Onboard the AMAZING FEELS GRANDCYPHER! So this second season starts off with a rather one shot episode focusing on a berserk Primal Beast and a cameo to one of the game characters, but after that...well let's get to it shall we. So after that episode, we move into the Albion's arc and this is the pinnacle of the best arc in the season in LA's eyes, mainly because of one sole character that of Vira Lillie voiced by Asami Imai, a best friend of Katalina. At first she is the typical fangirl of Katalina but further and further down the line she's outed as a yandere, aREALLY investable and interesting breed of yandere to the point LA fell in love with Vira as a result (she is LA's waifu of Fall 2019 so that's saying something). So usually yandere's kill for their love or those around her, but in Vira's case, yes she has a DEEP obsession with Katalina and this obsession starts as soon as she introduction but guised as the calm, stoic but cheery girl at the start. See Vira sacrificed HERSELF for Katalina to give Katalina her dream she wanted but it's not as it seems yet Vira love for Katalina blinds her of what Katalina truly wants let alone Katalina even knowing what she truly wants either in this case, which again makes Vira a really unique yandere, Asami Imai makes it even better mind you with her voice acting but man, Vira just made the Albion arc soo much better as Vira as a character herself as well as developing Katalina before Lyria and giving herself resolution from her past as well. Vira beyond a shadow of a doubt for LA was LA's favourite character in the series and gave a new outlook on the typical yandere. Of course the Albion arc does pertain to a Primal Beast and that is linked with Vira, the Luminiera and of course it'll have some importance to Vira and Katalina's relationship. Nonetheless Albion's or to be more precise, Vira's arc was probably the standout of this season hands down.
Afterwards we get a small arc focusing on Orchis, Sturm and Drang when the crew crash lands in a zombie curse-filled island that a Primal Beast has a hand in, that of the Ghost Ship Primal Beast Celeste. this small arc focuses on Orchis (the new mysterious girl who stuck with the Black Knight) and Lyria's relationship as they finally get to intereact, what with them both being in similar situations in being girls who can "control Primal Beasts". Io gets some screentime with Orchis and Lyria and oddly enough Drang too due to a resident "ghost" of the island Ferry voiced by Madoka Yonezawa. Overall giving Drang and developing the relationship of Orchis and Lyria as well as Io too helped with this arc.
Finally we have Rackam's arc where he goes back to his childhood island where he made a promise to but it expands due to Pommern coming back and showing Gran and Lyria to his boss, the Prime Minister that gives us BIG revelations to the entire creation of Lyria as a whole. Rackam of course develops much like Orchis, Katalina and Drang before him and again involves a Primal Beast to do with his childhood island and again great development from the core cast as a result with how this season's focus went towards.
This season's main strength is it's characters and its plot and really going from that this was a pretty solid season all round, developing the core cast, not only that but making the villains of each arc to be more fleshed out, VIRA especially instead of stock evil for the sake of it like General Furia and Pommern, bringing in a greater scope to the call to adventure of Gran as well as his link to Lyria. This second season was still amazing to watch as typical as it was for how each arc starts and then crescendos into something bigger. This season was up there as one of LA's favourite animes for Fall 2019.
This season does try to callback to it's first season counterpart, now why does LA say this?, well because the first season deviated a bit from the game's story and this second season is trying to NOT retcon the first season's efforts and call back to it whilst getting back on track with the game's story. How does LA know this....welllllll LA played the mobile game for a while and this seocnd season only gave playing the game that much better and LA found LA's waifu for the game with Vira thanks to this season hehe.
The animation studio has changed from A1-Picutres to MAPPA and there is a change to the animation quality and for the better to be honest especially with the battles and the like. The character designs looks crisper and the background even more gorgeous if not for keeping to the aesthetic to the game. A1-Pictures did amazing in their animation work in the first season, MAPPA for the second season accentuated it.
The voice cast is back and with the new characters we have some new voice actors inot the mix and Asami Imai is LA's MVP, what else can LA say, she was AMAZING as Vira. Like in a ways her cadence as Vira tries NOT to be the psychotic yandere stereotype but something like a mix of ojouness, yandere and dramatic all in one that the yandereness isn't soo blatant. Of course the core cast is great from Nao Touyama as Lyria, Miyuki Sawashiro as Katalina also gets her limelight thanks to Vira, Yukari Tamura as Io in the aformentioned arc above, Yuuki Ono as Gran gets some GOOD screentime with Nao Touyama in the later arcs as well as Hiroaki Hirata as Rackam, really this is a stellar voice cast through and through LA just can't keep gushing about this voice cast ESPECIALLY Asami Imai as Vira..ok LA will stop.
Yeah, this second season has some flaws, mainly with the typical stock villains being back but this can easily be ignored by some of the newer 'villains" outranking them in terms of depth and characters (see Vira) but there are a small new villains that wants "world domination", but again see Vira to give this season some grace. Other than that LA really couldn't find any other flaws let alone nitpicks with this season, kinda shows how great this season was.
Granblue Fantasy's second season EXCEEDED LA's expectation with this second season, great character development from the core cast to even the minor characters, a greater scope to the plot and it's characters, world building, great production value and an amazing voice cast and all this coming from a mobile game adaptation AND LA love playing the game it's based off even more as a result of this second season speaks VOLUMES as to why LA loves this second season and one of the better animes to be released of Fall 2019.
Maybe because of Granblue Fantasy feeling like the old school Square Enix Final Fantasy's spoke to LA, hey the developers of those old school Final Fantasy did work on the game and it reflects to this anime so maybe it's nostalgia calling but LA finds Granblue Fantasy the modern, better Final Fantasy than the latest Final Fantasy and as a stand alone game it stands on it's own, gacha hell and all and even as an anime adaptation and LA just loved this second season through and through.
Now excuse LA, LA needs to finish Vira's Infinity Gauntlet.
Mixed Feelings
Season 1 was a generic fantasy riddled with cheesy, cringy or pitifully stupid elements on all scales. Season 2 threatened to be just more of the same with its filler episode start, but then suddenly got a much better arc from the second episode. It revealed some interesting background for one of the important characters, it had an interesting, understandable and relatable villain, the plot was suddenly not just completely generic monster of the week garbage but seemed well-planned at last. It was still terrible on the finer details scale, the characters were still doing stupid and cheesy things, but at least on the plot levelit impressed me and gave me hope that the show will go beyond mediocrity.
Unfortunately the other two arcs weren't as good as my raised hopes. They were better than season 1, gave some revelations about a few of the characters' pasts and hints of a better thought out overall plot, but their core conflicts reverted to something generic and disappointing.
In the end the said overall plot remained unclear and thus the season is mostly meaningless, maybe making a slight step of progress but still leading seemingly nowhere.
Given enough seasons the story might turn out to be a colossal load of crap even on the largest overall plot scale, or a grandiose feat of world-building, with many interesting and interwoven character stories. But even in the best-case scenario the seasons we had so far certainly did a piss-poor job of revealing it and would remain objectively bad, mediocre at best.
