As before , it's time for my relatively early viewsof how this season has shaken out so far, following up on my firstepisode reactions . At this point I've seenanywhere from three to five episodes of the shows I'm following (or twofor one special case), and that gap says a lot about how I seem to befeeling this season. There are a couple of shows that I enthusiasticallyfollow, and then a big gap to a bunch of things that I'm

Once again it's time (and past time) for mytraditional look back at what I watched in this past Winter season, tofollow up on my early impressions and my midwayviews . In general this has been a reasonably goodseason, with some very nice high points.

Excellent:

• Laid-Back Camp : This stayed the course all the way through and thengave us a great epilogue at the end of the last episode, one thatshowed how both our protagonists had developed. Rin was always theheart

As before I'm collecting here all of mytweeted reactions to the first episodes I've seen (in the order that Isaw them).

• Lupin III Part V episode 1: It's Lupin. It's not bad. I wish I was moreenthusiastic, and I also wish that they hadn't explained oneparticular trick Lupin pulled (the explanation was too crazy). ♯

• SAO Alternative - Gun Gale Online #1: That was reasonably fun and leftme looking forward to finding out

I use Linux and I I subscribe to Crunchyroll , which gives me a set of interestingproblems since Crunchyroll's desktop video player is still Flash-based.There probably aren't many other people that this applies to, but I'mstill going to write down some notes about whole area. Note that I'musing X, not Wayland; things very likely will be different for Waylandfor various reasons.

First off, I use Chrome for this, not any other browser (includingChromium).

I know, calling this 'midway' is a bit rich, even for me . But I haven't seen the end of any of the showsI'm watching, so I want to write down some things before I startchanging that, as an update on my earlier impressions of this season .

Smash hit of the season:

• Laid-Back Camp : This has stayed ridiculously engaging all the waythrough, with hardly a misstep. As I expected I'm much more interestedin Rin's solo

Every year, the onset of January with its freezing coldgives me the urge to just hibernate until spring; my energyand drive drops, and it's very easy to put things off if theytake some amount of initiative. This has hit me unusually hard this year, whichis a large part of why I'm writing what is normally an 'early impressions'entry so far into the season. But still, I'm writing it, so as usual here's how my views of this

As before I'm collecting here all of mytweeted reactions to the first episodes I've seen (in the order that Isaw them).

• Laid-Back Camp episode 1: That was laid back and charming, plus ithad bicycles. Unfortunately I may get tired of the genki maniac girl,which is a pity since the show seems pretty well directed. #yurucamp ♯

• Devilman Crybaby episode 1: It's going somewhere and it's not thepersonal turn-off I sort of expected from

Once again it's time for my traditional lookback at what I watched in this past Fall season, to follow up on myearly impressions and my midway views .In general this has been a very good season for anime for me, with acouple of amazing shows.

(None of these shows changed what they were from my midway report , so I'll refer you there for fuller descriptions ofall of the shows rather than trying to paraphrase them here.)

Excellent to amazing:

• Land of the Lustrous

(There are spoilers here.)

Flip Flappers was always a show where the ending was going to mattera lot, and when the last episode aired I wound up somewhat uncertain about how Ifelt about it overall (and as a result, the show as a whole). This woundup being a big reason for the delay in my best N in 2016 entry, among other effects. In the spirit of the season, it's time toget some words down on this, starting with