"If I tell her that I want to see results from her, no matter how grueling the task or how high the wall, she always steeled herself and exceeded my wildest expectations."
The Lagrange series is about a trio of girls riding giant robots, but it's much more about their friendship and the warm home town of Kamogawa. Season 1 ended on a bittersweet, unfulfilling note, and the aim of season 2 is to finish the story and finish the journeys of many characters.
Season 2 begins several months after the end of season 1, and whatever warm feelings there were between Lan and Muginami are now swallowed up by conflict. De Metrio claims that Le Garite is trying to use the Vox (Madoka's Vox Aura in particular) to destroy the De Metrio star system to avoid a collision expected to happen in 1000 years. To that end, Muginami is ordered to eliminate Madoka if she is ever involved in such a plot, and naturally Lan won't stand for such a threat to her best friend. The trio's journey starts at an impasse, but seeing them grow into girls who could support one another, even when the exact same situation arose in the final arc, was a fulfilling moment. There's a similar evolution in Villagulio's character going into and through the final arc.
While season 1 did involve extraterrestrial humans to some extent, nearly all of the key scenes are at Kamogawa or in the skies above it. Season 2 added one combat scene at a research facility in another star system, and extensive scenes aboard the Le Garite flagship, but the vast majority of the story is still told at Kamogawa. So while the show is far from leaving Kamogawa behind, we do get more background on Lan and Muginami, as well as their brothers, the leaders of the star systems in conflict.
Between the two major arcs in the show, are 2 "fun filler" episodes. They're all right, in that we get to see the chemistry among not only the 3 heroines, but also their counterparts, the 3 Orbit pilots who settled in Kamogawa as employees of the BWH seaside shack. We see hints of what's to come in the final arc, but I feel that there could've been more in the lead-up, like actually showing the manipulation of Dizelmine rather than Moid casually chatting about it.
As in season 1, the prime weakness of season 2 is the story, whether in the planning or the execution thereof. The reason why Villagulio is "exiled" to what appears to be a prison planet is not very clear, even when it's spoken of in dialogue, yet another example of why telling the story in dialogue is far less effective than showing it in a flashback scene. This is the primary weakness of season 2's plot, because this is closely tied into the Vox incident involving Yurikano (and hence, the first major conflict in this season), and the final conflict of the series. When a bloodthirsty Dizelmine showed up in a Vox 3 episodes after he signed a ceasefire, I was like, "Wut? Did Moid give you a lobotomy?" Similarly, Moid's so-called "voice from beyond" motivation is likewise either poorly planned, or merely tossed in as part of the rantings of a madman. Because his backstory is conveyed entirely through dialogue (mostly from a maniacal rant in the style of 1980s American cartoon villains), it's impossible to tell whether he's delusional or lying. I would've pushed for another episode just to show his story-- this is an anime, right? It's almost as though 50 different "cool" ideas were brainstormed during the planning stages, and lacking a coherent way to tie them together, they just threw them in and made them decorations. Well, all right, it's not quite that haphazard, but it really feels like there wasn't enough time to express everything.
I will admit that the climax made for a really funny Moid scene where he got exactly what he deserved. I suppose that some viewers will have a problem with all the galaxy's problems being solved by giant magical flowers popping miraculously out of a planet-darkening cloud of doom because Madoka (more than likely) flew donuts in the "afterlife", but I thought that was a decent way to bail out of the story and say "they all lived happily ever after" (at least the epilogue was written such that everyone's stories went on from there). It's a fictional (emphasis: fictional) giant robot show, and the Memoria aspect already borders on magical girl territory, so I can forgive this. Kinda like Sailor Moon without the outfits.
It's good to see Yurikano's character developed beyond "second Yoko in the afterlife", but one thing really nags at me, and that's the fact that she refuses to say how she feels about her fiance Dizelmine, but she's less hesitant to remind Izo of a embarrassing event in their past. Now, I don't mind tsunderes, but it's a bit of a stretch from the straight shooter in the season 1 finale. The way she thought she could get Dizelmine to behave is a rather ludicrous stereotype that Japanese writers often fall back on: the idea that "if I sacrifice my happiness, he will be safe or be a better person". Rarely does it ever work out that way, and suggesting that to viewers as a valid path forward is, in my opinion, continuing a tragic cycle. Fortunately, there are roughly 3 female characters in the show who don't think this way.
The soundtrack didn't sound like there were any major additions to it, and Mamegu's opening and ending are fantastic; the ED in particular feels, again, like an echo of Stellvia's second ED by Angela compared to the ED in season 1. Unlike the doomsday minor key love song "The end of the world", however, the warm orchestration with what sounds like Okinawan instruments brings to mind an ocean sunset, perhaps at Kamogawa. "Track Suit Spirit" (USAF "flight suit attitude"?) is a silly number that probably would've been better used in the filler episodes; but then, "Wasurenaiyo" was meant to be used when Yurikano's character became more prominent.
Lagrange is, through and through, a character show, so plot elements that are great in isolation, serve to further development and drama in this production rather than tell an epic story. There are a number of flaws in the storytelling as a result, but this doesn't really compromise the core themes of the show; rather, again, telling fresh stories with good characters is Hard. To the credit of the production staff and cast, this is about the only glaring flaw of the show-- the characters are well written and directed in general, the visuals range from good to amazing, and the soundtrack is solid.
