Very slow at the beginning. The movie arc thing was alright but way too many episodes. After that the anime finally picks back up, but by then it's almost over with. Towards the end the season the studio should have ended on the reveal of Ruby's revelation but it didn't and blue-balled, which was a bad way to end off.
In the end, I just didn't really care for the intricacies of the stage play that took up 2/3's of the second season is all. In fact, the first two episodes were quite a struggle to push through and I kept starting and stopping frequently, which is why it took me so long to just now finish this season when it came out in summer. The story revolving around Aqua and Ruby's personal lives and the psychology between that is just far more interesting to me, so I thought the last part of the season was pretty great. I have no idea if Aka leans on the industry stuff more going forward or if he decides to go all in on the character driven stuff that the first season was more about. Right now it seems to me that there's a disconnect and Aka is trying to juggle between different objectives since he said before he wanted to explore the more nasty side of the media industries in Japan, but he also has to force a sort of personal thread the reader/viewer can latch on to to experience them firsthand like entertainers do. Anyway, it's an interesting mess nonetheless, and even if it does end up being bad, it is already a far more interesting ride than most stuff made in a while. It's just a shame that the story has to be carried hard by it's animation and presentation. Studio Doga Kobo has really been knocking it out of the park with their talent in recent years.
(This is re-posted from my anilist account).
