First up let's talk about Geordo. He was just another suitor in the first season with his own motivations. His character gets more context in this season but all character depth is removed, he becomes someone who, on multiple occasions, forces himself on Katarina and the rest of the time demands that he owns her, that she's nothing more than a possession of his. He actually gets into an argument at one stage with the others where they're saying she's her own woman and he's saying no, she's my possession. The fact that in this otherwise progressive comedy this is acceptable is insulting. By the way, he's not painted as a bad guy in all this, it's her fault for being oblivious and wanting friends.
Second is dark magic. It goes from being a malevolent force to just 'Because dark magic. Something bad happen? Dark magic. Drop your coffee? Dark magic. It's absurd. When they try and raise the tension and tell a story arc it's obvious it's going to be 'because dark magic'. This'd be fine if they didn't dedicate half the season to these idiotic arcs. One dimensional bad guys are another issue, but let's be honest here that's a real issue in anime in general.
The second season takes time away from the fun characters and replaces it with fake arcs and one line jokes and a deeply flawed obsession with Geordo. It feels more like The Matrix 2 and Aliens, in movie terms.
Katarina remains a fun and powerful protagonist and at times the writing is better than S1, but for the most part it really feels like the writing/author has no-where to go and is desperately out of ideas.
SPOILER(ISH)
This last point is most obvious in the set up for the movie/next season. It's clear they're just repeating Season 1 with new characters in the Dept of Magic.
