Ishura 2nd Season

If you liked Season 1 or watched thing whole thing by impulse, Season 2 will work slightly better for you. If not, Season 2 does not justify taking up your time any further.

Season 2 is very much like Season 1, a lot more new heroes introduced, telling each hero's backstory with the episodic format. Still got that brutal ugly gore, flowing fight scenes, charismatic business talk. Still got one pretty girl among the heroes just to keep me simping. (Please don't kill her again) Same old same old. Fortunately, this time, they finally get into the story of "The True Demon King", BUT only ... in a certain few episodes, with barely enough revelation to the whole mystery.

Season 3 will most likely be the tournament arc that it has been setting up forever. And guess what... There are some known characters with their backstory untold. So chances are... they will run the same character backstory routine again. And I will still watch it. Despite the lack of main plot progression, I have never found Ishura boring. I'm a sucker for episodic anime, but that isn't all there is to Ishura. It's got great flow. Solid dialogue writing. Moderate use of shock value. Just high quality animation overall.

While I think some may disagree, this season still falls into the same pitfalls as the first season, but even harder. The story is presented in a scattershot manner, and we will often go episodes between relevant plot details to introduce new characters. This is all building up to something greater, hopefully, but it is unclear whether the conventional contest that is now looming over the horizon of a third season will actually live up to expectations. At this point, I can't imagine that a standard battle competition would suffice, considering the large scales of things being toyed with here. I suspect and hope that ... we will see something more surreal, but as it stands this season is more of the same, just a bunch of new characters being introduced to awe us, without much in the way of relevant developments towards what is supposed to be the main goal of the show.

This is not to say that the story is bad. There is a coherent through-line and the exposition into the different stories for each of the characters serves its purpose. For those who have been irritated by stories where tournaments intend to have you invested in battles where you don't know the first thing about the enemies, there is something to be said that this story is taking its time to delve into the backstory of these various characters and provide them with the much needed depth and intertwined backstories that would make the sort of tournament more interesting. However, as a standalone product, this story still leaves much to be desired. Much like the first season, we still have not gotten to what is supposed to be the main event of the story. To that end, I hope that we will finally begin to experience the tournament next season.

That's the strange thing about this show. It is attempting to solve one of the common issues viewers have with these tournament arcs where random people who have never gotten the chance to share their backstory are expected to be considered real threats. The entire premise of this show is to show us large scale battles and the trauma of their pasts to give us more reason to get invested in each and every battle that will take place (if the tournament actually occurs). But it also has a dampening effect on the enjoyability of the story. There is no main character, we are left only to wonder which one could be the hero and who the true demon king was. Ultimately your enjoyment of the story comes down to whether you are willing to watch 24 episodes of backstory for dozens of people. This story is requiring investment for something it has not yet paid off. To that end, I suspect most viewers will find it pointless, but if you've already watched the first season then this is more of the same, where the story takes a backseat to the character prep for down the road.

For those who haven't even watched the first season, I can' yet recommend picking up the series. I hope that it eventually becomes a sufficiently whole story when the anime concludes its final season, but until then it is too much of an incomplete product. Watch only if you are interested in aura-farming and the such, without any promise of seeing the story through. But if you've already watched the first season and didn't have too much of a problem with how open-ended it ended, then you won't have any issues with this season either.

The story is easily the weakest part of Ishura Season 2. It is a jumbled mess of characters, factions, and events with very little focus. The series keeps introducing new characters without giving enough time to properly develop or even establish the ones already introduced. There are simply too many characters to keep track of, and most of them fail to leave any real impression.

The constant switching between characters and locations also hurts the pacing. Just when one storyline starts becoming interesting, the anime jumps to another one. Instead of making the story feel complex, it makes it feel disconnected and difficult to follow.

The worldbuilding ... has some good ideas, but the execution is poor. There is clearly a large world with many factions and powerful characters, but throwing more information at the viewer does not automatically make the world interesting.

The fight scenes are probably the best part. They are decent, have some good animation, and the gore adds some weight to the action. However, the fights are not enough to carry the series, especially when there is little attachment to most of the characters involved.

The soundtrack is average at best. Some tracks work well, while others feel out of place and occasionally make certain scenes worse rather than better.

The biggest problem with Season 2 is that it spends too much time setting things up without giving enough payoff. By the end, it feels more like preparation for future events than an actual satisfying season.

There are some good ideas here, but the execution is disappointing. The large cast, messy storytelling, weak character development, and inconsistent pacing make Ishura Season 2 difficult to enjoy.

4/10