What do you think contributed to all the hate for LH's S2?

mayukachan said:
1. Studio DEEN
everyone loves to hate on this studio even though it's not that bad

2. Lack of focus
Especially in the middle (that random episode with the random characters idk) and with the kids' arc being there

Tenshi_Shura said:
Just as the title says. Log Horizon season 2 has been getting a lot of hate lately and has been considered a bad sequel to season 1.

Takuan_Soho said:


At the beginning of S1 Log Horizon was unknown, so when it successful redefined the "trapped in a game" genre it got a lot of love. The trouble with S2 is that LH was no longer a surprise hit, people were expecting it to be even better. So when it was "merely" more of the same, many fans were disappointed, also the cliches of the series started wearing thin, Akatsuki and Naotsugu's conflicts, the love triangle, between S, A and M. They weren't bad, but they were jokes that started to wear thin after 48 episodes.

This is not to say that there wasn't problems with S2, namely:
1) Studio Deen has a lot of people who hate them, particularly FATE fans who are both legion and vocal. I do have the feeling that NHK worked with a smaller budget with S2 (part of the problem with Deen is that they do seem to be lower budget, hence the art work is less deep). I don't think the art was bad in S2, and I accept that budgets are budgets, but I can understand people's disappointment.

2) Though not Studio Deen's fault, Kanami's character design in S2 was far worse than in S1. Many fans hated this since Kanami was a fan favorite (I find it hard to blame them on this, Kanami had a great deal of mystery hence appeal in S1, but in S2 she had a new character, and she became more tangible, losing the appeal).

3) S1 had a very linear storyline. The main characters were together from start to finish. The writing of S2 necessitated story-lines that seemed like side stories (particularly the arc with the kids). Now this wasn't the animation's fault, they did an excellent job of translating some difficult (in the sense of translating them to animation) novels, but there is no denying that the story wasn't as tight in S2 as it was in S1. Not the writer's fault, not the animation's fault, but I can see why visual only fans were disappointed.

4) One fault I would definitely pin on the writer is that there were very few Shiroe being a bad ass scenes. That was a great appeal of S1, these were few and far between in S2. Of course the problem is that it is hard to constantly make the MC badass as the story progresses, but one of the greatest appeals of S1 were those Shiroe being the boss scenes. S2 needed more of these. The writer lost track of this during half of the novels that became S2 and the series, both written and animated, suffered.

A simple test when comparing two season is how many moments you can remember from either season. While I did not dislike S2, I would say that I remember far more scenes from S1 than S2. That in the end is the primary difference.