So first things first, I did end up changing my score as I was a victim of the hype, it wasn't the 9/10 that I had originally given it, the series has some flaws, and the animation, while slightly above average, is not at the standard it would need to be to be up there with the top ranking Isekai's
But for me, the story, characters, and character development still stands up, so it is a solid 8/10
Everyone should know the story of this series by now, so I'm only going to talk about it briefly, besides, it isn't the most interesting part of the series.
The main storyline with the waves is a backdrop where the only influence it has is on places that it hits, and characters who it has directly affected their lives, beyond that there is no sense of impending doom as everyone else engages in their own petty politics or schemes, or there are just some other goings on that have to be dealt with.
It's very much like they are the main dragon storyline in Skyrim that no one pays too much attention to, until they are forced to, because the rest of the time everyone is just focusing on the side quests and would rather be doing those.
Then we get to Myne / Malty's false accusations and her schemes, this is just an excuse to have Naofumi alienated from the others, and have him travel the land for the first half of the series, and while this is the part I prefer, it is more character driven than story/plot driven
Then when we get to Melty and the second half, and hints of a conspiracy, it becomes a lot more story focused.
However it's the second half of the series where we start to get issues, for me the conspiracy plot line didn't work that well as it felt rushed and violated the principle of "show don't tell" and in general things feel a lot more rushed. After taking its time on the first half, it feels like once they got to the second half they wanted to wrap up certain parts of the story and as such didn't allow it to breathe.
At a certain point it felt like it just said "we're done now, let's wrap it up" and honestly, I feel that is where the issues of Season 2 came from.
As said before, the first half was the part I enjoyed the most, it was focused in on the characters and their development, and while it was the part that was the most simplistic in the story, being more of a character drama, it felt the more rewarding.
For me, this was the reason why Season 1 was so good, yet season 2 was such a disappointment
