I see what you are saying. The one thread/season would definitely cause some spoiler issues unless there were some strict moderation. Your idea caused me to think of something like a pinned megathread with actively airing shows and their episode thread links in a table. Then, you could have the bot post the discussion threads to a separate, dedicated, bot-run community that houses all the automated threads. This would leave /c/anime more clutter-free, even if there is little activity on a lot of shows.

For example, the megathread could have something like this for the actively airing shows:

Personally speaking, I appreciate the automated posts as a standardized format for the posts to be made. Having consistent post titles makes searching for previous discussions easier and the posts (after some tweaking for lemmy vs. reddit) include a table to make looking at previous episode discussion threads very easy.

That being said, I sympathize with people that don't want the community or their feed filled up with episode threads that don't have any comments/activity in them. While the community remains small, it might be better to limit the number of shows that the bot is used for rather than let it rip on everything it finds. The anime subreddit can do that because of the larger userbase more actively voting popular things to the front page, but in this community, all posts spend some time in the front page.

The bot also definitely has some issues. There are some shows that it seems to not be able to pick up new episodes for. As an example this season, the bot missed making a thread for Tearmoon Empire (thanks @lvxferre@lemmy.ml for stepping in). Last season, I remember several shows that also never really got threads either. I am not a dev, so I can't really dive too deeply to figure out why, but the problems are there.

Link to discussion post that was made in Shinobu's absence for future visitor's reference.

Link to discussion post that was made in Shinobu's absence for future visitor's reference.

Link to discussion post that was made in Shinobu's absence for future visitor's reference.

Link to discussion post that was made in Shinobu's absence for future visitor's reference.

Link to discussion post that was made in Shinobu's absence for future visitor's reference.

Link to discussion post that was made in Shinobu's absence for future visitor's reference.

I think you are right. I had thought at first that Frieren was referencing Fern hesitating against Illusion-Heiter with this comment. However, it stands to reason that Fern had fought monsters on her journey with Frieren before fighting Qual. I think it would be especially cruel to have Qual be the first non-training fight you make your student experience.

That is the thing I have been most pleasantly surprised by the production of this show. They have really devoted a lot of time and budget to a show that is not in a typically super well performing genre. In an alternate universe, it is easy to see how this show is produced in a way that flies at a breakneck pace through the story and doesn't have even close to the same emotional impact as things are stripped for time.

So far, this has been the best adaptation I could have dreamed for. It helps that the source material is excellent to start with. Enjoy the manga! It's a really special one.

I sympathize with this view as well. Romances in anime/manga are especially frustrating to me because all the characters tend to act in very childish ways and not act their age. If you are in high school, it shouldn't be heart-attack inducing to have a member of the opposite sex talk to you or share a textbook or whatever. The extra frustrating part is that these childish behaviors are not just limited to teens, but fully grown adults tend to act the exact same way in a lot of anime/manga; just swap high school for an office or izakaya. I can deal with it easier if the show leans more on the comedy side of a romcom, but the more straight romances tend to be tough to bear (with a couple exceptions).

I really liked the manga as well and I would say it is pretty faithful to the manga in spirit. To be honest, I don't remember all the details of the early parts of the manga to tell you what exactly they may have changed here or omitted there. However, the main thing I like in this series are the characters, and they definitely embody them well. Mirika is still Mirika just like Naoya is still Naoya and everybody tends to shout everything they say just like in the manga.

I think that the show gets a lot of flak from people based on the premise/genre. But, if you liked the manga, then you would probably enjoy the show too. Just set your expectations. This isn't cinema by any means, it is a turn your brain off (just like the characters) and enjoy kind of show.