I don't know what made to re-visit the blog... but today I discovered that Matthew is alive and updated 10 days ago. Can Momotato be far behind (aside from the yearly post, obviously)?

In the post, Matthew talked about the the season, and this is what he wrote about Kannagi:

Yamakan FTW! After being fired from KyoAni, director Yutaka Yamamoto tries to prove that he’s at the level of director, and succeeds so far. Best animation quality this season. Easy to do since he took some KyoAni staff with him to form Ordet.

So, I'm not alone in noticing the animation. It's nice to have an affirmation, and so unexpectedly.