Juubee-chan 2: Siberia Yagyuu no Gyakushuu

Quite some time ago, I saw Jubei Chan - The Ninja Girl, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Now that I've finally started purchasing anime for my own collection, I decided to get the sequel, hoping to once again enjoy some nice modern-samurai comedy.

One word: Disappointed.

The art is still nice and clean, and the battles are intense, but that doesn't really make up for the lack of other interesting parts to the show.

While I say the battles are intense, this may not be considered a good thing by all, as the battles now consist of simple power Vs power, high-energy fights, which I cannot remember being ... a focus in the last series. And even then, the fights are few, and they are usually over all too quickly.

Outside the fighting, there is the story, the supporting characters, and the comedy. The story itself is decent enough, following in the footsteps of the previous entry, though this one seems shallow in comparison, and many of the serious scenes seem unnecessarily drawn out, along with seeing the same flashback a couple too many times.

A fair number of the supporting characters from the original have been made almost inconsequential, taking with them a number of interesting and amusing personalities, in particular, Koinosuke no longer being a major character has left a large hole that the writers don't seem to have been able to fill. A few more still present, who were amusingly silly in the previous series, still seem to be silly, though less amusingly so, and are possibly getting a bit too much screen time than they should. On the flipside, the few 'important' supporting characters returning from the last series are well implemented and deserving.

As for new characters, well, if you count the Siberia Yagyu group as one character (since they always appear together), then there really aren't many, not even with the inconsequential ones, and none are interesting enough to make up for characters lost.

And lastly, for comedy. Well, apart from the previously mentioned silliness of some characters, and a few jokes repeated from the previous series (reminders of how good the first series was), there really isn't much to talk about, though what little there is that works, works well.

Despite all that negativity, I don't believe it's a horrible series, but if you're a fan of the original, don't be too excited by the prospect of more Jubei.

Before I go, I'd just like to say, that 3D animated......'thing' is freaky, and should never have existed. Seeing that thing was a real "what the..." moment.....every single time I saw it.

This is highly disappointing.

Everything I took in from the first season was an incredible comedy that was serious, but not too serious; and frequently misconceived by many as something else.

But, this was a joke. Right off the bat, they repeat the same plot and the theme song is just the original with a slightly updated violin theme and visuals. Did not mind that too much since I normally do not care for most opening and closing credits of anime, anyway.

But, HOW can the humor and quality drop so much? It seems like they sacrificed their decent writing, excellent comedy and more just to improve the ... animation; leaving in the fight scenes to be the parts to look forward to now.

But, it turned into a generic comedy EXTREMELY quick. They actually changed the design of one of the characters and only voice actors of Jubei and Sai returned in the dub. The other characters themselves also underwent significant, unnecessary personality adjustments.

I am glad I did not impulse on getting this one too, because it disappoints right off the bat. It started out good and the improved animation was very nice, but as soon as I heard the new voice actors something felt off. And, just like that, everything got worse as it progressed.

I do not recommend this at all, but if you saw this first, do not judge its prior season; which is a million times better. Give that a go and end it there, as that one already ended on a good enough note and had beautiful composition in some areas as well. It is worth watching, but not its sequel.

CRITICAL FAILURE!!
Well, I'm pretty certain that I have found the most useless anime sequel I've ever watched. The first Jubei Chan story wasn't spectacular, but it's approach was kind of cool, the humor was pretty good, filled with lots of jokes that break the third wall, bright character designs, and some really cool battles. Jubei Chan 2 is almost the exact, same show with the same premise, trying nothing at all new and completely wasting the viewer's time!
STORY: (4) Just a pathetic rehash of the first story, except that this time, someone else has shown up with a lovely eye patch and ... is claiming to be the real Yagyuu Jubei successor. Okay, this here just whizzes what was already established in the first story of Jubei's successor had to have "plump, bouncy, bon bons", which was never brought up at all in this series. Outside of the mysterious, patch-wearing imposter, it's pretty much thirteen episodes of this:
Someone: Miss Jiyu, please fight! You're the only one!
Jiyu: I don't want to! I'm Jiyu!
Someone Else: Miss Jubei, you have to fight! Put on the eye patch!
Jiyu: I don't want to! I'm Jiyu!
Another Person Bleeding: Miss Jubei, I'm dying! Fight that person!
Jiyu: I don't want to! I'm Jiyu!
There's way too many flashbacks to same scenes to the point that nothing gets established and gets marred in medicority. They don't answer anything that you don't already know and pad the show for at least four of the thirteen episodes. There's just a lot of stuff in this plot that doesn't make any sense or really gets fleshed out.
ART (8): The character designs are still very good, and the backgrounds are nice and colorful. Some of the new characters like Freesia look adorable, but uninspired compared to Jiyu or Mikage. The battles still look nice, but have regressed into over-the-top, explosive battles as opposed to the solid kitana duels that the first series focused on, as well as these fights are too far and few in between to enjoy.
SOUND (5): The English dub isn't too good, but I've heared worse. My problem is that the voice cast was changed from the Bandai dub to Geneon. Jiyu sounds like she's 21, and the comic relief characters are incredibly grating. Only Mikage sounds really good and expresses genuine emotion in her voice. Freesia has a decent dynamic going of displaying two personalities at times, but sadly this is never really played into as much as you think it would.
CHARACTER (3): Nothing good here. At all. Jiyu herself is a selfish, shallow lead who has not progressed from the first story, resorting to the same spoiled little brat that I grew to hate intially. She never takes the severity of the situation at hand and the fact that Mikage, for the second time, puts herself in danger for Jiyu. Her father Sai is probably the star of this series, going through the most character development than anyone else and is one of the few bright aspects of the show, but this is overlooked constantly. Mikage, who I've mentioned several times, is still awesome, and is the only other person next to Sai who I enjoyed.
Freesia could've been a nice antagonist, but doesn't quite live up to the standard and just turns out to be a mild nuisance who Jiyu eventually battles with. She's nowhere near as intimidating as Hajime from the first series and her only selling point is to offer PG-rated fan service. Her goal is to make Jiyu suffer, but I was thinking "why not kidnap the father and hold his life at stake for a duel?". There is so much more they could've done with her, but her backstory makes no sense and you don't feel any real hatred from her. Just way too underdeveloped.
AND NO KOINOSUKE! Easily the best character from the first series has been replaced by his boring daughter!? He was the heart of the first series and you get rid of him? Why does his daughter have the eyepatch? Why is she trying to give it to Jiyu instead of him?! It makes no sense!! You killed the franchise! Thank you!
ENJOYMENT (3): It's surprising just how boring this show is and that's what makes it so bad. There's just no reason to care for anything,ANYTHING, that's happening. The plot makes no sense, the villian is stock, the comedy is not funny, and for thirteen episodes, it feels like it goes on forever.
OVERALL (4): If you're a fan of the first Jubei Chan, you might be very disappointed with this lackluster sequel. Nothing about it is better than the first.