Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu Season 2

I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaally love this series. If you watched season 1 and enjoyed it, I think you'll enjoy this season just as much. Feels like a perfectly executed continuation. On the whole this series is such a simple concept for an isekai, not overly laden down with stuff like rules, skills, exp, level ups, whatever. Just OL transported to fantasy world where she's got healing magic and gets to have a chance at romance. It's cute, wholesome, and the art is well done. Sei has her little side-quests and there's occassionally obstacles that pop up that she needs to clear, but the series does a goodjob of course-correcting and getting back to the proper mood without any wallowing (hate it when anime characters wallow). The 'gotta find a husband' subplot for this season was kind of intriguing, because it really helped to rush along the romantic developments, to the extent that even the characters involved comment how they'd rather have taken their time to get to know each-other, but, oh well, here we are. I'm hoping for a season three, but I'll probably read the light novels instead of waiting and hoping for a miracle s3 after that was so well wrapped up there at the end.

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent — is that saintly omnipotent magic ever still present as time progresses, or has it been snuffed to death? Back in Spring 2021, author Yuka Tachibana's only series came out in a season of both wavering and high-profile shows (e.g. 86, Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song, Fumetsu no Anata e a.k.a To Your Eternity), and despite the premiere season getting lost, even to the point where it's unnoticed, I quite like the show's combination of the typical Isekai and Shoujo romance story, laden in with the sole feature being in the medical department in the rather Iyashikei slice-of-life entertainment that itoffers. Fast forward 2.5 years later, and the series is back with the sequel, though, in hindsight, I'm of the belief that the anime should've stopped then and there. Not because the content was bad, but because Season 2 was a rather cumbersome sequel to have been through for a while. As someone would put it: (I'm) still waiting for SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to happen. With Season 2 adapting Volumes 5 to 8 of the LN, clearly, the one main plot point that the sequel will entertain its viewers is of a pure, dark miasma that tests the strength of the already established female MC, the Holy Saint Sei Takahashi herself. As she continues parading around the Medicinal Flora Research Institute trying to come up with new potions and develop new magic for herself, it's no more than the same old fashion of going around domains and clearing out the miasmas upon sight, wherever they may come from. If that isn't the main topic at hand, then it's just continuous scenes of Talk no Jutsu here, there, everywhere, as Sei has to now face one of the most feared aspects of her life in the Kingdom of Salutania: her eventual marriage, which has everyone on guard and interested about whom she will choose, especially between the trying leads of the kingdom's 3rd Order of the Knights' commander Albert Hawke and the Grand Magus-cum-Director of the Royal Mage Academy Yuri Drewes. If you can sum up Season 2 in a nutshell, it's Sei's political marriage and the same-old fashion of what you've already seen in Season 1 (that is, if you've watched it beforehand, which I'm expecting you to), that if you didn't like the slow-moving nature of the prequel, the sequel will definitely make you feel like pulling a giant tyre that's tied to a rope that's slow and arduous, for God knows how long this is stretched by the author's imaginations and thought process. Sure, you have some new characters sprawling up to help Sei develop her cosmetic business, from a foreign prince on a study exchange trying to understand what the Holy Saint is up to after hearing the praises of Sei's name far and wide to keeping it a well-regarded secret should their unknown prince one day either be an ally or an enemy. With the bulk of the characters having already unveiled themselves since Season 1, it's more of the same Saint Isekai you could ever want for the hardcore fans of the LN and the anime, which generally isn't all that bad. But for the sequel, it felt like the push-and-pull mechanism where Season 1 really (and I mean, REALLY) pushed for more and Season 2 pulled back on the promises of its progressing content...that makes you feel like the same expectant magic was somehow missing from its core premise. Despite that, I'm happy to report that on a production standpoint, Diomedea and director Shota Ihara's staff team have managed to keep the quality consistent, even if it does feel like we've not seen Saint Isekai in the rather long wait of 2.5 years. The one nitpick I have, however, is the OST for Season 2. Sure, Aira Yuuki is back for another decent OP song, but to me, nothing beats her Season 1 OP song, even miles away from real life to fantasy, which is just on its own masterpiece level of majestic superiority that sets a rather high bar to surpass. And while Aina Suzuki's ED song is a good follow-up to NOW ON AIR's rather cheerful Season 1 ED song, it stands well on its own adornment. But still, I find that the prequel edges much better than the sequel here, which is more of the same, just less refined. Overall, Saint Isekai does feel as safe and sane as it is being an Iyashikei series from Season 1 2.5 years ago, but Season 2 (I feel) is a mistake that Yuka Tachibana didn't really progress that much between the adapted LN volumes here, which apart from the usual and that one significant marriage trope, there's just almost little to nothing of interest to discuss about. Don't ever hope for a Season 3, as the LN only got about as far as Volume 9 (which was released in March earlier this year), meaning that Season 2 is definitely the anime's stopping point, which I am rather relieved about. If you can, stick ONLY with Season 1 for Saint Isekai and never turn back on progressing into Season 2, if you'd think that the prequel still carves your incentive to watch further.

As someone who enjoyed season 1, I can safely say I am disappointed by how season 2 turned out. I understand that the Saint's power is omnipotent but there was no substantial plot, no tension, no drama, and no cliffhangers to keep me waiting for the next episode. I think my main driving factor for seeing this season thru to the end was my loyalty to the first season and the characters I had grown fond of. Sad to say, I did not see any sort of character growth this season, it almost felt like a massive filler, especially the middle episodes with the transfer student/prince. Thefights from the first season were better, and although the animation leaves little to be desired in terms of production quality, it does not make up for the lack of substance IMO. Fights were short and unsatisfactory, SNAFUs resolved in half an episode with no consequence or real tension (eg <minor spoiler> when Sei gets separated from her party which is supposed to be an "oh s*hit" moment but is resolved in 10 minutes like it never happened) The ending was cliche but satisfying, but again I don't know if I can justify having gone thru the first 11 episodes to get there. To summarize, Saint S2 is like a decadent cheesecake. Pleasant to look at and tastes great, but full of empty calories. If you enjoyed S1, I would tentatively recommend watching this for closure. If you did not enjoy S1, then skip to episode 10 and start from there. Your mileage may vary.

Although I enjoyed it, I didn’t think it was as good as the first season. I hate the way it starts out with this dramatic cliffhanger action scene that you won’t hear anything about until the latter half of the season. I found it annoying. It’s as if the writer is unsure of whether they can keep your interest so they use this ploy in the hopes that it will insure your viewership. Another thing I didn’t like about this opening is that I think it’s misleading because action isn’t the focus of the show. In fact after this the show goes back toits slow casual pace that it had in the first season. To me this show is more about the character interactions than anything else which is what I love about it. I’d say they focus even more on this in the second season, In particular, the focus on the romance increases, especially in the last half of the season. There’s actual relationship progress. We’re not left hanging at the end. Also I thought the set up for the final scene was pretty good. It even choked me up a little. That being said things seemed a little aimless in the first half and was dragged out some in the last few episodes. You get the cliffhanger opening then this arc that fells kind of like a side story that takes up half the season then a couple of episodes about the miasma that lead to the cliffhanger and finally the last four episodes dive into the romance which as I said felt a little drawn out from time to time. I think part of why things felt drawn out at the end was because they didn’t end with the cliffhanger. If you show a cliffhanger in the beginning then it’s supposed to be the story climax where things end but instead the story just kept going. I really think the opening scene messes up the viewer’s expectations and experience. Despite these issues I’d still recommend it, but I just didn’t think it was as good as the first season.

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