While I’m enjoying a lot of anime from the Spring season myself, I’m a little surprised to see a good amount of people considering this season weak. Perhaps it’s because of how strong Winter was, creating a bit of letdown in comparison, or maybe it’s because people aren’t giving certain shows a chance? I’m not really sure. Do you see it differently? – Anonymous

Prattle: I think there’s a reasonable amount of merit to both of those perspectives, especially the latter. The way I see it, the perception that Spring is “weak” is largely due to its lack of approachability more than anything. A good chunk of this season’s high profile works had some sort of notable hinderance coming in, wounding it, and tainting Spring’s overall reception in the process:

One Punch Man 2’s pre-air discourse, and the exaggerated negativity that came with that, really stunted the common opinion on arguably Spring’s most anticipated show even before an episode dropped. Carole and Tuesday’s viewership is blatantly limited behind Netflix’s bars. Sarazanmai’s concept, thematics, and style of telling doesn’t make it conventionally accessible, and with that, has an inherent deterrent. Bungou Stray Dogs requires you to have seen the first two seasons – when more people than you may think haven’t even seen the first. Lastly, Attack on Titan 3 part 2 showed up four weeks into the Spring – well past the time viewers made up their mind that Spring is weak in the first place.

Now compare that to how approachable Mob Psycho 2, The Promised Neverland, Kaguya-Sama, Shield Hero and Dororo of Winter’s high profile crop was when coming in. Basically, all of those works were easy pickups for viewers day one outside of Dororo due to Amazon, and thus, much easier for wider patches of the community to see the greater scope of Winter’s value.

So to some extent, this overlaps a bit with your second suspicion. Certain Spring anime aren’t being given a chance, especially some of the biggest, but that’s often by design.

Simply put, this Spring season is a bit harder of a season to really approach and get value out of its brightest anime – creating the illusion at a glance that it’s weak.

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Why aren’t more people talking about Sarazanmai? It’s been great so far! – Anonymous

Prattle: This pretty much falls along the same lines as my answer in the question above, so I won’t elaborate too much. Again, it’s all about approachability. Ikuhara works on a whole aren’t really the most accessible to wide audiences due to the way visual craft and text tend to interact. Mix in Sarazanmai’s narrative quirks, and you have an easy product that’s going to turn a lot of viewers away right out of the box.

Even beyond that limitation on this work’s conversation, it’s not the simplest to discuss for those who do stick with it and can actually lend it traction (writers and Youtubers). Sarazanmai’s thicker storytelling mechanics and dense approach are unfortunately a double-edged sword in this situation.

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