Shows

Queen's Gambit

Beautifully done 1950's woman empowerment - but not about woman - genius character develops into a star and navigates relationships with a pragmatic view of the world but desparate one of the past.

FLCL

aka Fooly Cooly

2000s anime; I love the soundtrack but the plot is nonsensical or entirely absent.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Absolutely beatiful series. Killer opening theme that doesn't fit the show at all. The pacing and visuals are artful; entirely different from any comparable series.

that ending really sucked though

FMA Brotherhood

True to the manga but skips all of the fluff - somehow improves on the best moments. the retrospective did them some huge favors, and they were able to perfect already one of the best manga out there

Death Note

As expected, this is an incredible series. The third arc (could be considered the second arc) notably trails off in quality relative to the second arc or the first segment of the series as characters begin to lose dimension -- though some of the characters have to develop flaws to some degree as the series continues or there wouldn't be any resolution.

Erased

Poetic, simple series about someone who's hit a dead end making the right decisions and changing his life. All of the characters are incredibly fleshed out, and the depiction of trauma is almost poetic -- all of them, in one way or another, garner sympathy from the watcher and you become invested in just 12 episodes. Not a moment is wasted, either; the series starts and resolves quickly and all of the plot points are cleanly tied together.

Steins;Gate

This started incredibly slow and I didn't have the patience to continue watching. The characters didn't feel comprehensive and didn't have much depth to them; the same corny anime jokes were made so many times within the first few episodes, and actual plot elements were few and far between.

Parasyte

The series was very engaging and I loved the visuals. Wasn't the biggest fan of how it ended, or of the explicit narration of the 'meaning' of the series that consumed most of the last episode, as this was all implied throughout the show and could have been left that way. I'll be reading the manga : )

The Great Pretender

Satisfying story. A bit predictable/implausible at the end and dragged on quite a bit, but it was a fun watch. Super high quality production as anticipated!

Cowboy Bebop

In progress - find a good place to stream this (watched through ep 5)

Trigun

In progress - find a good place to stream this (watched through ep 5)

RE:Zero

master of none s3

beautiful series about a breakup of a lesbian relationship. each plays interesting roles in the relationship. some of the fights don't feel real, they feel irrational, especially as instigated by a 'chemistry phd' of a character. beautiful cinematography snd a sweet ending, though the conflict driving the narrative was honestly not very believable to me. cool/interesting that so many characters in clinical roles were poc as well.