YoshiKyon

8/10

AniList: [link]
S1 Review: [link]

This is the only seasonal I was watching this season (I tend to wait because a. I like binging shows, and b. I know people get swept up in seasonal hype and it takes a while to know how they'll actually hold up), mostly off the back of S1 being as good as it was.

I don't think it held up quite as well to the first season, but I definitely think it's good enough that it's worth watching both seasons. The 8/10 is for the second season alone, the combined is probably a high 9.

More detailed commentary and mild spoilers below the cut.

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Season 1 left off on a hell of a note, so the first big thing was how they were going to progress from that. And they mostly... kinda didn't? The first few episodes felt really awkwardly paced, both in the sense that things skipped ahead and had to fill in the gaps for major events that had been skipped over, and that there's a lot of world-building and backstory that needs to be filled in for this season to make sense. Unfortunately, most of that gets done through endless exposition - Prospera is central to most of that, and there are entire episodes that feel like they're just 25 minutes of her talking to various characters about the world's history. It's a shame because I know there are better ways to do these things - and G-Witch did them elsewhere, including the fact that there's a prologue episode - and it really ends up hurting the pacing of this season.

Outside of the pacing, though, the characters are just as good as they were before. There are some incredible moments with some incredible characters - Suletta, Miorine, Guel, Belmeria, Elan, Norea, and more - and the moments between those exposition scenes are really well-handled. This picks up as the series goes on, once the explanations are mostly done and the action can unfold, and the action is incredible. The visuals are gorgeous, the choreography is handled really well, and the audio is so perfect. I don't want to go into plot details here because there really are some big impacts, but one notable scene referenced a major scene from S1 and it just felt like it all culminated in a beautiful experience.

And then the ending... felt weak. I don't want to go into detail, but it really is disappointing enough that I can't help at least mentioning it. There's a lot that could have happened and one character seemingly takes the fall for a lot of it, and I really wish there was a little more resolution than actually happened. It's not enough to bring the whole series down, but it certainly makes it feel like that investment wasn't entirely worth it.

This all sounds negative, but that's because the highlights of the series are essentially "more of S1's glory" combined with some big emotional scenes that I won't talk about here because they are major spoilers. It's a visual spectacle with some fantastic characters, and while it slips occasionally from the top, it's still an incredible show with a few especially stand-out moments that make it worth watching.