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Season Finale: Utawarerumono (Episode 25)
"Even if there turns out to be a third season on the way, U2warerumono is best left forgotten."
Assassination Classroom season 2 ‒ Episode 13
"Once again, we have a divided episode where one half clearly outshines the other."
Season Finale: Gintama (Episode 316)
"As the Farewell Shinsengumi Arc comes to a close, viewers are forced to say goodbye to the staff of Odd Jobs Gin-chan for the fourth time."
Series Finale: Myriad Colors Phantom World (Episode 13)
"While the series may be a bit of a disappointment overall by KyoAni standards, neither it is it a train wreck."
Season Finale: Mr. Osomatsu (Episode 25)
"Even in its curtain call, the show managed to subvert viewer expectations and serve up a heaping helping of irreverency."
Series Finale: Snow White with the Red Hair (Episode 24)
"Snow White with the Red Hair proves that not every story has to be epic and change your world."
Season Finale: Dimension W (Episode 12)
"Overall, Dimension W started out promising, stood on shaky ground until about episode five, and then threw itself off of a cliff."
One Piece ‒ Episode 734
"As last week's episode finished off with the final blow of the Luffy vs. Doflamingo fight, this week is mostly about getting the reactions of the enormous supporting cast."
Series Finale: Schwarzes Marken (Episode 12)
"It's a finale with some disagreeable elements but on the whole, it's a satisfying conclusion to the story."
Season Finale: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (Episode 12)
"This was never an easy story – but in the end, it is one worth watching."
Season Finale: Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (Episode 25)
"This episode conveyed big changes on the horizon for each main character through a thoughtful, slow buildup that has me both excited and scared."
Season Finale: Haikyu!! Second Season (Episode 25)
"Once again, the show excels in depicting the aftermath of an emotional game."
Season Finale: BBK/BRNK (Episode 12)
"BBK/BRNK got pretty ambitious with its storytelling in the latter half of the season, and this episode is simply too short to offer a proper ending to every side story."
Season Finale: Luck & Logic (Episode 12)
"While this episode of Luck & Logic neatly concluded its story arc and deftly set up a plot for its upcoming season, there was nothing particularly special about it."
Season Finale: God Eater (Episode 13)
"Though it was a more momentous than usual episode, it left too many loose ends unresolved, and if we don't get a second season it's going to hurt."
Series Finale: Durarara!! (Episodes 35-36)
"This finale was never going to be able to live up to the promise of 62+ bloated episodes, so covering the major bases as well as it did is worth its own special flavor of applause."
Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū ‒ Episode 12
"We've reached That Moment, foreshadowed throughout the entire series and included in the title."
Dagashi Kashi ‒ Episode 11
"Overall, this episode felt a bit more sedate than usual, but it was otherwise pretty much textbook Dagashi Kashi."
Season Finale: GATE (Episode 24)
"This episode does cover most of its bases, but it never much captures a feeling of tension or energy."
Season Finale: Heavy Object (Episode 24)
"I'd hesitate to recommend this to anyone who doesn't enjoy fictional technical details, but its intended audience will find a competent show that only gets better over time."
Season Finale: Girls Beyond the Wasteland (Episode 12)
"Ultimately, I can't call this a good show, but it did turn out charming in ways that I didn't expect."
Assassination Classroom season 2 ‒ Episode 12
"Unfortunately, this episode's second half doesn't measure up to the first."
Naruto Shippuden ‒ Episode 454
"This week's outing reminds us that Itachi's backstory is all about tough decisions, moral ambiguity, and personal sacrifice."
Series Finale: ERASED (Episode 12)
"Overall, ERASED is definitely not as good as the show it could have been, but it's still a very reasonable show."
Season Finale: Haruchika – Haruta & Chika (Episode 12)
"This final episode achieves strong emotional closure by giving us what we want most from each of these characters in a slow, satisfying, natural way."
Season Finale: Active Raid (Episode 12)
"The title of this season's final Active Raid, “For Whom Does Order Exist?”, seems like a pretty good question for a better show to explore."
Myriad Colors Phantom World ‒ Episode 12
"This feels much more like a series approaching a midway point than an end."
Gintama ‒ Episode 315
"For the second week in a row, comedy is thrown out the window, but the show remains riveting and the Farewell Shinsengumi Arc has outdone even the stellar Shogun Assassination storyline before it."
Season Finale: Prince of Stride: Alternative (Episode 12)
"“End of Summer and Beyond” is less about telling the story of the race and more about capturing a mood."
Utawarerumono: The False Faces ‒ Episode 24
"U2warerumono keeps derailing anything that could be dramatically cathartic into another series of time-filler battles."
Mr. Osomatsu ‒ Episode 24
"Somehow, the series has made us care enough about these little jerks to want to see them happy."
One Piece ‒ Episode 733
"The fated day has finally come, as the final episode of Luffy vs. Doflamingo has arrived."
Snow White with the Red Hair ‒ Episode 23
"What is mostly lacking in this episode is Shirayuki herself."
Schwarzes Marken ‒ Episode 11
"In a setting predicated on paranoia and backstabbing, it seems only fitting that yet another round of betrayals and power grabs plays out in this next-to-last episode."
Dimension W ‒ Episode 11
"The direction remains weak, the animation quality has plummeted, and the art style has been brought down by a series of increasingly questionable character designs."
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans ‒ Episode 24
"Iron-Blooded Orphans pushes our feelings to the limit with a heartbreaking half hour filled with loss, betrayal, and the horrors of war."
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash ‒ Episode 11
"What could possibly be worse than seeing your friends die because of your own failure?"
Haikyu!! Second Season ‒ Episode 24
"It's an incredibly tense game, right up until the last second before the ending credits, and it really pulls out all the stops to get this moment right."
BBK/BRNK ‒ Episode 11
"It's common for a show to lose some of its emotional punch when it tries to deliver a lot of information at once, but BBK/BRNK actually manages to do the opposite."
Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū ‒ Episode 11
"It's a refreshing bit of happiness after the tragic spiral of the last three episodes."
Dagashi Kashi ‒ Episode 10
"As with many of the show's best episodes, this week was all dedicated to one extended storyline, with all of the leads hanging out and being their usual endearing selves."
Luck & Logic ‒ Episode 11
"The battles make this filler episode tolerable, so they're bound to make the inevitably cliché happy ending watchable too."
God Eater ‒ Episode 12
"By itself, the episode features tense moments and gripping action, but as part of a whole, I had some plot concerns that showed through the cracks."
Heavy Object ‒ Episode 23
"A hostage rescue mission sees the crew finally get a break from the arctic conditions of the last few story arcs, as they set up shop in a sunny mountain range."
Girls Beyond the Wasteland ‒ Episode 11
"In depicting its final crunch time, Girls Beyond the Wasteland is accurate yet uninspired as usual."
Lupin the Third (TV 2015) ‒ Episode 24
"Lupin III is not the type of franchise where everything needs to make perfect sense."
GATE ‒ Episode 23
"If one of your primary interests in GATE has always been the hard-core military action then this episode will not disappoint."
Assassination Classroom season 2 ‒ Episode 11
"It feels like this is a decisive moment in the show's ongoing clash of educational philosophies, and the dramatic tension jumps up a notch as a result."
Active Raid ‒ Episode 11
"This was a reasonably successful episode of Active Raid; not thrilling, not tedious, just another movement towards the end."
Naruto Shippuden ‒ Episode 453
"After sitting through several months of material that served up an abundance of unintentional laughs, it's nice to see an episode that makes a conscious effort at bringing the funny."
ERASED ‒ Episode 11
"This week's ERASED started right where the last one left off as far as storytelling goes."
Haruchika – Haruta & Chika ‒ Episode 11
"This episode is an exciting prelude to an increasingly promising finale."
Myriad Colors Phantom World ‒ Episode 11
"Though most of its attempts at humor still come off flat, this episode has something that most of the previous episodes haven't: heart."
Gintama ‒ Episode 314
"The joke count clocks in at zero this week, but you'll be so swept up by the action and the plethora of game-changing revelations that you'll hardly miss the humor, even if it is the show's greatest strength."
Prince of Stride: Alternative ‒ Episode 11
"The Stride competition was great, fantastic even, but this week it came at the price of pretty much every other element of the episode."
Season Finale: Konosuba (Episode 10)
"...never forgets its snarky wit or clever twists on game mechanics even in the face of crisis."
Snow White with the Red Hair ‒ Episode 22
"Shirayuki comes off as a stronger character when she admits her weakness."
Mr. Osomatsu ‒ Episode 23
"Through two interconnected stories, episode 23 starts off as a humorously inflated slice-of-life tale before transitioning into an exercise in surrealism."
Dimension W ‒ Episode 10
"This episode wasn't as much of a step down as the last one, but that doesn't mean that the show has improved."
Utawarerumono: The False Faces ‒ Episode 23
"We may be two episodes from the end of The False Faces, but we're going to spend the entirety of episode 23 running around the city like chickens with our heads cut off."
Schwarzes Marken ‒ Episode 10
"Frankly, I'm a little surprised that the series didn't drag this climax out for another episode, which leaves me wondering what the show is going to do for its final two episodes."
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash ‒ Episode 10
"Ranta far outdoes the other party members in rashness, stubbornness, and even noise level, and Haru is starting to wonder if this is really okay."
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans ‒ Episode 23
"Trust nobody on this week's episode of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans."
Durarara!! ×2 The Third Arc ‒ Episodes 9-10
"Durarara!!'s endgame continues to prove that there's no such thing as a negligible person."
Haikyu!! Second Season ‒ Episode 23
"It's kind of delightful that one of Karasuno's greatest weapons is Tanaka's obnoxiousness, and it highlights once again how the characters are just as important as the games they play."
BBK/BRNK ‒ Episode 10
"As a prologue to a season-ending confrontation, this episode gets the job done."
Luck & Logic ‒ Episode 10
"Pardon the pun here, but this is too many leaps of logic for me to follow."
God Eater ‒ Episode 11
"This week follows two careful plans, one in the past and one in the present, as they spiral out of control."
Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū ‒ Episode 10
"Five years after Kikuhiko's climactic confrontation with a desolate Sukeroku, Tokyo seems shrouded in a permanently overcast sky."
GATE ‒ Episode 22
"For most of the season, GATE has been almost overloaded with story. With episode 22, the series actually feels like it is stalling."
Heavy Object ‒ Episode 22
"The drones used by the Battlefield Cleaning Service add an intriguing new dimension to Heavy Object's man-against-machine battles."
Dagashi Kashi ‒ Episode 9
"This was a bad episode, but not an unexpected one."
Lupin the Third (TV 2015) ‒ Episode 23
"The penultimate episode of Lupin III: Part IV is here, and we're digging right into the action."
Girls Beyond the Wasteland ‒ Episode 10
"This episode had a somewhat redemptive ending, but that doesn't erase the largely nonsensical middle section."
Assassination Classroom season 2 ‒ Episode 10
"As old friends and enemies alike come out to support Class E, Nagisa gets a chance to find some closure on a couple of past conflicts."
Naruto Shippuden ‒ Episode 452
"The two episodes of this miniseries that have aired thus far are more entertaining than any of the anime-original material the show rolled out in 2015."
Haruchika – Haruta & Chika ‒ Episode 10
"While the mystery itself may have been less difficult than previous weeks, the race-against-the-clock more than makes up for it with extra tension."
ERASED ‒ Episode 10
"It was a disaster that's been a long time coming, in retrospect."
Active Raid ‒ Episode 10
"This was not a good episode of Active Raid, but not in the way that Active Raid episodes have traditionally been not-good."
Myriad Colors Phantom World ‒ Episode 10
"It's finally time for Ruru to get a feature episode."
KonoSuba – God's blessing on this wonderful world!! ‒ Episode 9
"The artistry and animation here is actually some of the series' best to date, as are some interesting choices for camera angles and genuinely sexy succubus designs."
Gintama ‒ Episode 313
"There aren't many laugh-out-loud jokes this week, but learning more about the Shinsengumi's origins and Sasaki's tragic past is a satisfactory tradeoff."
Prince of Stride: Alternative ‒ Episode 10
"It's much easier to take Riku's issues seriously when they're not lightened up at the first suspicion that the viewer might become uncomfortable."
Mr. Osomatsu ‒ Episode 22
"With no cold open or post-credits stinger, episode 22 devotes the entirety of its runtime to telling two delightfully twisted tales."
Snow White with the Red Hair ‒ Episode 21
"This transition episode is less about moving us between storylines and more about allowing us to enjoy the characters and their relationships."
Dimension W ‒ Episode 9
"As Dimension W tries to build on a nonexistent foundation, it only loses me more and more."
One Piece ‒ Episode 732
"There's a sense that the build-up was meant to be an important factor in this final battle, but that doesn't mean our patience can't be tested."
Schwarzes Marken ‒ Episode 9
"Episode 9 just doesn't come together well enough to be anywhere near as compelling as it aims to be."
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans ‒ Episode 22
"This may be the final “calm before the storm” episode before everything gets crazy again."
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash ‒ Episode 9
"This episode, while it does have some important moments and nice character exchanges, just feels a little blah."
Haikyu!! Second Season ‒ Episode 22
"In another show I might doubt the ability to stretch this game out, but in this case, I'm just wondering how we viewers can make it with three weeks left until we know who wins."
BBK/BRNK ‒ Episode 9
"I wasn't sure how well the new characters would fit in when they appeared last week, but most of them have had a positive impact on the show thus far."
Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū ‒ Episode 9
"We know how it all ends – the first episode told us as much – and as of this moment, there's nowhere to go but down."
Utawarerumono: The False Faces ‒ Episodes 21-22
"U2warerumono has swiftly found itself in the middle of an intense game of Idiot Ball."
Luck & Logic ‒ Episode 9
"Luck & Logic proves that it does best when it ditches the half-hearted slice-of-life for sheer action."
Girls Beyond the Wasteland ‒ Episode 9
"With the script finally done, it's time for Yuka to stop being a dead weight and get on with the voice acting."
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