if you have read the light novel and you're looking at it as an "adaptation". But as far as I'm concern, this is a good series that is well worth your time.

[New Summer 2012] Sword Art Online

Japanese title: ソードアート・オンライン
Info: http://myanimelist.net/anime/11757/Sword_Art_Online
Watch Online: http://www.crunchyroll.com/sword-art-online
Genres: SciFi / Fantasy
I've watched: 1 episode

Summary: When the newest virtual reality fantasy game called Sword Art Online is released, everybody rushed to log onto the game. But soon people realized that nobody can log out of the game. In order to leave the game, player has to beat the game. Any other method of forcing player to log off will result death, so does dying inside the game.

First impression score: 89 - Very Interesting Introduction

Personal comments: This is rather different than conventional MMORPG based anime. For starters, it explicitly created the setting so that all players are trapped in the game, so there is not such thing as players coming on and off line. If you think about it, it literally created a fantasy world instantly without having to worry about coming up with the background story of the world. It's a rather brilliant way to create the setting.