CaCaptainKenshiro
March 30, 2025
Mixed Feelings
Well the second season is here and since the specifics were already covered on the first one, this one will be shorter and more straightforward, kinda like the show itself. People keep playing videogames in a mostly fun looking way so there are still reasons to be pleased with this continuation, but it’s definitely worse than its predecessor due to the following reasons: -The pacing is slower. The first season already had a slower pacing on its second half, and it became worse in here. Now the main characters have interacted and formed an alliance with other players that care about the lore and unique scenariosand epic bosses of the game and stuff, which is good, but now there is a lot more sitting down and talking and exposition going on.
-Speaking of exposition, it had become worse in this season compared to the one before it. Since the protagonist has leveled up and unlocked new weapons and abilities, there’s a lot more inner monologues about that, and even on screen there are a lot more explanations about in-game mechanics. And since the show moved on to the fights against the epic bosses that affect the whole in-game world, there is a lot more strategic discussion between the characters. Infamously, there is an episode where half of it or more was about a party planning what to do against an epic boss while having it occupied with a decoy.
-The protagonist is now more broken. He has access to an OP inventory full of powerful items that even serves as a room to teleport to, so he uses it in battle as an escape route to rest and heal a little, and to come back from, more geared up. Speaking of gear he also gets more powerful weapons as he levels up and works with NPCs, so he doesn’t struggle nor is as creative against small enemies as he used to be. Yes, it is a natural course in videogames in general so it makes sense for the writing to be that way, but it doesn’t really prevent it from being a slightly worse watching experience. Even when it seemed that he was disadvantaged at some point, he works his way around it and comes off as more OP and it never feels like he struggles much.
-There is little plot progression. Despite seemingly moving forward due to showing more characters, enemies and places within the in-game setting, the characters don’t really progress much in what they want to do in the game. The protagonist even gets a second chance against that one epic boss from the first season, for the MMORPG and the show to pull out a troll.
-There is focus on other type of content in it and not in the best ways. The series now bothers to explore the backstories of other characters and how they began to play videogames and roleplay and why they choose their playstyles in specific. Character fleshing is good but when an action show does it in the middle of a fight interrupting the flow of the series, it is an issue. And although I now don’t find Rei to be a creepy stalker, I still feel like her attraction to the protagonist is rather silly and superficial and I wish there was less focus on it.
-Related to that, the anime is now slightly more serious. Although still primarily a comedy action adventure show, since now characters even have entire episodes dedicated to introspect about why and how they play videogames and roleplay, they started to take, well, videogames, more seriously. It is nowhere near the embarrassing levels of other shows, which I already criticized on my review of the first season, but it was preferable as it was before.
-The series dedicates runtime to other videogames. I don’t really find this to be an issue, as it shows more of the characters outside the main game and playing more stuff and using other mechanics. I find that to be a nice change for a short while, and the anime even uses that to show how someone can get a burnout from a hobby, and it even ties the characters and events from those other games to the main one, so I don’t take it as wasted screentime. The directing even went to change the title of the anime at the beginning of some episodes and commercial brakes, which was a nice touch. Other people did find it to be an issue, so I think it was worth mentioning.
-Since I covered the occasional change of videogames, that leads me to talk about another actual problem which is the animation becoming worse. One of the other videogames is a so-so and far more generic looking mecha fighting game with far less customizations, so its aesthetics are more plain and boring looking, and even has weak CGI and less detailed artwork all around. But even within the main game, the artwork and character figures became weaker, the backgrounds and special effects, and even some epic monsters have now far more and more noticeable rather poor looking CGI. Even the motions and impact frames feel and look worse than they did before. At its best the series still looks great and sometimes even far better than it did in the first season, but its overall decline in visual quality is very prominent and can’t be denied. Near the end of the season, the characters play another fighting game with roleplay elements, which although it had uninteresting gameplay, it also featured interesting mind game like abilities and much more interesting and better visuals.
-Even the audio department is considerably worse. The music is still the same but less prominent and with a several case of lacking good insert songs, there are two new openings and two new endings, none of which I liked particularly but the first ending was nice to look because the characters were in suits and dresses. The voice acting is about the same, and the sound effects are far weaker than they were in the first season.
-The ending is still open of course, as the source material is ongoing, but it is also a double cliffhanger of sorts, so it is worse than the one from the first season. Luckily the continuation was already confirmed, but is that a good thing?
As a whole, the anime is still watchable to kill some time but it has undeniably become worse than it was and if they don’t stop its production for a little while to try and polish it to its previous level, it might affect the following entries to the point where they might become bad.
