Oct 20, 2019
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A SPOILER THAT IS CLEARLY LABELLED
Quite a number of years late to the party, but here we go. The show is a well produced piece of shounen that has some glaring issues that I believe will make or break it for some people. Here's where it did for me:
Voice Acting:
The main character's - Rikuo - VA is terrible - for both seasons (I watched the subbed version). You obviously tell how out of his voice range he was doing yokai form. It has the same strain a lot of female voices have when they're doing a "deep manly" voice. The only time
...
I can take him seriously is when the character is in a heightened emotional state. Anytime he's trying to be "cool" there's nothing but cringe. That being said - the emotional expression is very good.
Aside from Rikuo, Kana, and Yura, however, the voice acting here is great.
Power Level:
The whole season seems to be plagued by the power level of the previous one. Because they set the power level of the main character so high in season 1, the writer(s) had to magically power up every other supporting character to a level beyond his. This is done multiple times - with the consistent excuse being "WOW! THIS IS HIS/HER TRUE POWER?!!?!? WOAH." Fights are also terrible power level-wise, trading consistency for spectacle. I believe the following example is necessary to let you see whether or not you can withstand the show: *Spoiler-ish Alert****** A character literally razes a city in a single swing, and then fails to kill anybody in the next one (It was a direct hit on multiple targets). We're shown that the first swing takes out multi-story buildings, but even the the most worthless of mooks is barely scratched. The rooftop the character is aiming at also survives the blast despite being made of wood.******Spoiler-ish Alert*
Abuse of the Talking is a Free Action trope:
This is a trope that a lot of shows use. Here it's used during the worst moments to set up a backstory flashback/exposition dump during every single fight.
Writing:
The story is incapable of integrating Rikuo's human and yokai life. His human friends are all but dropped and play no significant role outside of: stay inside where it's safe and appear only for maybe 5 minutes because we need piss-poor comedic relief. There's also this weird need to give non-characters that have an alright design screen-time for no reason; they're lacking in any personality traits that make them distinguishable when removed from their shells.
I'd say the best part of the season was the 2 episode flashback/backstory thing near the beginning.
Sound:
The openings and closing songs aren't as good as season 1. The score is still amazing however. I don't really know how to describe it as I'm not a musician, but I'd call it... swanky...? The sound design team is also still top notch.
Art:
It's beautiful; the character designs are cool, and the animation is smooth. The backdrops vary in quality, but are typically very good as well.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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