Do note that I binged through the first season of this show last Fall 2014. Note that there will be spoilers for the show.
Maybe, it could be that I already know the conclusion of the first part of the sequel that I am not really that emotionally invested in the characters. And hey, the way the show is presented in the beginning there is no attempt to hide the fact that this part of the sequel will not end on a good note. Maybe my sensibilities changed through the years that I might have been tolerant of some of the anime tropes back then. But, oh boy, the writing in this anime really went down a few notches, especially the character development department.
Okay, the world building is nice. However, it didn't provide any additional insight to the world aside from the things that are already known in season 1. Yes, we saw Tougo's past as Washio Sumi, her life as elementary schooler. We also got to know Sonoko's life before we see her in Episode 8 of Season 1. We also got to know how the Hero System worked before they were given the spirits.
However, one of the biggest offender of the show is Episode 3, which is the "breather episode". Going into the show, the viewer already knows the "twist" of the show and the fact that one of the characters in the show will die along the way isn't really a surprise. That makes that breather episode crucial for the audience to be emotionally invested with the characters given that the suffering is bound to happen.
Unfortunately, the writers managed to make that episode so cringey that finishing the episode is a slog that I have to pause the episode then watch something crappier like a random PragerU video to even motivate me to finish the episode. Case in point, there is a part in the episode where Sonoko's dreams were shown in the anime. They even named the segment "Sonoko's Dreams". One of the dreams is Sonoko imagining Washio as an idol. Then they performed as an idol, rendered in CG. At this point, my brain literally screamed; "WHAT THE F***, STUDIO GOKUMI! WHY ARE YOU PUSHING THIS IDOL CANCER IN THIS SHOW?". Why even include those crap segments? Why did the writers shoehorn ambiguous yuri dialogue at the end of that episode? My god, that episode really dragged on whilst the last episode really crammed everything (introduction of the new system, showing how Sonoko and Tougo came to be at their situation now, how Sonoko realize the drawback of the "mankai" system and how she saw the actual reality of the world). Literally, everything happened during the last episode that somehow any emotional impact it has was not felt.
