I'll put this section here early in case you guys miss it. Do visit my blog section on my profile after reading my review for an Afterthoughts pertaining to this particular Anime for some healthy discussion. Thanks!
Here goes:
1) Story (3/10)
- At this point, you would probably have finished watching the first season of this Anime. You wouldn't understand what was going on if you delved straight into the second season without watching the first. Read between the lines here. What I actually meant is that the story is kinda complicated and twisted in the fact that you have a war between Terrans and Martians and yet the one leading the Martians later on in the series is actually a Terran. Like I've said before, if you didn't watch the first season before starting on the second, you wouldn't understand what was going on.
Having loopholes in the story doesn't help as well. First season aside, the second one is another one where unless you are set up to intentionally be killed, you will never die. Not specifically mentioning scenes, there are points in the Anime where characters get shot in seemingly vital areas, yet live.
2) Art (7/10)
- In all honesty, this area of the Anime is one of its saving graces. In a Mecha Anime, you'd expect the fighting scenes to be well illustrated, with the machinery, gunshots and whatnot to be well depicted.
Take what I said with a pinch of salt, though. Even though I mentioned that the art was pretty decent, there were also some Kataphrakt designs that were ridiculously not in-line with their ability. If you didn't know before, every Count has a Kataphrakt that is associated with a special ability that is unique from the others. How they are not in-line, I will leave that up to your imagination as you watch the series.
3) Sound (8/10)
- Another one of the areas in which I would watch the Anime for. Sound choices pertaining to whenever fighting was about to start was pretty apt and generic music choices were good too. One point to note is that the overuse of the same music whenever the two main characters, Kaizuka Inaho and Slaine Troyard, were about to go into an epic 1v1 battle will sound boring to those who have heard it multiple times.
4) Character (5/10)
- Passable in the sense that I was worried about how Inaho would develop as a character in the second season after getting shot in the head in the first. The same goes for Slaine, as well as Count Saazbaum. Saazbaum was a bit of a disappointment as [START OF SPOILER] he was killed off early by Slaine [END OF SPOILER] so he didn't have much time to develop. Inaho and Slain, on the other hand, were given the entire season to develop as I must say that I am somewhat disappointed as well. Sure, both of them have had big advances in their area as to the things they are able to do and their individual skill in controlling their respective Kataphrakts, but what they were able to do with them is disappointing.
5) Enjoyment (6/10)
-Despite the low score on the Story section, I actually enjoyed the Anime series as a whole. Action was good; the fight scenes were nothing too incredible but not bad at the same time. Interaction among the characters, not just the main ones, were pretty decent as well. There were some, but not too much, of those cheesy scenes whereby "All right guys, we're at a disadvantage here. We need to band together through our strong feelings and we'll be able win."
6) Overall (5/10)
-Overall, I find the second season mediocre at best. If you've come to watch it because of the first season, then why not just go all the way and watch the second one as well. I personally wouldn't recommend the second season of an Anime to a person who hasn't watched the first, but if you're simply jsut a big fan of mecha Anime, why not?
