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The Weeb-team featuring Beej, Heather, Ian and Cori round up their anime picks from the Summer season and outline what they're looking forward to in Winter of 2017.

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My brief thoughts on Fall 2016:

Yuri on Ice - This was really great. But as you mentioned, it wasn't just that the show itself was awesome, it was also the buzz and how far it spread. I'm not sure if you saw but there was an article on the CBC website about what Canadian figure skater would look like as anime characters, inspired by Yuri on Ice. Some of the side characters didn't get as much focus as I would have liked, but the relationship between Victor and Yuri was really engaging (;)) and it did a pretty good job of balancing both a personal drama and a sports anime in a one-cour season.

Sangatsu no Lion - The visuals are a little over done, but this does a great job of capturing feelings depression and lack of direction in life. Rei's love-hate relationship with Shogi is really fascinating and the light the sisters bring into his life is really great. The second half promises to continue.

Fune wo Amu - I enjoyed this as lot. It felt like a live action drama and it was very refreshing. I don't think I liked it quite as much as you, but certainly worth checking out.

Haikyuu!!3 - More Haikyuu!! is always a good thing and the third season was a lot of fun. It was intense and exciting, with a whole new opponent to get to know and stellar animation as usual. I will never get tired of this show. I miss it already.

My pick for 2016 was Rakugo Shinju, though a few of my colleagues picked ERASED as well.

I haven't been watching many shows from this season, just Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and Interviews with Monster Girls.

The former is what I'd expect from a KyoAni production, which is to say really good. The latter started off promising, but episode 7 left me unable to recommend it to anyone. It advocates for a worldview that is deeply unsettling. Episode 7 is about Satou sensei, and how the world handles succubi. In the episode we're introduced to a police officer that is from a department dedicated to watching demis, and succubi in particular. In part of the episode that officer talks to Takanashi sensei about why they do it. If I hadn't seen the episode, I might be willing to give the show a pass, but let me break down why it's so disgusting.

They have a whole department of the police dedicated to watching succubi. I can almost kinda understand the need for some governmental agency, but why the police? This is a direct analogue to racial profiling, and it's way too real to just dismiss it. Why isn't it a civil service department? If there were one dedicated to working with all demis and their circumstances, it wouldn't be nearly as objectionable.

One reason for the department is that if a succubus is molested on a train, they need to know whether the succubus was intentionally or involuntarily releasing pheromones that affected their molester. This is nice because there aren't enough ways that women are shit on for getting sexually assulted \s. Rather than hand-waving over the subject leaving it alone after Satou sensei's train routine, the show just comes out and says that sexual assault is understandable in certain circumstances.

The last thing to bring up is how this is viewed in-universe. In one breath they say that the three girls look happy, and won't have problems. In the next they say the police will always have this responsibility because of the aforementioned train situation. They don't even paint the profiling as something undesirable, just that it will always be necessary.

I'm still watching it, but hoo boy that's hard to look past.