Late getting this out, nearly Spring already! Been busy with things recently that hard to catch every show I wanted to see so hopefully others can fill in the blanks. Further Adou:
Actually I read the Manga
Noble Reincarnation: Born blessed so I'll obtain ultimate power: now first something that can confuse people, the MC is NOT a person Reincarnated from OUR world but someone from that world of a lower class. This is more focused on the royal and noble courts, the duties of being nobility and effectively gaininv status in the court. His power is gained through LOYAL followers which means he not only gains power but can see loyalty so if you enjoy political intrigue, this'll be for you.
Easy going territory defence by the optimistic Lord: This one is more on the 'MC cast out because viewed to have a useless skill but turns out op' type not to say it's not fun. I didn't enjoy how they underplayed his ability as around episode 8-****9 he should've had mobile balista tanks than a small squad with repeating crossbows but they did remove censorship of two massive amounts of plot so can forgive them. If you want something similar but more off the wall, recommend the Manga The amazing Village creator: Slow living with the Village building cheat skill as it has the world's most terrifying Granny..
There was a cute girl in the Hero's party, so I tried confessing to her: MC is Reincarnated into a demon of the demon lords army, like the boss before the demon lord (even though he's stronger) and the hero's party is defeated easily by him but he always returns them safetly to a nearby human Village after. After many times of this, he gives them the choice to pass if they have their cleric stay with him, thry accept and rather than it be anything sinister, he confesses he finds her cute, that was once human and decides after they defeat the demon lord, live among humans to get close to the cleric. Light hearted series.
Heavy hitters
Frieren S2: Our favourite Elf is back showing us the merits of justified racism. Only character that I think could match her is if we get an anime of The knight king who returned with a God
Sentenced to be a Hero: not seen it all but liking it so far, a world where being a hero who can be resurrected is given to the most serious of criminals to be used as disposable assets in a war against demons.
preference choices
Hell's Paradise S2: seems to have not been as mentioned as much but still got the great art, world and characters.
Trigun Stargaze: now I know, CGI, that will be a red line for a lot of people but so far this studio uses it effectively and early into the second season but seems good.
That's it fir now, add any I missed as I wanted to watch Kaya-chan isn't scary but didn't get round to it and Oshi no Ko S3 as heard season is good but I know how the author had a tantrum and ruined the ending as a result so on the fence on getting invested.
Golden Kamuy is extra fun if you know that both japs and ruskies were financed by rothschilds to fight and weaken each other and the entire plot of the anime is one of the characters looking for gold to finance another adventure into china.
the "squirrel brains are yummy" anime
Crunchy little bones.
The Fate anime was pretty fun, rather major title to not be included on the list, but I suppose fans of Fate will watch it and non-fans will look at the 10000 lead-up titles and go "uhhh... do I need to watch all those?". This one is particularly "bad" in that regard since it references El Melloi Case Files, which in turn references Garden of Sinners, two rather unusual sub-shows and uncommonly-watched even among Fate fans. Can probably understand the show with just Fate/Zero and main Fate_Stay/Night, but it was written not by the main author, but his good friend (the author of Baccano) who wanted to celebrate some of the lesser-known works I guess.
So do I need to watch all of those?
You can still enjoy the current one, Fate/strange fake, without knowing anything about the Fate universe, but you won't really understand what's going on without at least reading a wiki or something.
Hell Mode is a standard OP-ness isekai anime this past season, with a bit of a twist in that the world is gamified, yes, like they often are, but the world itself is also still "under development", like an early access game, and the gods are editing and building content while the MC is alive in it. if you like the OP-isekai genre, you'll like it, if you don't, you won't. It's got some ass CG in it, but because reliably all monstery-monsters and animals are ass CG even when they don't need to be (standing still in a partial background, etc), it almost seems like an aesthetic choice (even though it's clearly budgetary constraints).
The case book of Arne mystery show featuring a yu-gi-oh vampire lord. The first episode is a bait and switch, the second episode is a better indicator for what the show will be like. Fun but can't decide what tone it wants.
Fate Strange Fake retarded action show that has way more ideas than it has screentime for. Great animation, and the seeds of good ideas are there, bit at the end of the day its all spectacle and no substance. Way too much exposition.
Sentenced to be a Hero Good show with great animation. OP pretty much said everything, but I'll add that I was worried it would be a pedo story at the beginning. I'm happy to say that it is not, the relationship between the two main characters is clearly akin to brothers in arms combined with father/daughter.
Frieren S2 Just as good as S1. if you liked season 1, you'll like this season. if you didn't like season 1, this season won't convince you.
I was pretty disappointed by the first half of Frieren season 2. They've really doubled down on most of the elements I find meh or even offputting - muh contemplative monologuing, muh travelling struggles - while the fighting action and demon lore were either truncated or wholly absent.
In particular, I don't know why the show continues to pretend that these godlike mages would ever struggle to survive on the road. I don't care how "windy" it is, these fuckers can literally fly. They have spells to create and accomplish almost anything, so why are they constantly "in need". I think the writers want us to empathize with the characters and their "difficult journey", but it doesn't add up and the incongruity is distracting.
Also, the animation quality has already declined significantly. It's not a OPM season 3 situation, but you can see it in the margins everywhere. These studios just can't help themselves to "cost savings" after season one.
You're offput by the literal bread and butter of the anime?
I'm not sure what anime you've watched but they're not godlike. There wasn't a single scene where a mage just created food or water out of thin air. And there were plenty of scenes where any of them could've easily died if they'd been alone.
I get it. It's not because those elements are bad are on their own. It's that it feels like incoherent world building. You can handwave some of it with Frieren feeling no time pressure and just going with the flow, but her character is also to take the easy way out.
Going with the "windy" example. If a bridge works, we've seen earth spells that could have created a "bridge" trivially. I do like the show's atmosphere, but to make it consistent you either have to just accept sometimes magic is only there for fight scenes OR figure that Frieren is going out of her way to teach the kids even if that's in opposition to what we're told her character is.
It's mostly movement spells making the "slow journey" roadblocks feel artificial. Locking flight magic to demons would have gone a long way, but made the big fights less dynamic.
Can't recall seeing any creation magic in the anime.
Flying uses up mana. Like every other magic spell. And humans can only fly themselves. They can't use it on objects or on others so they would have to carry Stark around the entire time. Meaning they would fly all day, run out of mana and be a sitting duck until they recover. In other words it's quite impractical. It's as much of a 'plothole' as the eagles in LotR.
Go back to the mage exam arc. If Richter (a second-class mage) can create a massive plateau and huge earthen spikes, spanning a narrow chasm with a rock bridge seems very straight forward.
But even ignoring transportation, go back a few eps this season. She uses magic to detect a silver vein, paying off her debt and solving the entire Norm Company's issues. She literally has precious-metal-detection-magic. Pretty close to printing money to offer that kind of prospecting service. But nope. We'll never hear it mentioned again. Even if they're just walking, they should never be broke.
I appreciate that it would wreck the vibe of the journey to magic their way out of everything, but I wish they'd be a little more careful with the writing.
Yes, they can make all sorts of rock shapes, but they're temporary & as soon as the mana stops flowing they revert to normal.
That said? That was the least impressive bridge I've seen in ages :/ It's not that wide at all! It was impressive he built it mostly by himself, but 200 years and that's all he has to show for it? I found that silly. The gap should have been much wider.
They've used levitation on Stark to stop him from falling several times. I imagine the range is quite limited as they're always close by.
For longer flights they do have to carry him though.
Frieren has always had about a 4:1 ratio of "Frieren does a basic fetch quest to get a grimoire for a pointless spell and we learn a little bit about friendship along the way" episodes to "Frieren uses incredible world-shattering spells to destroy a demon" episodes.
Mato Seihei no Slave season 2 was my guilty pleasure this season. It's basically an uncensored ecchi mashed up with a half decent battle shonen. Pretty girls fight demons who are also pretty girls, protagonist gets roped in as an accessory for one of the girl's powers, upskirt and titties ensue. It's the sort of show that really makes you realize just how absent the upskirt shot has become in anime over the last 10-15 years.
Other than that, Sentenced To Be a Hero was the only thing that I really looked forward to tuning in to each week.
I know the harem thing is expected when you have a cast like that, but I'm kind of annoyed with the spamming of the "lending" mechanic in S2. It was one thing when it was just the 7th, but now they might as well get Kyouka a cuck chair.
It is a little over the top this season, I agree. At least in season 1 everyone just wanted to get with him because he's the only guy within a 300 mile radius, so the shift to lending him out could just be lazy writing. However it does play into the shonen side of the show, which I kind of appreciate. I doubt we'll see most of his alternate forms actually get put to use aside from maybe the supreme commander's one. They've telegraphed pretty hard that that one is going to be important later for the narrative.
There are like 3 average isekai/power fantasy animes which were ok and frieren/hellmode which I really enjoyed, hellmode even more than frieren. Overall a better season than most last year.
Ikoku Nikki is god-tier character driven anime. Everyone is so well written, every conversation is riveting. The plot moves along calmly as we grow to love them more & more.
29 Year-old Adventurer is uneven, but overall very nice. Little Rirui is adorable, as is her "other form". 29 year-old adventurer Hajimi rescues her in the local dungeon and decides to take care of her. He's really strong, but also a dork so it balances out. A strong cast of side characters makes a big difference.
Otagoto "Roll over and die" is different. It's dark and gritty but also lite & fluffy :/ There's some serious plot but also lots of "girls being cute" too. Blood, gore & "worse than death" mixed with girls eating cookies talking about going shopping. I love it! A coherent magic & combat system are also a big plus.
Kaya-chan is wonderful. An underlaying plot with lots of charm.
Champignon Witch is also good. There's lots of plot going on!
Toumei Otoko to Ningen Onna is sweet. Very sweet!
Seihantai na Kimi to Boku is a really well made show. Such adorable characters!
Lots of hot garbage on this list but that's really all they are putting out so it's tough.
Only one I watched so far is "Easy going territory defence by the optimistic Lord".
Pretty decent but it suffers the usual shortcomings: MC is an overly goody two shoes and the story felt rushed, especially the last 2 episodes. Like they had to get it over with but ran out of episodes to tell the story. Other than that it's the usual isekai fare which i generally like.
As I said, the manga is better in showing development and scale of what he makes, but in the manga they censored the female lord with the massive rack so mixed bag.