K-On! getting some validation from Criterion is frankly really deserved because Naoko Yamada is a genius of her craft, and Kyoto Animation cultivated an incredibly skilled team of artists who were revolutionizing digital animation in that era. It's refreshing to see someone take K-On! seriously.
I started watching the first episode of the anime Summertime Render (2022) and was kind of surprised to see this still that looks extremely AI generated (it looks like Midjourney from that era). Did nobody call them out for this back then?