And that’s the note S2 starts on. Admittedly, it’s not a bad start, with some pretty solid mind games to push our characters in a different way before a series of “I knew you would do that so I had this planned from the beginning!” starts and just… doesn’t end. It becomes really monotonous. I wouldn’t mind so much if the answer to every issue was “Anos will solve it.” To some degree, it lets other characters fight their own battles, but even then it only feels like the end result is either going to be some BS table flip or Anos saving the day.
That would only push this so low (I knew what I was getting into), but then they had to throw in a series of episodes that took place in the distant past and use them to… confuse the fuck out of everything in order to set up more table flips. It really did not help that this portion of the anime was interrupted while it was airing and continued only recently in this season without any recap, so I was lost immediately at the start of episode 7. The ending few episodes are just more of the same overpowered characters fighting ridiculous battles with a couple of visually striking scenes, but beyond that aspect, I can’t say I enjoyed this season. Doesn’t help that some CGI trees with faces make the damn Deku Tree from the N64 Ocarina of Time look good.
There came a period in this season when I was sitting there wondering why the hell I was still watching, and that’s a bad sign. I was bored well before it ended. I’m sure if I rewatched these episodes back to back and really thought about all the absurdly long-term setups of the time travel portion (2000 years in the past), I would appreciate more of the ways in which they made this happen. But I don’t, and I won’t. Last time I remember being this frustrated with a sequel season of a series I previously enjoyed was Log Horizon S3, and while it’s not that bad (now THAT was a slog of a season), it’s not great that that’s the comparison that springs to mind. Worst thing I watched this season by a good bit.
