Kyoukai Senki Part 2, is the second and final season of Bandai's new attempt at a Mecha anime, continuing from where the last one ended, set after a few months, the battle for Japan continues, yet the hardest fight was trying to stay awake while watching this.
Before going off about this anime, one needs to understand that the only reason why this anime was made in the first place was to sell model kits, action figures, if you will, and this is no stranger to anyone, there have been many properties like these, such as Transformers and G.I Joe, with flashy, Saturday morning cartoons to
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incite you into buying the toys, a trope which this series seems to follow, but in the case of Kyoukai Senki, it is just the pure definition of plain mediocrity, just serviceable enough to convince you to buy one of the cool robots on screen, resulting in a story that is just bare bones.
Many of the problems that were present in the first part of this anime return yet again for Part 2, including the seemingly lack of a clear target audience, one of the main problems this series has is that it feels too childish at times, despite being a war story, and this is reflected on both the cute mascots that aid the heroes, including the main protagonist, Amou, who in season 1 was just a plain heroic protagonist, here he's been hardened by war, and is now a serious guy, or at least that's what the show wanted you to think.
Part 2 attempted to give answers to many of our questions that were planted on the previous season, and in case you were expecting to be surprised by any of these, then you're up for a disappointment, which unfortunately includes a lackluster ending.
Going onto spoiler territory, our hero Amou, thorough the season, is seen to be hiding a secret, a reason for his now dark persona, this is revealed to be simply that he killed a soldier, in front of some kids that he barely knew, a soldier that was ready to end his life, in a war setting, in which Amou himself stated that he was okay to kill in the first season,and while you may say that saying one thing and actually doing it are different things, its still twist that serves an example of how underwhelming all of the plot points are on this season.
The other characters fair no better, Gashin's character motivation, which was avenging his father by destroying Ghost, was kind of fulfilled at the end of Part one, I say kind of because Ghost was not fully destroyed, but Gashin never aknowledges this, he's just there to attempt to look cool and question Amou about his sudden edginess.
Shion, just like in Part one, is just there, she never does anything of notice, there are tiny bits here and there where they try to give her some character, but it never goes anywhere.
Plus the mascot AIs that are there to look cute and sell plushies, they don't really do much, except for an episode where they give them a Birthday party, which shows you just how much of a tone shift this can get.
And Brad Watt, the charismatic rival of the first season, is reduced to nothing but a scheming villain through the season, during almost all of Part two, Brad does nothing but look suspicious, as his subordinates try to figure out what is up with him, rinse and repeat until the final episode where he just reveals that he wanted to expose his father, which barely accomplishes anything story wise.
This brings us to the villain of the previous season, one of the big mysteries in Part 1 was the infamous jet-black, AI controlled mech known as Ghost, it's origin and it's intentions. At the beginning of this season, the answer is just told to us on our face, Maki, the engineer girl, made it, and it went evil, that's it, no explanation behind it's reasoning or anything, this not only gives us an underwhelming twist, but it also just ends up confusing the viewer when at the end, this machine that has done nothing but kill military forces, decides to spare the one that used to give him a fight, it just makes no sense to the audience because we have never seen him having any real interactions with Brad, in the end, Ghost was reduced to nothing but a plot device.
At the end of it all, the story is half unresolved, while main characters may have had their moments, they say goodbye to the fight while the world is still at war, and Japan is not even half reclaimed, but I guess that's all that you can do in this type of setting.
As for the animation itself, it's average, the best part of Kyoukai Senki is easily its Mecha designs, they want you to buy the kits after all, however, the fight scenes are extremely lackluster, with a lot of them consisting of static images, with effects planted on top of them, and camera pans to give you a sense of movement.
In summary, unless you really, REALLY like watching 2D Mecha simply stand there and look cool, or you're interested in the model kits, or simply want closure on the series, then there is absolutely no reason for you to watch this, it's just plain, no substance, you're better off watching any other Mecha anime.
Aug 26, 2023
Kyoukai Senki Part 2
(Anime)
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Kyoukai Senki Part 2, is the second and final season of Bandai's new attempt at a Mecha anime, continuing from where the last one ended, set after a few months, the battle for Japan continues, yet the hardest fight was trying to stay awake while watching this.
Before going off about this anime, one needs to understand that the only reason why this anime was made in the first place was to sell model kits, action figures, if you will, and this is no stranger to anyone, there have been many properties like these, such as Transformers and G.I Joe, with flashy, Saturday morning cartoons to ... 
Jul 11, 2015
*This is my first review, and i'm not so good in english, so sorry for grammar mistakes.*
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