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This is a 9/10 for me. It's definitely a must watch.
1st, let's talk about the upsides. I gotta say how i adore the art, the music and overall, the atmosphere that these 2 factors create altogether. You gonna have to watch the anime to understand, but those who watched it should. The characters are original and well designed. And the story is some of the best i've ever seen for quite awhile, given the context of a 12-episodes anime.

However there are some downsides: There's one big gap of story in the episodes between episode 8 and episode 12, which is kinda unwell planned. The tempo ... of the anime was pushed up really high around episode 9 and suddenly got dramatically dropped almost to an idle level, with even less activities than the first few episodes. If you've learnt about presentation's 101s for awhile, you'd know that it is very ill-advised to leave the tempo comparatively low for a really long time (almost 2 episodes and a half). Some of you may have experienced that kind of the moment when you talked for too long with too much information on a certain points and the audiences start to look around and lose their focus/interest. That exact thing happened in the last few episodes of this anime: The tempo was killed brutally right after episode 9 and the events which were meant to bring back the tension were actually not every well exploited (They happened too quick and not dramatic enough. The response of characters to those events were also lukewarm). Thus, much less tension was felt in the final episode than there were supposed to be, and the ending, as good as it is, couldn't generate the full enjoyment burst that we expected.

I'd conclude this with another comment regarding the characters. Most of the characters are portrayed at the perfect depth, especially Nino. However, i still hoped that they have prioritize a bit more on the "Cigar Pededer" side - that perceptive, decisive and enigmatic side of Jean. It felt like that identity felt short quite a bit at the second half of the anime where Jean was almost led by the nose by multiple different characters. It's not like Jean's personality is not being logically portrayed, I gotta say l love that honest side of Jean and we love him for that character, but there's not enough spotlight for that Yami Yugi side at the 2nd half. It almost killed that identity and at the end of the day I felt Jean's a little bit inconsistent. These factors contributed to the limited enjoyment that the ending created.

And here I am wondering how the actual fck this anime's got nearly 8.5 rating and got to be there on top of the chart. This is actually as poor as humanly possible from every freaking single aspect from which an anime can be judged.

Let's let alone the art cuz this series has an 'unique' kind of art that somehow synergy pretty ok with its theme. So i'd give it a 7 and leave it there. The character somehow got an a-ok development from ss1 considering that this is a 10-episode anime. Also, I'd not complaint abt some like this-anime-is-more-slice-of-llife-than-adventure because i can just ... ignore that kind of crap and enjoy it as a slice-of-life just fine. Given that the silliness dumb and dumber kind of thing is the main source of enjoyment in this anime.

Now here's the bad part: This anime season had like 2 arc and a half of content. This is quite a rich overstatement because the judge arc and the tomb arc was meant to be 1 arc. So basically it has 2 arcs for a freaking anime season. Also, don't hope for the arc they advertised in the anime's OP, you'd be disappointed. Basically the second season has not every near 1/3 of the previous season's content value, and the ending's not even half as rich as the 1st. The only way i can forgive this is the possibility that there'd be a ss3 coming soon and this serves as the a middle season as well as a way to milk more money out of this series. However if there's nothing happen (again) in ss3 i'd consider this a fcking scam and drop this series.
The enjoyment and comedy stepped up a bit compared to the 1st season but they seemed to run out of ideas pretty fast. Basically they just add more characters to the main casts and put more emphasis and amplification on each character's "weaknesses" and apparently the viewers are fine with it but from the technical standpoint this approach is damn lazy and mediocre. Basically they're just saying "Hey, these stuffs work all the time so let feed them again again and again with them."

And then, finally, there's the characters. These idiots are obviously the only bright side of this series, who we'd love to meet again soon.

This is the best freakin anime i've ever seen in my entire life. Writing this because it's so sad for me to say goodbye, cuz its the final episode next week.
So basically this anime were a masterpiece in its ss1 and continued to do what made it the best in ss2, technical wise. The music, the background music, the rakugo, the background art, the characters' emotions and psychology, and all other things. It fits the mood so well that normally it could hardly be told. In ss1, the background music was absolutely the star, thanks to dramatic twists that the anime's plot gave. ... However, in this season, i think the hero role is shared between the music and the character's expression, especially the different faces of Konatsu and Yotaro. The story of the 2nd season is literally the 2nd Generation: The rakugo, as well as the main character role is shared inbetween a small community with Yotaro being the center, and Master Yakumo being the reason of all.
Basically all you'd do in ss2 is falling love with everybody after listening to their story and looking out for them, hoping for a happy ending.

Before writing this review, i'd need to clarify some information regarding my standpoint as an audience: A
1. This is my FIRST Gundam. So i can't really tell the different between the art and the story between this and the previous gundams. So don't expect something like "This is the best/worst gundam ever out of me". ALSO, if you learned enough Psychology you'd know that human has tendency to have emotional attachment to the FIRST VERSION of something that they LIKE/LOVE. For example, if you listened to Michael Buble's Home FIRST and loved it, you would not like West Life's version as much. The same logic ... applies to the reverse case when you listened to West Life first. Thus, it is possible that i'd have higher opinion on IBO than your beloved Gundams, and pardon me for lacking of Gundam-culture. In return, i'd keep my review as neutral as possible.

2. I always appreciate the CONSISTENCY the animes when the season 2's on par with, or better than season 1. It is extremely difficult to keep surpassing. Remember, IBO ss2 served as a CONTINUATION of one storyline, which mean it is not meant to SURPASS the story of first season, but meant to CONNECT with the first season into a GRAND STORYLINE - ONE ANIME (This logic does not apply to all the animes, obviously. But in the case of IBO, it does). In short, DEMANDING for SS2 to have BETTER story than SS1, to me, sounds nothing more than a load of bull spouted by a bunch of ungrateful fcks.

Now, for the review.

The first strong point of IBO (Both SS1 and SS2, as i said) is itself being a symphony of battles/Wartime and short breathe of Peace. If you read a lot of wartime literature (I was born in Vietnam, so there's a lot of those in our literature), you'd see that this the War-Peace blend that this anime maintained is close to, if not to say, perfect at a masterpiece level. Comparing to Code Geass or Aldnoah: Zero, IBO is just of another level in this particular department. Basically, Adnoah: Zero and Code Geass both created a good proportion of war but the variety of characters available and the depth at which each characters are portrayed are just not enough to create a good War-Peace blend. On the other hand, IBO have multiple characters sharing the role of the first-person view and main character and that's what make the anime's so dam good.

The second strong point lies in the many faces these anime characters that this anime portrayed. The number of characters having a relatively far personality development is absolutely phenomena. We have multiple 1st-person seats: From the main hero Mikazuki, to the ones have their loves and siblings and comrades die in the war, ones who could have separated themselves from the war, and the ones who are obsessed with the war. Most of the characters are developed just perfectly deep enough. And the romance factors, little as they are, shine like flowers blooming from the iron armor of the Isarabi, along with family love, and comrades' bonds. At the same time, all of those flowers of different circumstances and lives are connected with the bloodline of fate they shared together: The thing most people would perceive as these kids' naivety and shallowness is exactly the kind mindset they need in wartime, especially as the underdogs with no chance of victory. Again, it comes back my background: As i mentioned earlier, I read a lot of Vietnamese wartime literature and this psychology - what's called "naivety", "stupidity" or "madness" by the enemy, and called "Patriotism" and "Sacrifice" by the Vietnamese, is simply ubiquitous, and overly familiar. This is what it looks like from the perspective of the underdogs. In order to win, they have to let themselves be brainwashed. They need to fight with a few hundred, or thousands, percent of what they have. IOB is a masterpiece at portraying wartime, that could easily shy Aldnoah: Zero and Code Geass.

In short, this is, in my opinion, absolutely a masterpiece among war/military animes. The character's development, the comrade bonds, the wartime romance and the psychological progress of each characters have never been this close to perfectly developed, given the story of the entire anime and the background of the characters (both season 1 and 2). The story, as most people would say, predictable. But it doesn't have to be overly complex. Sometimes, simple story is needed provide the perfect environment for many other perspectives of an anime to shine.

This anime fits the 8.5-8.7/10 caliber in my scale and given how underrated it is, the overall score should be 9.
Since everyone has already done great job reflecting the positive sides, i'd give some of my opinion on why this anime did not receive as much as it deserves: The answer is the Enjoyment a.k.a Satisfaction factor. This anime barely does anything further than transmitting its stories.
The first reason for the low satisfaction come from the art/music/atmosphere: While it's perfect for the samurai/seinen theme. it hardly deliver the vividness and the progressiveness/development. The second reason is the lack of audience involvement: Although it's not necessary ... the case for all viewers, it is hard to find in this anime a character who you can fully reside in and find the first-person seat or involvement, including Hasegawa Heizo. The Heroes as well as the antagonists are just too talented, too righteous and too experienced.
Of course, these are ANYTHING but FLAWS.They are the factors that make this anime shine. However, But at the same time, being flawless and stick to its definition can restrain an anime's potential. If there are two flawless dish on the table, the one that create more Satisfaction will win. Also, if an anime plays well along the audience's involvement and emotion, it could convert its flaws into strength. A good example of this type is Re:Zero (Though personally i don't rate Re:Zero very high rofl. Still, it did very well in the audience-involvement department).
So basically Onihei created a box for itself and couldn't get out of it.
Hopefully this helps venting the frustration anyone would have on how underrated the anime is.

This anime earned its 7.2/10 just for the waifu alone (and probably a little bit for the C* C**l**n C**ter - censored to avoid spoiling) and the (little bit) of actions as far as i understand.

It has ABSOLUTELY ZERO VALUE in terms of plot. The entire movie can be summarized within 2 sentences (or even less). People keep talking about shits nobody understand, die for reason nobody knows why, begging the viewers to read all the story related to this movie AS IF we are supposed to do that 1st and if we already did that 1st we would not see the movie at all ... anw or would find it a load of bull

Still, voted 7 for the waifu. And for that reason only.