Posted by OP Sequence
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
OP: 「SEIEN」by Lenny code fiction
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
「魔王の知恵比べ」 (Maou no chie kurabe)
“The Demon King in a Battle of Wits”
In between AOTY post preparation (did I mention that’s coming in a few days?) and first episode disappointment I didn’t think I’d wind up covering any more of Maou Gakuin’s second season, but figured why the hell not. Sunday is free, I’m half drunk, and goddammit it I still love this series. I may not be fully convinced in hindsight that it was the right choice – but it certainly wasn’t a bad one.
Much as discussed back in the opener last week, the main irk with Maou Gakuin’s return right now is the horrendous pacing and material hacking and slashing. In almost the blink of an eye we got character (re)introductions galore, the reveal of some important backstory and setup for the current arc, and major developments which at any other time would take a few episodes to properly get going. This episode didn’t really correct for these issues, however it did at least manage to smoothen some of the edges. We now know for example that one of Anoth’s set of adorable cuties subordinates happens to be the child of a god, and that some unsavoury elements are looking to both monopolize said child for their own purposes and constrain Anoth’s considerable power. Or if you will, just another day in the life of the reincarnated demon king. As Eleanor and Zeshia so wonderfully put it, no damn idea what’s going on and who’s all involved, but I know I’m not minding it!
Of course for all these improvements there’s still a noticeable degree of uncertainty, particularly given these past couple of weeks can be considered a refresher to Maou Gakuin’s world. The big thing I’m waiting for is the comedy and slice-of-life moments: these facets were what elevated the first season so much in a lot of people’s eyes and until we can see how they now fare with Anoth VA change we’re still arguably only looking at half a show right now. Likewise comes certain focus on previous characters; it’s one thing to flash the familiar faces back at us for a few seconds at a time, totally another to give some proper fleshing out and remind everyone of just what each of these girls (and alright, Lay too) is about. Considering though that there’s a godly presence in the crowd I don’t expect this bit to be that troublesome, because if there’s one thing series like this enjoy it’s explaining things down the line, and there’s certainly lots already worthy of some additional screentime.
It’s only a question of what this arc’s (and by extension this season’s) big twist winds up being.
ED Sequence
 |
 |
 |
ED: 「エソア」 (Esoa) by Momosu Momosu
Preview
 |
So it seems that the guy who was put in charge of making sure that the Great Spirit Reno’s chastity was protected from rapacious gods may actually have beat them to it. That’s a fairly big twist already!
Wait until we find out it’s actually a Virgin Mary scenario XD
Well, Misa is supposedly a devil/spirit hybrid, she said the half sword in the Unitarian’s HQ was her father’s, Anos identified the same half sword when reconstructed as belonging to Shin and Shin had been assigned to the spirit Reno as bodyguard. Still, you could be right, who knows how spirits reproduce?
This episode is like having infinite ammo in all Resident Evil games. I watch this Anime when I have a stressful workday.
Still though I don’t know where all those doubting students get their confidence.
I liken this to One punch man s2. The first season of Maou was stupid fun for me. I could turn it on, laugh, and never take it too seriously. This season, I’m just not getting those same results. I think it’s a combination of the new VA for Anos and the direction, but it’s just not delivering that same comedic punch as it did last time. It feels like it’s taking itself way too seriously, and the actual content here is so bland and unoriginal, that it can’t carry the series. Without the comedic aspect, this is just another boring throwaway fantasy series.
I stayed for episode 2, hoping that things would change, but I just can’t. This is just way too dull for me.
I’m likely to give this one more episode, but yeah I’m in a similar place at the moment. A lot of it really is down to how serious matters are right now, there’s none of the deadpan humour of before or chuckle-worthy developments that the first season had in abundance in its first half.
It really feels like this episode in particular was meant to be a mid-season climax, not the first episode followup.
I’m following the official LN translation over at JNC, but now the anime has caught up with it so I’m completely in the dark as to where this is going. It just feels like a mess right now, but I guess I’ll stick with it for a little longer to see if it resolves itself somehow.