I can imagine that just by reading the overall scor you already hate me. But i can't give it any more than this, when i overlay the "4" it says "Decent", and this second season (not the firs, and certainly not the novel) is WAY below decent. So i'm sorry but it's what it is. A poor second season.
I'm not arguiing that the animation and sound is as epic as ever. My main complain is "what the hell happened with the plot!?". Maybe the plot died at the explosion in the end of the first season. Maybe the people in charge of adapting the novel said "Adapt the novell as it is?, pff that's for NOOBS, we are pro, we got mad skillz yo. We gonna get high and come up with a plot of our own, using the same characters as the first season".
You could give this piece of crap a higher score out of love / respect for the first season. Or maybe out of love for some of the characters. Yes you could, but please don't. If you give this abomination an 8, how could you give the first season a 10?, you would have to give it a 20 or else the scores won't make sense anymore.
Character "Development"
More like character involution. During season one, the characters meet, they live a lot of things together, wich makes their relationship / feelings (not just romantic) evolve, change, as it happens in real life as you get to know someone better you like / dislike him / her more.
There is no way you could say the relationship between Shana - Yuji - Yoshida is the same at the beg of the first season, than at the end.
Great!, so why trun back the clock in season 2?. Why GOD WHY!?. Why start again with the whole "should i teel him?, shouldn't i tell him?, what does he think of me?, what does he thinks of her?. Im going to ramble like this for 24 episodes, maybe i'll figure out the answer in season 3 or something... Yes sounds like a plan".
We were over this towards the end of season one, you had a frigging life /death experience, you can't get any closer than that.... But NO, let's just go back like we just met. AWESOME!.
The last thing im going to say about character development in this show is abou the end, but don't worry it's not a spoiler. The only thing im going to say is that you will get three things:
* The feeling that NOTHING CHANGED IN 24 EPISODES.
* The urge to rewatch the first season, to remind yourself why you tortured your brains until the very end of season 2.
* The wish that you could just "unsee" everything you just saw.
Characters
Oh yes, this is a whole new section. With the exception of Shana, and A BIT Yuji, all the characters become as intresting as a grapefruit.
Yoshida, who already was as intresting as watching the grass grow, becomes even more ANNOYING. Whenever she went on with her monologues about yearning Yuji's attention i felt like skipping the whole thing. She had so much appearence time, and what did she do? NOTHING, and you can't deny it.
"Ane-San" who had the job of providing comic relief in season one, and was a really intresting character. Suddenly gets all dark and boring.
The guy with glasses: ZOMG why didn't he die on the second episode of season one?, seriously.
Ane-San's lackeys: Who gives a flying fuck about them?.
Plot
You know a plot is poorly developed when you can't clearly define what the hell is a show about.
Take for instance season 1
"It's about a tsundere loli that hunts spirits and artifacts, finds a guy with a super powerful artifact inside who decides to help her fight the bad guys". Ok so it's a show about action, hunting things and killing demons spirits whatever. Ok i can get into that.
Now let's take a look at season 2 plot:
It's about a love triangle between a tsundere DFC and a big breasted wife-kind of girl. No it's about a silver armor that's gonna destroy the world. No wait, it's about a sandwoman who lost her husband. No wait it's about the curious things that happen in the everyday life. Wait i think that they fight some kind of "things" from time to time, so is it about fighting?".
Hey guys you had an objective rememeber?, i mean there was a whole first season about "FIGHTING THE TOMOGARAS", so why did you just decided to say "fuck that, let's all behave like this is a shitty harem / love triangle slice of life".
The episodes go by and they talk, and talk, and talk... And the worst thing is that they aren't really saying anything!!!.
Overall
If you liked season 1, don't watch this. This is a scam. The only thing in common with the first season is the characters.