Megaton-kyuu Musashi 2nd Season

As a sequel to an adaptation from a game that wasn't too advertised outside of Japan, I had my reservations about this being any good. News about delays in their schedule certainly didn't help and so I decided to wait for it to be completed in order to give it my fair judgment. Having just finished it I can certainly say it was the wise choice.

On the one side, the characters from the previous season make a comeback but also new and quite relevant ones make their dayview. Along these 15 episodes we see their story develop in this war with some twists, revelations, feelings ... and a certain someone getting a huge boost in development. But that's not all as the main attraction is the giant robot fights, the ones from the game, and if you were a fan of them before, you're in for a treat. New robot transformation sequences alongside new moves, fluid 3D action scenes and the frantic music in the background made for some of the best mecha fights I've watched so far.

However, it's not all a bed of roses as there were some aspects I was apprehensive about. Firstly, and weirdly enough, the 2D animation still looks average to bad. Outside of a few scenes, many interactions can look a bit bland. In fact, one of the latter characters to be introduced has curved pupils drawn and it was so distracting to watch them that I had to rewind a few scenes. Oh and speaking of said character, here comes my second gripe: the development of his arc.

It might sound contradictory to what I mentioned above but that's not really the case. For the most part the series follows a clear story plot line with enough exposition for new details to be processed nicely. In this case, every episode started and it felt like some explanation was missing or cut short. My guess is that with its production issues the series might have been reduced in length, leading to certain interactions feeling either unnatural or out of place. In other words, even with longer than average episodes, the final arc in particular was rushed in its setup and the result was quite disappointing.

Taking all this into account, this is a perfectly watchable anime if you manage to find it and were curious where the first season was gonna go. I went back and forth with how I felt about it since I'm sure it could have gone better, but oh well, what's done is done.