Some more quick thoughts on the KyoAni works I've seen over the past few months... Beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel as there's only a few more left to see!
Tsurune - This show is a sports drama about kyudo (Japanese archery) but it's a lot more low key than Free! That makes it a little slow at first but I found myself getting more and more drawn to the characters as it went on. The main character Minato is very relatable as he struggles with "target panic" that started during his middle school career. Along the way he meets a new coach who is probably one of my favorite teacher/father figures in all of anime. The finale of the show is just absolutely breathtaking and all sorts of emotions swelled up while watching it. Everything about the portrayal of the sport is just so accurate and makes it even more compelling. Sound direction in general was outstanding too and a key part of the show.
Nichijou - This is a pretty silly comedy sketch style show, and yet KyoAni spared no amount of resources animating it, which just makes it even more absurd. It really is a one of a kind experience, even if some of the humor is kind of niche or Japanese-centric. Still I couldn't stop laughing during some of the better parts while going WTF at others. I see why it is a cult classic now. Mai is one of the biggest troll characters I've ever seen.
Munto - Originally released as an OVA in 2003, but I went ahead and watched the 2009 TV version, which includes the original material plus some new stuff. The animation aged a lot better than I expected as there are a lot of visually appealing moments in the magical battles, but the story is a bit confusing and more conceptual than anything else. A huge war is waged in the heavens over a dwindling resource of magic, while a girl on Earth can restore the flow of it. Yoshiji Kigami, who was KyoAni's oldest animator and kind of one of their founding fathers, was responsible for this one and you can see a lot of his influence on their later works in it.
Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu - The first season of Full Metal Panic! is pretty good anime in its own right, but it was done by Gonzo, not KyoAni. FMP is a fun and interesting combination of slice of life and mecha, with Fumoffu being a side story focused on the slice of life part. Sousuke is a mercenary charged with protecting a high school girl who is an important asset, so of course he goes undercover and enrolls as a student. He has trouble not seeing any and everything as a threat to her, so hilarity ensues. This is Yasuhiro Takemoto's directorial debut and he does a great job of showing his comedic chops here, showing us a different side to all the characters you get to know in the original show. Anyway I laughed a lot during this one.
Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid - This is the real sequel to the first season of FMP, and it surpasses it in every regard. It makes me wish KyoAni did another mecha or sci-fi, because it's so well done. Not many shows can make you laugh one moment, cry the next, and then cheer on some incredible action scenes, but this one certainly did for me. Takemoto's versatility was in full display and it was a portent of things to come in the future, having later been the director of such varied works as Hyouka, Dragon Maid, and High Speed (and highlights what a huge loss he is as well, unfortunately).
Air - Early on in their run, KyoAni adapted several visual novels by a studio called Key. This is the first of them. I'm usually not crazy about VN adaptations as they tend to be a mess, and Air is no exception to that in a way, but it manages to hold it together better than most. If you're into magical realism and the like, it's a show for you. If not you'll probably find it really weird. Overall it's one of those outsider comes into town and delves into their mysteries and solves problems for them type stories. A couple of the arcs were particularly well executed and got me teared up, and it's a very sad/bittersweet story overall.
Next up for me is a smash-hit series: Haruhi, which I have already seen a great deal of but have forgotten somewhat, so I'm interested to see how I feel about it this time.