Terra Formars: Revenge

Let me start this off by saying that I really enjoyed the first season of Terra Formars, even with its somewhat lackluster story and mediocre character design. But I'll leave it at that because those weren't the reasons why most people enjoyed Terra Formars. I was also really hyped for the second season, as I expected the same viewing experience that I had with the first. Moving on to this so called second season : "Terra Formars Revenge" ( although "revenge" is probably what most of the Terra Formars fans want against the producers ). -First off let's talk about animation... One of the mainreasons why this season falls short of our expectations : The animation has changed for the worse. In the first season we had well executed and fluid animation which made the fighting scenes exciting and appealing, without getting boring and repetitive. In the second season they give us a lackluster, seemingly "lower budget" animation which makes the fighting look unimpressive as it loses the "punch" that it once had in the prequel. This makes the action as boring as it gets. It makes you feel like this might be some kind of bad joke. -Moving on to the art : The art style has shifted from a very realistic and dark representation of scenery and characters, to a very bright and colorful art style. This is what takes away most of what the anime was about... The cruel environment and situation have now become more lighthearted as they take a different direction from the foundation that was built in the first season. -Speaking of lighthearted, let's head to the story/characters : Probably the only positive thing is that the plot does continue in this second season. And now back to the negatives : now here is where it starts to get uglier, although the plot remains, the representation of the characters and situations is a disgrace. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you : fan service !!!! You can start guessing how glad I was to see that in a supposedly dark and gory survival anime. Fan service is probably what you'd least expected to find in Terra Formars, even though it only occurs in the first episode it is still disgraceful. Complementing the lightheartedness, the characters seem to take the situation they are in less seriously as we also have the addition of "comedy bubbles" ( don't really know how to call them ). To wrap this up, Terra Formars Revenge is an excuse of a second season as it does not in any way bring justice upon the first season or the manga... Hopefully this will be enough for people to understand how disappointing this sequel is... Even though it is not unwatchable, I wouldn't recommend "Terra Formars Revenge" to anyone who loved the first season or the manga.

In the first season they showed you how vulnerable the characters could be despite having immense power. Many of them died whilst being overpowered. This creates that "cling to reality experience" that makes a good plot like AoT. I felt as though they disregarded that and went full dragon ball z which is a strict fantasy power up plot like tengen toppa. Im not saying dbz or tengen is a bad anime but what made the first season good was that slice of reality that they could at anytime die. The drawback mechanics of the source of their power up , which is the medicine,was disregarded I felt like. They were popping the medicine like crack whore addicts when taking 2 or 3 of those were fatal if I remember correctly from the first season. In summary, they didnt stick with their guns and just went for "convinient for the plot" route. This really a mediocere season at best.

Terra Formars was a weak action series with shallow characters and many failed attempts at adding depth. But hey, at least it was grim and gritty and we don't get nearly enough grim and gritty works of media, if you ignore the tens of thousands too many that we get. Okay, so the last series ended with our heroes stranded on Mars. One full squadron has been killed, one is made up of traitors, and I'm sure it's not the one that was reported dead but we saw alive and well, and our heroes have to find their way back to Earth with some livingderp roaches in order to stop a disease. Let's look at where things go in Terra Formars: Revenge, and see if we can find any reason to care. Story: We pick up where the last series left off. In this one the focus shifts to the struggle of the traitorous fourth squadron against the other squadrons, primarily the first and second since the fourth wants to capture what's her name and that one guy. So, the 4th squadron takes control of the fallen ship, making it their base and goes all out, doing whatever it takes, to capture that one guy and whatever her name was. Meanwhile, the first and second squadron have to evade the derp roaches and find a way to strike back at the 4th squadron. I will give this series some credit over the first. There's a lot less of an issue with both exposition, since those scenes are shortened quite a bit for this one. There's also less of a problem with solutions for various problems being completely pulled out of the writer's posterior. This series focuses much more on largely mindless action sequences coming one after the other with the series' attempt to add some depth betwixt them. That being said, flashbacks are a massive pain in this one. The first series used them quite a bit, mainly in attempts to make us care about the characters, but this one takes it to the next level. A lot of the big climactic stuff at the end gets interrupted by long, drawn out flashbacks. Plus, we get the same flashback of the protagonist boy talking to a sick child from the first series so many times you'd think it would be showing us how he learned that “with great power there must come great responsibility.” Granted, I wouldn't have remembered such a dull scene without them doing a flashback but I didn't need them to keep bringing it up. This series is also overly fond of fake-outs. The series loves to move things to a bleak note only to reveal that there's still a glimmer of hope or that things went okay after all and we just didn't see it. Here's the thing with both flashbacks and fake-outs. They're both useful tools when used in moderation but when they're overdone, like they are here, they quickly become tired. Fake-outs in particular since they don't work when you expect them. This series also has some tonal issues. There are scenes that attempt to add some levity which is a good idea, in concept. The problem here is that they'll stick the scenes in randomly during moments that are supposed to be tense. For example, they have two characters who are surrounded by derp roaches and they insert a comedic bit about skunks, which just undermines the tension completely. Again, the concept has potential and I do still give them credit for trying to be more than just mindless action, but the execution is just poor and the effort doesn't ultimately mean much. Characters: I feel like I could basically copy and paste my whole rant about the characters from the first series with some minor tweaks. I won't, but I could. The big problem with the characters in this is just that they're boring. There's nothing to them beyond the same trite action archetypes that we've seen time after time. The most attempts we get at developing them are in flashbacks that serve to show us that they had equally bland families who they're fighting for or some generically tragic back stories. But there's nothing in there that really adds depth to them or that fleshes them out as a character. The result is that there's no reason to care what happens in the fight betwixt squadron four and the others or betwixt the humans and the goofy roaches. The roaches continue to be weak villains. Yes, they have numbers and they can overwhelm the heroes we don't have any reason to care about, but at the same time they just look absurd. The changelings in Friendship is Magic looked scarier than these things. Plus, every major hero can still slaughter a large number of them with relative ease. Art: The artwork continues to be the area where I can give the series some praise. The backgrounds are nicely detailed. The human characters have some nice designs, particularly when you factor in their transformations. The action sequences, though incredibly violent, do have some nice intensity. Sound: Like with the first series, I have to give the cast some credit. They take characters who really have very little to them and they still manage to turn out passable performances. Not good by any means, but passable. This time around Wada Takafumi handles the soundtrack and, I have to say, it's not as good as Murai Shusei's was in the first series. It's all right, but that's about the best that can be said for it. Ho-yay: There might be a little. There's a girl named Hong who seems to have a thing for one of her comrades, Miss Xi. But it's hard to say since the character interactions are so... meh. Final Thoughts: That's Terra Formars Revenge. It shares some of the weaknesses of the original, improves in some areas and gets worse in others. Overall, it's a dumb action series that's trying to be more, but failing. Ultimately, I don't think it's worse than the first series nor do I think it's better. My final rating is going to be the same a 4/10. I still have no reason to care what's happening. If your only issue with the first series was the excessive exposition that interrupted the action sequences, you might like this one better. If you, like me, were not fond of the first series or you didn't bother with it because it didn't look like something you'd be into, I don't recommend this one either. If you really liked the first series, the flashbacks, fake-outs and comedic attempts might make you dislike this one but I suspect you'll be fine with it. Next week I'll take a look at Non Non Biyori. Until then, have a fantastic week.

PROS: -Not bad animations. -Interresting lore and main story. -Cool and badass super powers for both foes and allies. CONS: -The momemtum is always cut by generics backstories that got little to nothing to do with the main lore that got us watching. -The dark esthetic of the first season is now replaced with a more colorful/power rangers kindda look that remove a lot of originality and charms. It's good to mention that this make the Terraformars FAR LESS odd and scary. -Would need some work in the pacing department. Things either happens way to fast or sometime not much seem to happen at all.PERSONNAL NOTE: Like mentionned in the synopsis, humans traitors are the main antagonists of the 2nd season and, in my opinion, they made humans go against humans way too fast. Humans are boring. I'm far more interested in the Terraformars's weird and terrifying lore and culture. It's sad that they went for the usual "humans are the worst animal" before we even got a proper look at the nightmarish Terraformars society...

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