Spent the last couple of weeks watching the entire current run of Mushoku Tensei, which was pretty decent, but could've easily been better.

On the plus side there's decent animation and music, an interesting story and good characters. On the minus side, there's Rudeus' pre-isekai identity, who hangs around being repulsive for far too long. Not only is that just off-putting in itself - it's also ludicrous. There's simply no way that Rudeus could spend 14 years (so far) being Rudeus every moment of every day and still have any connection to that past persona. He would've faded into the background a long time ago, but not only has he not faded - he's still there, making Rudeus leer and say dumbass otaku things at any given moment.

Even that has a plus side though - he's voiced by Tomokazu Sugita, who therefore also narrates, and there's nobody whose narration I'd rather listen to.

Really though, I think they could write Rudeus out entirely and I wouldn't miss him.

Then just recently, because season 2 is currently airing and caught my eye, I started season 1 of The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten. I like it well enough, though I'm only about halfway through and the lack of progress is already starting to feel more contrived than natural. It's going to depend on how they handle that from here. If the focus shifts or something, then it might work, but if it just keeps going with increasingly inexplicable lack of progress, I doubt I'll last the season, much less a second season.

And at one point or another, for reasons that elude me, I've ended up sampling at least 20 series this season , so that'll have to go in a separate, and spoilered-for-space, post.