Nanbaka 2

Nanbaka's second season starts off with an episode that restates a certain quote and reinforces the meaning of this quote multiple times during the episode - "Nanbaka is a gag anime", Nanbaka has always been at its best when it's portraying the daily lives of our eccentric innmates and guards of Building 13 in all their fun, frolic, heavily contrasted colors, sparkles and comedic glory. The occasional appearance of characters from other buildings adds some nice diversity to the regular formula delivering an overall fun and enjoyable experience. After a first episode that seemed to draw focus to the show's best element, it felt as ... though the show was signifying a return to it's roots as gag anime and this most certainly felt like good news to me. After the serious action oriented episodes of the middle half of the first season, this focus on comedy was exactly what I felt the series needed. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the second season of Nanbaka is far more serious and action-oriented than the first season ever was.

Of course I'm not saying that the action is Nanbaka is bad, in fact the action scenes are actually really cool at times and are pretty enjoyable to watch. Though sometimes, this seriousness and over the top superpowers that do not in the least seem anywhere near believable given the setting and nature of the show can require some immense suspension of disbelief. The weird thing is, the shift to a serious tone is in a sense what allows the comedic episodes that follow post the seriousness to be so effective, this is especially true when you take note of the last 3 episodes of the first season which were both really funny and even heartwarming. Ultimately, this comedy-serious-comedy structure of Nanbaka works and is what makes the show what it is.

Going into the second season, I expected the same thing from it, I hoped they'd keep the action and seriousness to a minimum with focus on the comedic side of the series, but boy I didn't think I'd be this wrong. In all honesty, the first two episodes of this season are the only ones which can even be remotely considered comedic and fun episodes, from the 3rd episode all the way to the very end the show becomes more action-oriented and all serious again. Once again, this doesn't mean that these episodes are bad. There are some really good stories wrapped within this serious arc that deals with the escape of a former guard captain who was imprisoned for murder. Samon's (Monkey Guard Captain) backstory, Upa/Liang's backstory and some of the past history of the prison are pretty cool. There is a decent amount of character development for Jyugo as he learns to grow out of his insecurity and confidence issues but his constant musings and the fact that he gets antagonized by certain characters during this phase can get a little annoying. At points, it also feels like the show is trying too hard to showcase this arc as something special when in reality, it's really nothing ground breaking. The battles themselves as I stated above are still cool to watch and while all these superpowers seem unbelievable, you can't deny that they're quite entertaining to watch. With all that said, the main issue during this whole action/serious oriented phase is the fact that this phase is dragged on endlessly to span over the rest of the season. This ends up as a complete contradiction to the expectations set up by the first episode - "Nanbaka is a gag anime" seems to have been completely ignored. This is not to say that there is no comedy during the main arc, there is some comic relief at points but this feels like the kind of comedy you'd find in a Battle Shonen not a 'gag' anime like Nanbaka and often this comedic relief just falls flat. As you witness this over and over again, the show starts to feel tedious and at points it feels like the series just discarded it's original identity to try and become something else.

Summing up, I honestly felt the first season was much better. It had a better structure and the episodes played to the strengths of the series, the action had an element of fun to it in the form of games and competitions. Nanbaka's second season has none of this and is in a sense nothing more than what you can call an arc of an action anime which ultimately downplays the comedic strength of the series. If you liked the action oriented episodes of the first season you will probably like this season as well. However, if like me, you like Nanbaka for the comedy then you will most probably be disappointed.

With all that said and done, you know what the worst part of this entire season is? The arc is still not over. So if we do indeed get a third season, it's just gonna be more of the same action Nanbaka. All I can do now is to hope and eagerly await the day Nanbaka truly returns to it's roots as

'Nanbaka is a gag anime'. (Both me and Mitsuru cannot stress this enough XD)

I loved Nanbaka until season 2. Sure, it had its flaws such as the main character having the least amount of personality, but hey, it didn't ruin the insane sparkle the show had. However, Nanbaka shot itself in the foot once they decided to give the story a dark and serious plot. The zany, brightly designed and over the top characters clashed with the plot they tried to introduce. I'm never one to abandon an anime just because I wasn't "wowed" by it, but eventually, I found season two simply dragging and had to say "R.I.P". I loved the first season, but then the ... second season was like "Let's have plot'" and but my best friend (who was also watching the show) and I were just like 'Let's not tho, right?' but were further disappointed by the plot continuing to overpower the crazy banter.
We need a Nanbaka that's just "baka". I would love to see these gorgeous pretty boys continue shenanigans around the prison, maybe introduce a rival prison somehow. but tragic backstories and intense plot was not something this show needed. Unfortunately, that's my reasoning for the show never really taking off. it is too bad, because these characters would have made amazing cosplays!

Warning possible Spoilers

You know it's been a while since I have encountered a second season that was worse than the first and sadly it had to be this anime.
The story continues with our lovable Nanba inmates who are still causing trouble for the guards, but in the shadows a new threat has awoken.
Now I liked the first season, but what the hell happened to the story in this season it started off well with the usual comedic first few episodes, then it gets back into the dark thriller quick quickly then everything suddenly starts to drag a lot I mean there were a few cool ... moments inbetween, but why did the story have to focus so much on the prisoners trying to help free the guards after a coup happened in building 5 like seriously in episode 4 the inmates with Hajime go to building 5 and get caught in a trap and from that point on it just drags on very heavily and decides to focus on every big fight that happened for like 3 episodes each it got very tiresome and then there was the godawful cliffhanger that the series didn't deserve and it just made this second season almost pointless because everything that happened in season 1 with Juugo and the revelation with elf and the man with the scar doesn't even get any attention which really annoyed and made me feel like this season was filler so that everything can be resolved in season 3 which it probably won't.

The characters remained as lovable as ever, but for some reason this season decided hey lets split everyone up and take characters out of the person or hide them from the viewers eye for loads of episodes, the first season had a very well done mixture of character screentime and gave each of the cell 13 inmates a decent amount of concentration whereas in this season they take Rock out by episode 4 and split the others up except Juugo and Uno who travelled with the Pretty boy duo Trois and Honey who got way too much screentime, although they did do some badass stuff not gonna lie there, true they do try to give more backstory on other's like Liang, Upa and Qi, but it just didn't work for me and felt like it was really stealing screentime for other characters who could've had attention.
At least the villains were actually pretty interesting or annoying take your pick, but they definitely pack a punch no doubt about that, but funny how the main villain Enki only gets like what less than 5 minutes of screentime throughout the whole series now you know you've messed up there.

The artstyle remained sparkly and colourful then at some point in the show they decide to take out the sparkles and colour and just give us dark gloomy hallways for 8 straight episodes which got boring as hell, plus why the hell did some many drag queens show up seriously there were so many colourful characters in one scene that my brain was turning into a rainbow.

The action though was pretty damn cool some of the inmates like Trois and Honey were able to show off their own moves and the same could be said for Liang and Upa who also put up a decent fight against hachiman, I also have to give Nico some credit for when he went insane because there's one certain is that always make sure Nico gets his medicine, but yeah there were actually some cool fight scenes however it was annoying how it took until episode 11 just for Juugo to use his Sword Arms again.

The comedy started off strong in the first few episodes, but the further the show went on the more the jokes just fell flat for me and it really sucked because the comedy was pretty damn good in the first season and made me think again as to what the hell happened here.

Overall this second season was pretty dull and disappointing mostly, it does start off strong which is why I gave it a 6, but that strength just disappears more and more the further I went, the only reason you should watch this is if you watched the first season other than that I wouldn't bother.