Kamierabi 2nd Season

From what I can gather in this website, I can see that the second season of Kamierabi is a show with very low expectations, at least in the west. Initially, the first season didn't get much popularity, with the major part of its audience being attracted by the name of Yoko Taro, who is the creator of the story. Then, even tho the first season had a interesting cliff hanger ending, most of the audience must have dropped the anime along the way for various reasons. And because of that, the second season has currently, by the end of it, about a tenth of theaudience (673 users) from the first season; a very small number compared to what we are used to see on MAL. Regardless, its safe to say that studio Unend produced a solid second season, with a consistent quality similar to the first season, and a fitting ending for the series. Lets talk about it. Even though its not necessary, I make sure that I do not spoil neither seasons of the show. And I'll be discussing mainly the second; if you'd like to know more about the first season, then I encourage you to read the others' reviews or even my own. (Story) When you start watching the first episode, you see a dark empty area, and in it, theres only a humanoid being, with no remarkable features except a blue outline, crying with his face buried in his palms while sitting in a chair; a pen-looking object falls from nowhere and the being notices that, then, it grabs the object and writes in the void: "my wish". Its a very enigmatic scene that doesnt make sense at first even to who watched the first season. And turns out that this humanoid being is a recurring figure at the start of pretty much every episode of the season. After that, we see a girl in a orange hooded sweatshirt, with something in her arms, running away from men that are apparently looking for the thing in her arms. This girl is actually Lall from the first season, now in human form, as you may discover by the end of the episode. And also, after the new opening is displayed, you watch the school presentation of a kid, in which she tries to explain what happened in the incident of the final episode of the first season. It happened 12 years ago and it was responsible, among other things, for turning the people involved in so called "semi-permanents", individuals that do not show signs of aging anymore. No one has been able to explain this phenomenon since then and the kid seems determined in doing just that. As you can deduce, the start of the season heavily focuses on mysteries. Until the very end of the anime, you'll be wondering about "who is that humanoid being at the start of the episodes?", "why do some people stopped aging?", "what exactly happened during these 12 years?", and those will stack up on the unanswered questions of the first season, like "why is that god election happening in the first place?" or "who is that man in the blue outfit that appears in episode 12?". Surprisingly, they do give answers to all of that along the story, which is very nice. Points for cohesion! The major part of the season is that slow but progressive unveilling of the plot. However, at the last episodes, the story suddenly starts to pick up really fast and we get plot twist, after plot twist, after plot twist, in true "yoko tarian style". Now, I apologize for the poor choice of words there but I guess my point goes across. Its rather unclear how much influence Yoko Taro had on this anime or if he supervised the project at all, but I do think that the ending was purely his doing because of how warped your understanding of the story gets right by the end; thats his trademark, pretty much. In comparison, the second season feels much more serious than the first one. While the first season consists of Gorou f'ing around and finding out, putting himself in a lot of unusual or even strange situations; in this season, the characters are mentally tired from the god election and they just want to get it all over with. (Music) Again, just like in the first season, the music is done by studio MONACA, lead by Keiichi Okabe. From what you can hear in the anime, you may conclude that the soundtrack mostly contains electronic music and opera. A scene where the opera really stands out is when a part of the main cast is talking to each other, discussing their current situation and planning what they are going to do, in a place where the sunset is visible; the atmosphere is tense and just when the characters are about to go silent from unease, they look at the sun and notice that it is disappearing, not by descending into the horizon but by decomposing into (literal) words - the opera starts, you hear drums being played between long intervals and almost tribal chanting- they start panicking and then become aware that not only their surroundings but also the whole world is decomposing into words. I think thats one of the highlights of the second season; its a very intense scene. The opening theme is sung by Nanashi no Tarou, who doesnt have any more works in anime besides this one. You may notice that this opening is a bit more serious in tone than the first one, matching with the change of atmosphere in the story. And by the way, the lyrics portray feelings of sorrow and unease, which might as well, except for the romantic subtext, represent Lall's character in this season. The ending theme was made by the band LEEVELLES and its quite a good one. The lyrics describe a conflicted individual that tries to live an earnest correct life but doesnt get the rewards he expected to receive, supposedly from God, for it, ultimately struggling to live a happy live. Then, he reaches the conclusion that there must be meaning in life beyond living in a standard correct way and decides to search for it, like some kind of rebellion against God. In some ways, this illustrates pretty much every character in the series and their discontents with life. Because of that, apart from being a banger, the song is a very fitting ending theme for the anime. The opening has a similar look to the first opening, just like the ending is similar to the first ending. In other words, they dont have original animation and are composed of scenes from the anime. To me, thats a bummer, I wish they would have done something new for this season. (Characters) This time, the protagonist is Lall, the little fairy demon girl that accompanied Gorou in the first season but now as a human girl. She is portrayed as an immature, rebellious and short-tempered kid who will do anything and move anyone out of her way to reach her objectives. Of course, these traits dont make her a bad character but I did find her annoying, as she keeps being rude to the other characters and doesnt necessarily help them most of the time. The first new character we are introduced to is Eko Sasaki, the girl who does the school presentation at the start of the first episode. She is shy, frail and looks like the type of character who cant do things on her own even though she has goals and good intentions. Eko is in the same class as Lall and starts to follow her around to understand more about the god election. Because of that, she gets involved in the events of the story and ends up developing into a interesting character along the way. Another new character is Higaki Ebisu, the guy in the blue outfit that we see at the end of the first season. Hes an important politician in Japan (the prime minister, I believe) and hes participating in the god election. Contrary to the other characters, Higaki is a fully-fledged adult and doesnt pull any punches when fighting, posing a big threat to the main cast. He is also a very important character to the plot but doesnt get too much screen time; I wish we saw more of him. In general, the characters of Kamierabi are entertaining, fit the atmosphere of the story and have a sort of charming design but they dont have much psychological depth. Besides, in this season, not a lot of development was seen from the characters, except Ryou and Honoka. (Animation/art) Theres not much to say about it. Just as it was in the first season, the animation is good and consistent. And I think its good to note that the backgrounds of the scenes appear to be fully made with CGI and are very detailed. Its one of the strengths of this anime, and when I noticed that, I started to catch myself looking at the scenery of the episodes more than once. Having seen all the episodes of the anime, I say that what Kamierabi lacks in the most is the characters. If they had fleshed out the characters more, revealed more of their backstories or explored their personalities more, I believe the characters would get more interesting in the eyes of the audience and, in turn, the story would be more compelling. At the end of day, it ends up being mostly a plot-driven story, meaning that the plot doesnt revolve around the characters, but the characters revolve around the plot. And thats the highlight of Kamierabi: in season 1, we had Gorou getting into all of these peculiar situations and we got introduced to a lot of wacky characters and superpowers. Whereas in season 2, we get a intriguing plot and a surprising turn of events. And I did like the ending, it leaves you with an oddly positive message even after all the suffering that the characters had to go through in the story; you can say thats another one of Yoko Taro's trademarks. The message itself partially comes from your interpretation tho, and this why Im curious to read about what others make out of it. Although I dont see everybody liking the ending, I guess you can say that the last episodes are eventful and entertaining nonetheless. All in all, I thought this was an interesting experience: to see what an anime with a story made by Yoko Taro looks like. I dont think its likely but if he decided to make another one, I imagine it would be better and even more peculiar. And I would certainly watch it.