joyless and dire in tone. I got a good bit of stress in my life at the moment and AoT didn’t seem like what I need right now

Yeah that’s fair

Attack On Titan doesn’t drag in my opinion and I totally recommend it. The 1st season is the “worst” of the bunch, but still a decent action anime, after that it becomes really solid with good suspense, mystery and political games (a lot of action too of course, but it takes a backseat).

Claymore is great.

I think I’d pick Sweat & Soap. It’s a really good romance manga with great characters. I think it’s the quintessential romance manga with adults (Wotakoi being a close 2nd and actually my preference, but wouldn’t consider it as quintessential). It doesn’t fall into a lot of the traps like many other romance manga tend to and particularly the journey of the female lead is really good. The initial premise seems like it’s pretty fetishized, but it’s not at all.