Pikaia!!

Following the events of the first season, the second season of this educational anime aimed for kids has some improvements if I must say compaired with the first season. The formula is still the same compaired with the first season as we first start with a recap of previous episode, followed by the main episoe and it ends with some trivia that digs a little deeper what you have seen during the episode. So let's dig a little deeper into this anime, shall we?


Story: 7/10 (Good)
Since the Cambria Project got scrapped (and probably because they ran out of famous Cambrian species left to cover - ... hehe), we now explore a small part of the Paleozoic world that's left behind by time. Humans still live in space as a colony due Earth being unhabitable. You can tell the story got a bit improved nonetheless. It's also a bit darker, since in the anime they now speak of The Sixth Mass Extinction; a current event that's actully happening right now due human activity. Wendy has become a main charather now due moral reasons. First the trio explore the Devonian sea whats now the Atlas Mountains of Marocco, a fossil locality I'm very familiar within the field myself. Then we go the the late Devonian of the North American Appalachian Mountains. After that we explore the Carboniferous Westphalian what's now eastern Canada. We pay a visit to the early Permian, more to be precise the Cisuralian. You know, the era of the synapsid Dimetrodon sp. Finally, we visit the late Permian; when almost the entire planet died out approx. 252 million years ago in the Changhsingian. The story teaches kids a bit more about extinction, one of those words most people don't like to hear.


Art-style: 5/10 (Average)
I think the art-style remains the same to me like previous season. Please don't think that I dislike it though. It's just that I dislike the combination between CGI & (computer) drawn animation. The prehistoric animals you get to see are still bad CGI in my opinion which I find a bit of a shame.


Sound: 6/10 (Fine)
I really can't trash talk the voice acting, even for this anime. The music is cute and suitable for kids that like to explore the unknown. It's fine like it is, honest!


Charathers: 6/10 (Fine)
It feels the charathers are a bit more fleshed out, which feels very refreshing to say to least if you compair it with previous season. You see more charather development and such, which is a good thing, right? We also have new charathers like Will & Harry, that now help out Morris while Professor Parker is somewhere behind the scenes doing things, but he gets screentime. We also finally get to see Frazer, I mean Captain Frazer that got mentioned in the first season.


Enjoyment: 8/10 (Very Good)
This show was pretty much "What is this Paleozoic animal?" for me, but I did enjoyed it. It was fun to see my favorite Devonian fish in an anime. I even learned something new about dragonfly's thier wings that I didn't knew.


Overall: 7/10 (Good)
In overall, since I could tell there are quite some improvements compaired with previous season, I'd like to give this anime a 7 out of 10 just because this anime isn't shy for mentioning we're basicly fucking up the planet in a fun way in an anime. It still bothers me the episodes are so short though. But then again; this anime is aimed for kids, so I can understand that.