To be honest, following Bambi Stray Dogs throughout the season was a surprisingly difficult task. Not just because of the weird and scattered narrative, but also because Crunchyroll changed its release schedule at least thirty-five times, just like the number of people Kyouka killed. So, my recollection of this series, which I only finished watching about twelve minutes ago, is rather hazy.
Looking back at the first cour from the spring, Stray Doggos was a decent time that seemed to have some sort of identity crisis. It had fun characters with crazy powers and an interesting concept with the main cast being a group of detectives rivaled against a mafia, but the story took some sharp turns in conflicting directions and was plagued by slapstick comedy about as appropriately-timed as someone’s ringtone of ACDC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ going off in the middle of their father-in-law’s funeral. Hey, I found it funny. Can’t say the same for the guy’s wife, though.
Now, the question everyone wants to know: Does the second season improve on the first in this regard?
Eh…
Like the first season, Stray Puppers makes a strong first impression. It kicks off with a prequel focused on Dazai and has a more dark and consistent tone despite Dazai being the silliest character of the series. Yet, even this gets tiring after a couple episodes.
For some reason, the arc stops focusing on Dazai, the fan-favorite of the series, and instead moves the spotlight to a guy who’s name I don’t know, because he wasn’t even in the first season. Who the hell’s this guy? Why should I care about him? He’s not particularly interesting beyond having one of the coolest powers of the series: a premonition-based power that activates when he’s about to die so that he can avoid it. The way Studio Bones visualizes it is entrancing. But the guy himself isn’t worth cheering for, because you know exactly how the arc is going to end. The point is that Dazai leaves the Port Mafia due to the events in this arc. A little clarification is nice to have for Dazai’s past, but did it need last a third of the cour?
Imagine watching this on a binge. You clear twelve episodes in a day or two. You’re finally invested in the people in the Armed Detective Agency and are excited about seeing the story evolve. Then, without warning, the anime cuts to new characters loosely related to the overall narrative and focuses on them instead, without looking back at the past season or even reassuring you that they’ll be back. I’d imagine it’d be a little strange.
Of course, after a few episodes the anime returns the spotlight to Sushi Guy, who got kicked out of thirty-five orphanages. The comedy doesn’t cut through everything as sharply and it introduces a new group of villains on top of the already-established Port Mafia, creating a three-sided war. It’s pretty interesting… but I could never connect much with the villains. Many of the people in this season just show up and leave after a couple episodes, and the shifting focus on Bucko’s myriad characters can make it hard to follow. It did for me, especially given that Pokemon Moon absorbed about a month of my life. Praise Mimikyu.
The more serious plotline leaves less room for characters to dick around all day, so there aren’t a lot of funny, memorable moments like there were with the first season, and no one really changes. With the first season, I thought Atsushi was a decent lead character who had a lot of room to develop, and I was interested in seeing that happen in the second. Nope. He still acts like a bitch all the time--in fact, his bitchiness seems to have increased somehow, because the slightest of mistakes will trigger the Naruto-level repetitive flashback of thirty-five people kicking him out of an orphanage. Yeah, that didn’t stop happening either. I’m not even sure why he’s the main character. Everyone else hypes up his tiger-transforming power as if it’s the most impressive thing in the world, but it’s actually not when he gets his ass kicked by literally everyone, just like how he got kicked out of an orphanage. And although he has the determined, ambitious attitude of a common anime lead, his reduced screentime makes it even more difficult to justify his placement in the series.
Kyouka, who killed thirty-five people, is a gem from the first season that also deserved some more polish. Eh… She develops a little more, which is nice, but I can’t say that anything about her is remarkable aside from her gorgeous character design, but frankly that can be said for basically everyone else. She’s the cute, quiet girl who’s trying to fit in. There’s nothing else to say about her, besides the fact that she got kicked out of thirty-five people, which makes the end of the season pretty hilarious. They try setting up a big emotional moment even though she was almost as useless as Sushiman.
The highlight of Bouncy is the fights, for sure. I wasn’t too interested in the powers from the first season beyond the incredible diversity, but this season introduces a new cast inspired by Western authors with matching abilities. My favorite was probably the last one, ‘The Great Fitzgerald’, which powers up the user depending on how much money they have and are willing to spend. Obviously there’s no real logic behind this or most other powers, but it’s still creative and a lot of fun, and that’s what counts.
Production’s about the same, not much that’s new to comment on. The art is as good as it was from the first season because based Bones, though I don’t know how often they used blank faces back then. For some reason, most scenes will just remove people’s faces entirely when they’re at a distance. I somewhat appreciate the artistic approach here, but it just looks strange.
Taku Iwasaki still remains a mixed bag to me, some of the backing music sounds hype as hell, and some of it sounds like he put a randomizer on some music studio on his computer. The opening song isn’t as good as GRANRODEO’s ‘Trash Candy’, which for me is one of my favorite’s this year, but SCREEN mode did a pretty nice job regardless. The accompanying animation wasn’t very memorable, but still appreciable because there are three different sequences, with the first two only showing up for a single episode. The ED sounds familiar because it’s by the same band who did the first season’s; it’s as good for me because its slow start makes for a great transition, and the moderate energy of the song makes it a good way to end an action-based show. Strong marks for this. Insert joke about Kyouka murdering people for consistency.
Overall, this second season of Gumball improved the show somewhat, but still opened up some new holes. It’s like sitting on a nice boat in the middle of a lake, but then you notice a hole, and now the boat’s sinking. You cover up the hole with your hands, but then another hole opens somewhere else, and it just keeps repeating. You can’t cover them all because you only have two hands and there are thirty-five holes. And the boat’s actually an orphanage.
Story - 5/10
Art - 7/10
Sound - 7/10
Characters - 5/10
Enjoyment - 5/10
People killed by Kyouka - 35/10
Overall - 5.0 (Score range: 4.0-6.0)
Recommendation level - Medium
