Characters
This series, Sousuke is noticeably more fleshed out. He's still his serious self, but we notice a little more development. He's often torn between when his orders contradict his feelings, a theme continued from the beginning of the original series (which I thought was the strongest).
Kaname is slightly more fleshed out as well. There's a nice episode where she's shown to be quite resourceful in the face of danger. Other than those few scenes, though, there isn't much.
Tessa's character is still great. She too must balance her feelings and her duty. It shows and foils well with Sousuke's conflicts.
Unfortunately, none of the other characters get much development. When a certain character from last season reappears, his motivations are still an enigma to me.
Other supporting characters are more cliches than actual people. Belfangan is just the hard but fair, leader. Melissa is still the gunslinger girl. Kalinin gets like two lines. The villian is a crazy guy, etc.
6/10
Story
The story is much better paced this time, at the cost of less humorous episodes. I don't mind the lack of humor since there's a whole other season of them lying over there ^. And they're not bad.
As for this story-- we get a crazy baddie working for some weapon development, evil corporation. Sound familiar? Honestly, it's the same old thing done over again with better pacing and character development.
Again, the series never explains why Sousuke is at points so godly and at points a wimp. There's this whole, season long conflict where Sousuke is having trouble using his mecha, but then it all wraps up for no (real) reason at the end of the series. It still doesn't make any sense-- which hurts the show terribly.
6/10
Art/Sound
The art/sound are good. There's actually some very nice lighting throughout the series. The voice acting is also noticeably better.
8/10
Enjoyment
The series still feels distilled, lacking. But this one is well paced and flows well, so you'll still want to come back for more.
7/10
Overall 7/10
