Recommended
I saw One Punch Man trice and bought the bluray. I saw Mob Psycho 100, not 100 times, but twice. While I love both of these shows, I love Saiki more. When I heard it would be getting season 02 before either of these two shows (which are -according to sales and popularity rankings- 5 to 20 times more successful than Saiki), I naturally started pinching myself to wake up from this beautiful, yet unreal dream. When this didn't happen, I had to assume they have started to celebrate April's Fools twice a year. I headed to my closest Reddit where people have the habitof repeating everything they hear and read as facts, but didn't see anyone mention April's Fools. This gave me no other option but to believe there lives a "Saiki" inside our very own universe, something has gone terribly wrong with him and now the whole structure of the very reality is shaking. After recovering from the panic, I realized only two things can happen a) the world will end b) season 02 will really air. As we can conclude, there was no cons in this situation.
The adventures of Saiki continue with an epic start where he watched the anime "Gintama" from tv and wonders what type of shitty excuse for a comedy that series is. My man. In all honesty, the beginning of this season was not the greatest thing. The series felt more or less like S01 with the same content, but now missing the fresh and new feel the series had. This got quickly fixed (in episode 6) by the author who started introducing new characters (such as the officially best girl) but also started strengthening the already existing cast members. Instead of expanding our series with side tracking plots and new comedy elements, mr. author keeps giving us details and adding substance to his characters, not only developing their humor but also creating depth to the comedy. And this way, mr. author gave us a sequel which was better than its prequel. If decisions as good as this were always made, I would never have to write negative reviews.
My favorite part of this series is how brotherly and manly Saiki is from its humor to its characters. Aibro (Riki) is the perfect comedic delinquent and a total badass. I am not even sure what makes his character so great. Is it how many fucks he gives (forgetting how to get to school every day despite living right next to it) or how awe-inspiring and cool he is in any and every situation. Shining Kokomi, on the other hand, corners Saiki the hardest. Scenes where she gets like 500 people (including the FBI) search for Saiki are both written and executed with such brilliance that you won't never find this sort of unique comedy anywhere else. Overall the cast is just incredibly strong and unique. There are in total of 10 characters (other than Saiki) who have their important role in the series when it comes to Saiki's life and the comedy. Everyone of them is memorable and adds to the series. Not a single one of them is annoying. Rather, I personally welcome comedy moments surrounding any of them -- which is beyond rare for myself.
Like all comedies, Saiki is exactly as fun as the viewer who is watching it. The comedy is very direct and executed in 3 different ways: character-centric personality tweaks which deliver the more you are into the characters (the amount of detail and characteristics that add to the comedy is insane), visual in forms of silly animation (such as simplistic character introduction scene where one bro starts rolling in the scene like he is just drawn on a piece of paper - which he obviously was), and most of all in the forms of sitcom where the series corners itself with some sort of problems that are presented as a situation comedy. The comedy is original, but also parodying great many things from other anime series to common cliches. The best part of the comedy is how random it often starts and how unpredictable it ends up being, but at the same time uses the same elements that are already familiar to all its viewers and unique to Saiki the anime. Still, remaining subtle and never, not even once pushed in your face. This is the type of comedy that constantly rewards its viewers and respects the audience. For example, during one TV channel surfing scene, Saiki himself comes across people who we see in his daily life all the time. His parents are giving an interview, some dude stuck in other channel's background image, and Aibro taking part to the Japanese version of the TV show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (without even knowing what the show is about because he just doesn't give a fuck, just like he never does). Every single thing from the 3 different TV programs to Saiki's live reaction to it all, are pure brilliance.
Overall. Saiki relies on badass comedy and bro situations which automatically mean that the series is highly appealing to myself. On top of that, Saiki's cast is among the most strong and memorable I have seen in any comedy anime. The only comedy series which I can say has achieved more in terms of characters is 'Cromartie', but it was also too short to be perfect. The author of Saiki is incredibly self-aware and has a clear vision of what this series should be about. As a conclusion: This season will not please all viewers, but it has done perfect job being exactly as good as it could realistically ever be. Season 03 when.
