Hyouka

  The show started off as a little bit copy-paste highschool slice of life, and I can't really say it deviated from that too much. But I still very very much enjoyed it.
  For one, the animation was mindboggling good. Average KyotoAnimation show ig. Really beautiful stills of course, but all the like, visual explanations of things were super mega cool and engaging.
  Also, as a slice of life, kind of the major appeal I guess is getting to know the characters, getting interested in them, watching them grow etc. The show did a very good job at that I think. Everyone is my friends now, watching everyone have fun and live good lives was very nice, and now I'm sad it's over. I think that's kind of the best case scenario for a slice of life.
  Especially having just watched Attack on Titan, while the show is a mystery show, it doesn't really delve into super serious high-states issues, more like "who stole the cookie from the cookie jar." Though they are still very thrilling and extremely fun to follow along. But at the same time, the show gets very personal and emotionally close. Usually the answers to the mysteries are things like "Kyomoto stole the cookie, because his family has a tradition of giving each other cookies as gifts, but his estranged sister didn't get a cookie this year, but he still loves her and wanted her to be happy this cookie-gifting season" or something like that. Average KyoAni show ig.
  The romance plot was extremely good and cool and good. Not because the show is a romance or anything, but in that, despite being an anime show about a highschool MC w a supporting kawaii lead, it isn't a show about him getting the girls or anything like that. There's an underplot throughout the show of "oh they kindof both think the other is cute, that's cute", but it's mostly used for laughs and the occasional reminder. And the way it ties itself up with the main plot as the finale, despite its so reserved presence throughout the rest of the show, I think worked really well and I really liked it.
  Also, beautifully, I think as far as problematic shit the worst offenses were things like kindof encouraging a bit weird masculinity shit as positive traits. It did get a bit horny at times with Houtarou and Chitanda almost ending up in embarrassing situations played for laughs, but I think they were done innocently and well.
  If I were to summarize and rank what I loved about this anime, it'd start with the very likable characters, then great humor, beautiful artwork, and then the emotionally heavy mystery plots.
  Also, like the entire show is made up of baby's-first-wordplay and constant intense discussion of readings and exact meanings of kanji, so I think it would be very cool to revisit this show knowing a bit more Japanese.