Spy Kyoushitsu 2nd Season

Season 1 of Spy Kyoushitsu a.k.a Spy Classroom — getting to know the main characters and the setting...that ultimately overpowered itself in its own heft to do an adaptation right. Season 2 of wannabe spy girls ready for their mission — it's Lights, Camera, Action! There has always been the saying that novelist Takemachi's Spy Kyoushitsu a.k.a Spy Room is one of the most notorious hard-to-adapt anime adaptations that absolutely butchered the impeccable LN when it first came out back in Winter. And with one more season of the anime to prove its worth, does Part 2 a.k.a Season 2, finally justify what its prequel season setout to be? In many ways, it's definitely a redemption arc for the anime adaptation, though still a far cry from being like its great source material. TL;DR, just in case you missed reading my review back in Winter, the other Lamplight girls who get the spotlight this time that were missed in Season 1: - Monika, codename: Glint. The most talented of Lamplight, being able to think on her two feet of last-minute decisions. - Thea, codename: Dreamspeaker. The oldest and most attractive member of Lamplight, she is good with negotiations. - Annette, codename: Forgetter. The one who is good with engineering, her becoming a spy is just natural progression thanks to her special skills. Otherwise, there is just nothing that is significantly new to add to the sequel, other than acting out the part of truly being James Bond's Mission Impossible, where the Lamplight spy girls and Inferno's head honcho Klaus head out to big lands to conduct their spy sortie shenanigans against other prominent spy groups that risks their reputation and lives on the line. The other girls (a la Lily, Grete, Sybilla, Sara and Erna) already featured in Season 1 get better as time passes, and so do Monika, Thea, and Annette, showcasing their reasons of wanting to become spies. I felt that the compromise of "show, don't tell" works well in the sequel for being adequately paced, though the prequel had the train of thought from director Keiichiro Kawaguchi to cram as much content as possible should there be the off chance that the Winter show was the only one they would get, which does a major disservice to the LN either way. With nonoc's 2nd OP song, I pretty much liked the 1st OP song just because it made sense and was a good fit for the show, and that goes the same for sajou no hana's sequel ED song, to which I preferred Konomi Suzuki's prequel ED song. But it's not like either song really piqued my interest for the "I Spy" tunes. The OST was average, and still continues to be so in the sequel. "Disappointing" is the only word I can use to describe Spy Kyoushitsu a.k.a Spy Room's anime adaptation as a whole, even if Season 2 here is better constructed overall. It's an improvement, no doubt, but in my opinion, not much.

Spy Kyoushitsu's first season recieved mediocre critics at best. It did many mistakes - messing up everywhere from a too fast pace to seemingly screening the episodes in the wrong order. It's mystery wasn't thrilling and the cast was far too big to give proper development to the individuals. So it's hardly a suprise the expectations for the second season weren't exactly high. The story of this season just continues where Season 1 left off. With Grete, Lilly, Sara and Sibylla getting the spotlight in the last arc of Season 1, Season 2 starts with a story around Anette, Thea, Monika and Erna. After theysuccessfully completed their mission, they take a few days off, but their vacation is cut short by a fateful encounter. This encounter forces the girls to make some very difficult decisions, and shows them the true reality of their life as a spy. All without their teacher giving advise and protecting them from harm. This arc does a great job in giving Anette, Thea and especially Monika some much needed development and growth. And at the same time, it tells a great and exciting story with a lot of twists, mystery and action. Something both Arcs of the first season didn't manage to do. After the first excitement follow three filler episodes, just like in season 1. They focus on Monika, Thea and Anette and work well to satisfy the interest gained in the characters from the previous arc. Monika gets mostly backstory, Thea's story focuses on her values and inner conflict and Anette's goes deeper into explaining the "method in her madness". They also manage to hit with the comedy where Season 1's fillers missed. The final arc rounds up the first "act" of Spy Classroom, connecting the dots of the first 3 stories told. It does a great job of highlighting each of the girls and how much they've grown, both individually and as a team. But the main focus is on Thea, Klaus and their backstory with the previous members of Lamplight. This arc once again suffered from slightly high pacing, but unlike the first season's arcs, it's no problem to follow the plot and enjoy it. And it did a great job in finishing the season(s). Last episode is Lilly's filler - a funny comedy episode. But that's only half of it, as the other half is about Thea processing the previous arc. It finishes with a nice bridge between the two halfs anf finally a tease of what would be next in a potential 3rd Season. In conclusion: The second season of Spy Classroom is nothing like the first. It fixes all the major problems and finally makes use of the great potential this show's characters and world-building have. If you cared about the first season enough to look up reviews for the second - go watch it. Even if you are disappointed and conflicted on whether to continue. It was the same for me. If you've come this far, keep going!

I will start this off by saying that I have not read the source material for this series so keep that in mind. I really enjoyed the first season of this series, I thought that the pacing was good and the characters were interesting. I was intrigued by the story of these kind of misfit spys coming together to make a team I thought for the most part season two lost everything that made season one good. At times I found the pacing for season 2 felt random was hard to follow, the story seemed to have done some for of time skip from seasonone so unless you know the source, it seemed that new characters were being introduced but you weren't given any real backstory on their connections. The show did have a few bright spots, mainly the episodes that actually did seem to carry over the story from episode to episode but I was pretty letdown but the season. If you are familiar with the source then you just might enjoy this season but if you are someone who has only seen the Anime, I think this season might be a letdown but there is some good spy action so that is enough to carry it for the most part.

If you liked the first season than this is "mostly" more of the same. It resolves the cliff hanger at the very end of the first season, contains a mostly complete story arc of itself, but leaves you open to the possibility of more going forward. It's tone is "slightly" different than the first season in that it's more of a "maturing as themselves" tone than the first seasons "meet the crew" hijinks. You can see development and growth. The personal interactions are mostly similar though with a few characters having their backstories more fleshed out again. Over-all I enjoyed it, though it feltlike it had slightly lost some of the originality and charm of the first season, though not enough to make you go "it's not good anymore" or something similar. The voicing was good, the art of the same quality, and the score at an acceptable level. A few moments when the pacing might have been a touch off, but that may also just be a personal thing. In general I'd say if you enjoyed the first season, the 2nd is worth a watch.

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