Princess Connect! Re:Dive Season 2

After watching this season, I can conclude that the show finally has its happy ending. It was a great 24-episode journey with the Gourmet Guild and the ending is really satisfying. Usually, video-game adaptations in the anime industry could be disappointing; apparently, the show is not following that harsh criticism. From my experience, the anime did not induce confusion, and I appreciate the fun moments most. Believe me when I will mention fun multiple times in this review because I really did. Story: 9/10 The story takes place after its video game events which should pretty much signify its importance in understanding the contexts in the anime.It requires the audience to be aware of the events prior to the anime, but it is not necessary since the story will be revealing the events through hints and occurrences that can be assumed and concluded, therefore, it is also not a problem to watch the anime without context from its original game. Of course, it is still better having a short understanding of the events before so check them out through research. If you are lazy however and wanted to know a bit through my analogy with another anime, it would be like the fate series since the endgame results to having its “winner” grant a wish. This also includes fight sequences and styles from the other anime. Regardless, the fantasy world is interesting in its own with a mix of comedy and fun from the cute and adorable characters of the story. After the video game events, the story is set on a fantasy world where the protagonist falls from the sky with no recollection before meeting his comrades. He journeyed throughout the nation of “Landosol” and found friends to bond with and later form a guild called the “Gourmet Guild”. With the main mission of finding the best food and ingredients for the guild, mysteries bounding Yuuki started revealing itself explaining how the world and the relevant memories connect to the events happening currently and the dangers that must have happened from his past. With how this story is set up, it may seem not seem exciting, but the journey and the character development stories are wonderful in a world full of anime girls. Yes, only a few male characters to be noticed. Characters: 9/10 The protagonist himself is not the strongest and he doesn’t have the most appealing characteristics among the main characters. It would seem that Pecorine is the strongest fighter among them, and Karyl is left on the second spot for that. That is just how their party was setup, so it shouldn’t be a problem. But after watching this season, I’d say that there would be surprises to be expected for the main characters, especially from Yuuki himself. The anime is a video game adaptation with many selections of characters to choose from, so the show reveals many side characters that has a short time on screen that would manage to come back later. This kind of detail is both a good thing and a bad thing because many characters appearing in the show can be confusing and their existence may seem forgetful later, but a variety could raise multiple base preferences and relatable characters. Not to mention how many names you would have to remember. Art: 10/10 The only problem with its art style is its consistency. Otherwise, most of the animations were enjoyable to the point it becomes fluid. There was only one instance when they lost its consistency in animation quality, but it won’t affect the overall enjoyment of the show so this can be overlooked easily. The fighting animations are flashy in terms of its movements and use of visual effects. There are also many beautiful sceneries and vibrant details. Fight scenes are not intense and very serious, but the style in which characters fight seems more fun than intense, that’s why their adventures were given captivating moments for the audience to remember at least. Sound: 8/10 The opening song is great, but it was repeatedly used from the first season which I think came also from its original game, but it wasn’t bad since it still appreciated as a video game adaptation and staying true to its own. However, its repetition played different tones and styles in many key scenes which induced nostalgia and melancholy for the anime which was a good touch for its music category. However, the variety to its music could be better, but I doubt since the quality of background music still strengthens the thrill and intensity of fighting in the anime for example. Other than its use of music, sound effects are overpowering and bold, especially for its fight scenes. Overall, it was very good and not bad from my perspective. Enjoyment: 10/10 Do you realize how often I mentioned fight scenes while making this review? Surely, my enjoyment could be based on this experience. There were many amazing fight sequences that are very flashy and animated very well which is still light for its fun atmosphere but still intense for all the colorful effects on screen. The adventures of the Gourmet Guild were also fun. The adorable and hilarious faces of the team, especially Kyaru’s panic faces and Kokkoro’s “meep”, the funny attempts and dangers of the guild during their adventures, the interesting side characters that are introduced in many of its episodes. Not to mention, the surrounding yuri moment developed between Karyl and Pecorine - but it is rather wholesome in my own opinion. Final rating is based heavily on my art quality and enjoyment for this anime. I would really recommend the anime to anyone who is looking for a heartwarming fantasy anime or a beautiful action fighting sequence with lots of cute girls in the action. However, this could be a disappointment for those who haven’t played or understood the story so far, but I would rather ask you to give it a chance even if no background info has been presented at the start.

YABAI DESU NE!!! Princess Connect! Re:Dive a.k.a PriConne is back with a blast, and so too is Cygames with hemorraging sales and marketing from the massively popular mobage RPG that's now expanded to more territories since the anime aired in Spring 2020 to resounding success, being the first-ever (though) underrated premiere-tier game adaptation ever seen in anime. 2 years have passed since then and now that with the game's global release on January 2021, Season 2 has arrived to continue the story where Season 1 left off, and for the most part, it was as enjoyable as the prequel, if slightly worse off by a tidbit. Andof course, being the newest fan of PriConne's anime back then before the global release, I have waited for a long while before I got the chance to sink into the actual game and daily-driving it since its inception. And boy, what an experience the actual mobage RPG was that I now feel content playing the game and knowing more about PriConne's world in much detail. Let's Re:Dive into Season 2! Since this is the anime version of PriConne, and though the game's lore is rich, opting to stay the same vibes as Season 1 is a sensible choice since we're practically left with Pecorine's backstory of realizing that she's the rightful Princess Eustiana von Astraea of Landosol. That, and with one of the Seven Crowns's inclusion as the frightening, fear-inducing antagonist Kaiser Insight stealing the throne and making use of Karyl to the best of her manipulation, Season 2 aims to finish this story plot off in the most bombastic manner while providing more easter eggs from the mobage. Together with the episodic stories of featuring more characters from the various guilds of PriConne that hasn't got spotlights on yet, this has always been a great way of to showcase fanservice since Day 1, and Season 2 emitted the same feelings as its prequel, albeit with someone new in the production team. We already know that KonoSuba director Takaomi Kanasaki is THE undisputable god when it comes to comedy, and he continues to outshine himself more...just on the sidelines as Chief Director. Instead, the directorial role is passed down to newbie director Yasuo Iwamoto, of which this is his debut doing an anime staff role (if you don't consider that weird ONA). At first, having a new staff join onboard at this stage of the plot (considering PriConne as a whole) was worrying because of the new directions that he would helm to take Season 2 forward, but after watching the entirety of the sequel season, I'd say that Takaomi Kanasaki really supervised Yasuo Iwamoto to understand how much lore can the new season be taken into context, while adding his own flare that you can't tell the difference whether is it really Kanasaki's or Iwamoto's. Case in point, the premiere episode of Season 2 with the same comedy gags featuring the hilariously derpy wolves to the rainbow vomit, and as great as Episode 1 is for a resounding return, I can't tell the difference between different episode directors because it was done just as well as it should be. There was even an episode that was purely dedicated to adapting an event from the mobage that was shrunk down for the episode with the details intact, and for an episodic series this was a gutsy risk, and I think it paid off well in terms of the overall story. So overall, not bad for a debut effort, though at times there's the feeling of disconnection that it should've been as good, if not on par with the prequel. It should come as no surprise that PriConne retains "Lost Princess" as the OP for the anime, because this is the main song theme for the franchise, and is such an iconic song within the PriConne fanbase that it'll not feel right not having one. I freaking love the song ever since the anime dropped 2 years ago, and this time they used the 2nd verse and chorus as a "replacement" for continuation purposes. The new ED in this case is even more comfy than Season 1's, and putting the sequel's content in context shows the difference in disparity. If it were up to me to judge which of the ED is better, I would take Season 2's over Season 1, but both are still very good songs in their own right. And what is PriConne without Cygames and their in-house studio CygamesPictures, which has been the de-facto deciding factor when it comes to pure sakuga insanity and enjoyment. From strength to strength, Season 2 looks even more polished than Season 1, but that's not to say that the prequel was bad. Season 1 knocked animation right out of the gate and delivered game-worthy pristine quality, putting a lot of game and mixed-media adaptations to shame. And Season 2 followed up with more of the same, but elevated up to 11, considering that this "rare" sequel is technically the end of the road for the anime, to send us the viewers into total fandom, because let's be honest, who doesn't like beautiful backgrounds, sceneries with high-octane animation to match? Game adaptations rarely get sequels, mostly because they're just promo material for the games, regardless if the anime did decently or flopped hard. And I might say that PriConne is the first ever franchise to do so that's worthy and akin to the typical high-profile Shonen shows of the modern day. The anime's road may end here, but let's not forget that PriConne was an unique experience all on its own. It's still THE gold standard for game adaptations to follow, and none will ever reach the amaze-balls feeling of awesomeness that is PriConne. If you haven't watched PriConne, now's the time to do so since both seasons have marked their end. And once you're done, hop onto the mobage to continue that story, because there's lots of investment values to be had. I never regretted putting down PriConne, and it's a lot of fun.

I will try to divide this review into two parts. The first part being pretty much spoiler free in terms of specific details and events (though it is impossible to talk about the plot without including some general information), and a second part which is basically just a spoiler filled place for me to talk about problems I have, that may be useful or interesting to people actually invested in the game. --- non-spoilery review --- This is a show based on a game by the same name. In the game, there is a point where the plot could possibly diverge. During a climactic, sort of final battle,the protagonist gets injured and is given a choice to go back and fight, or to give up, and "reset" the world. Resetting the world means going back to the beginning, and giving up on all his bonds. Or in other words, giving up all the relationships he has formed over the course of the story with all the characters, all the adventures they've had, all the memories. Giving up all this, to "try again". So you can choose to give up and try again, or not give up and get back into the fight. Giving up, leads to a bad ending in the game. The protagonist wakes up to Kokkoro singing him a lullaby, the same as when he first met her, but he is crying for all that he lost, even though he doesn't remember. Going back to the fight continues the story, and the story in the game currently is a continuation of that. The anime follows this "bad ending" scenario. It is kind of a what-if. An alternate timeline, that continues from his choice of giving up. This is the premise for the story, and as such, the overall plot should be about the protagonist, Yuuki, regaining all he lost, and this time doing things right. Instead, he is inexplicably relegated to being essentially a side-character for the show, while the real protagonists are Pecorine and Kyaru. He very rarely has any actual one on one scenes with other characters, and I could probably count the number of times he has any meaningful interaction with Kyaru, Peco, and Kokkoro, on one hand. Even if we add all three of them up. Whereas in the game, Yuuki has many one on one interactions with the characters, directly creating relationships and friendships between HIM specifically and the other characters, in the anime all of the relationships are built between the other members of his guild, bishokuden, while he just kind of stands around. This is completely at odds with the premise that they have created for this show, and clashes with the ending. In fact, the staff frequently make strange choices/changes, only to sort of write themselves into a corner, and then write in things that superficially undo those changes. The anime has way too many characters that are completely useless to the story, and only serve to eat up episodes that could've been used in expanding existing characters/relationships/plot. Then after their introduction episode, the characters are only brought back in some token, completely meaningless appearance at the end, if they even get brought back at all. Not to mention, all this does is confuse all of the anime-only's who are not going to keep track of all these characters dumped on them every week. Then we have all the OC characters. Characters who only exist in the anime for gags, or characters who eat up an episode to themselves only to never be seen again (like in episode 1). Here is an idea, why not use existing characters actually from the game for these roles? Finally, on characters, the anime is missing many characters that are very important to the plot, and whose absence makes entirely no sense. I don't even understand how they could do a proper season 3, because the presence of some of these missing characters in this first arc of the story is pretty important to a season 3. The anime suffers from an overall lack of direction. A failure to understand what Princess Connect is. It feels like they wanted to do something different from the game, but it ends up just being a vastly inferior version of that story. If they chose to do this version of the story with an intention to attract new fans to Princess Connect, because they wouldn't be familiar with the story from the game or its prequel, then they have failed at this because you either have slice of life episodes where nothing happens, or fast and loose plot out of nowhere. Couples with the fact the new characters are thrown at you left and right, with no way to possibly remember them, because the anime doesn't care about having you know the characters. I will give credit where credit is due though. The art game is on point. This show clearly had a good budget, and talented artists. There are many very well done action scenes, and it is generally very pleasing to look at. In summary, this is a poor adaptation of a game, but it has a high budget with great art. They should've just stuck to slice of life stuff, because they have no idea how to handle the story or the lore. If you don't know the source material, you will probably find yourself lost as the show goes on. People who just want to see cute girls, cool fight scenes, and turn off their brains for anything story related will probably enjoy it, I guess. ---spoilery rant stuff--- In regards to key characters being missing, and why this is a problem. The major problem here, is the absence of Twinkle Wish members Yui, Rei, and Hiyori. To simplify things, the world that Re Dive takes place in, is a world that is created by Yui's wish at the end of the original game. It is a world created to fulfil her wish, and as such, whenever the conditions of her wish can no longer be met, the world resets and starts again. This is why the world loops. So what is her wish? Her wish is to be with Yuuki forever (I'm paraphrasing). So whenever she, or Yuuki, dies then the wish can no longer be true and so the world resets. So how can Yui never show up in the first two seasons? Her wish is to basically be with Yuuki. The world is created to grant her wish. Yet the writers treat her like she doesn't exist and is a character from a previous loop. Further more, the second arc of the story heavily revolves around Yui, her wish, the circumstances of the world, etc. In the game, there is a lot of foreshadowing towards this during the first arc of the story. In the anime, because they have never introduced her, they have also never done any real foreshadowing to the further events. And if they do decide to do a season 3, what are they going to do, make Yui suddenly appear now and act like the viewers should care about her? There are some other character's whose absence does not make any sense. For example, Masaki. Masaki is Neneka's Princess Knight, just like Yuuki is Labyrista's Princess Knight. So where the hell is he, when Neneka is captured and all that? In the game, he works together with everyone to rescue her. In the anime, I guess he is on vacation. Or where is Muimi? Okuto? etc. All relatively important characters to the story. Let's go over some of the other plot problems. For some reason, looping has made certain characters weaker. Namely Yuuki and Kaiser Insight. Now, this doesn't make any sense, because this never happened in any other loops, it isn't suggested to be something that would happen if they did another loop in the game, and there is no real reason why Kaiser Insight would lose her special ability, and not any of the other Seven Crowns members. Kaiser Insight is not the one creating the loops and has nothing to do with it, so why would it affect her? Allow me to elaborate on her ability, and why this is a problem. Each member of the Seven Crowns has a special ability. The abilities have a special name that I am not going to bother trying to translate. Neneka's is the ability to copy things. She can create copies of herself or other things she has copied (for example other people), or she can change her own appearance as well. Labyrista is object creation/change. She can manipulate the world. Christina is a combat only ability which basically allows her to change the enemy's hit chance to 0% and her own hit chance to 100% (guaranteed dodge and attack). Kaiser Insight's special ability allows her to read all of the world's data, and by doing so this allows her to predict her enemies movements etc beforehand, making her difficult to fight (ignore the fact I am saying her instead of him). This ability ALSO allows her to know about previous loops, because she can read the world's data. There are only a handful of characters who know about previous loops, because their special ability allows them to. Christina's, for example, is a combat only ability, and so she knows nothing of previous loops. Because Kaiser Insight can no longer use this ability, she should no longer have any knowledge of the previous loops. Furthermore, she should also be much easier to fight. In my review, I wrote that the writers had pointlessly written themselves into a corner on occasion in the show. This is an example of that. If Kaiser Insight can no longer use her ability, which is what makes her strong, then she would no longer be much of a threat for the cast. So in order to rectify the problem that they created, they have Labyrista inexplicably fight her and lose, only to get captured and give her powers to Kaiser Insight. So what was the point in making this change to Kaiser Insight's character? Debuff her to make her weaker, only to buff her again through something else. Why not just have her not lose that ability in the first place? It's the same story with Yuuki. They create a needless dilemma with Yuuki in that he cannot use his powers because of all the looping, only to give Kokkoro a key out of nowhere to fix him. So why have this plot thread in the first place? They also actively avoid all mention of the real world. I imagine this is why Muimi is not in the show, because she actually has memories of the real world, and tries to explain it to others. The real world is VERY important to the story of Princess Connect. Outside of that extremely brief scene with Kiiri, where you can't even really tell what's going on and might not even know it is the real world if you haven't played the game, it never gets brought up. Labrysta's entire objective is to free everyone from the MMORPG they are stuck in, and to send them back to the real world. It is also Ameth's goal. Yet we never really see any of this in the anime. At the end of the season, Peco reunites with her parents. It is a tearful joyous moment. But... they are just NPC's. They are not her real parents, and any memories she has of them are fake. I feel like they are trying to ignore the real world aspect of the anime, and treat it as though it is just a fantasy world like in konosuba, so they can do things like this. However, it is a complete disregard of Princess Connects plot, and overall themes. There are many other problems with the anime. The fact that Yuuki barely speaks, and when he does he only speaks like a toddler. In the game he is a silent protagonist because of the fact that it is a game. However he can still speak normally, and shouldn't be treated this way in the anime. The fact that they removed all romance. Peco and Kyaru are in love with Yuuki in the game (as is virtually everyone...) whereas in the anime, most people don't seem to give a poop about him. The changes to characters, such as Kyaru and how she acts with Peco. Kokkoro's character. So many others. Some are still the same though. The fact that they do not understand the story of Princess Connect. For example, at the end, Yuuki gets gravely wounded. Labyrista says if he chooses to go back and fails, his very existence will be completely lost. This is nonsense, because if Yuuki dies, that just means that a new loop will start. He has died many times in fact. The anime also presents it as though Labyrista is the one causing the resets, when in actuality, she has nothing to do with it. Or consider that in the game, in the most recent story part, Labyrista gets mortally wounded via a blade, but she saves herself by basically stitching her insides back up together on the fly. She does this because of her special ability, and the fact she is a doctor. Then she does the same thing again shortly after. Meanwhile in the anime, she gets stabbed once and it's gg. The contradictions they make to the story they themselves wrote. Labyrista fights one on one with Kaiser Insight, which is very out of character for her. It is a gamble. Kaiser Insight mentions this, and Labyrista explains that it is because they are out of time. Yet at the end when Yuuki gets wounded, she asks him if he wants to reset or not, like it's no big deal to go through more loops. I thought we were out of time? Honestly, I could go on forever. But I have already written a bunch of text that nobody is going to read. So I will stop here. Just allow me to say what I think they should've done instead. I think they should've made an adaptation of the original game. Most Princess Connect players are not familiar with the original game, because it wasn't that popular, and it ended service after just a year or so. It also didn't have any anime scenes like in the current game, Re Dive. At the same time, the original game is really important story wise for the current game, so fans would've gotten a lot out of it, and new viewers could get into the anime and then jump into the current game which continues immediately after. Then for a second series, they could've started Re Dive. They could largely follow the game, and they wouldn't have to reintroduce all the characters because we already know them from the first series. I think this would've been really interesting.

Lemme just put this out now, I really dislike it when silly comedies attempt to introduce or shift gears into drama or a serious plot. A serious show would naturally be subject to more scrutiny in terms of reviewing its core elements compared to if the show were a complete comedy. Very few shows manage to pull this off competently, not even well, just competently, and unfortunately Priconne just isn't one of those shows. Then again, the upside is that the comedy bits are just really damned good. It's difficult to recommend a comedy without essentially ruining the joke, but everything from the bright exaggeratedartstyles, to the brilliant timing of the jokes is executed with a flair that makes it seem so effortless to pull off when it really isn't. If you were to hypothetically isolate all the episodic comedy bits from this season and the last, you'd end up with an 8 or 9/10 season easily. But as I alluded to in the beginning, this isn't the case. Cygames just insists on having its cake and eating it too, and so we get this strange abridged arc from the first two arcs of the mobage (it's been a long while since I quit so I can't say for sure now) awkwardly sandwiched in the middle of what's basically Konosuba-lite. The good(?) news is that at least the serious plot threads do reach a conclusion unlike the first season, and the creative staff do put in some lighthearted moments in the plot arcs themselves to leaven the tension a bit. But the forced amalgamation of serious plot threads and dumb wacky comedy is akin to having a birthday party and having your dog run over by a car in the same day. It just takes you outta the moment and out of a good time to suddenly consider and assess these heavy moments without as much of a warning. Still, it was nice to see the different groups get their focus in this season, and the MVP of the show is still Kazuma-kun and his buddy. Peco, Kyaru, and Yuuki-kun are all great as usual, and Yuuki-kun actually having some kind of character development puts him far and above the game's portrayal of him (on top of the anime version of him just being that much more likable overall), but Kokkoro's existence is still so meaningless you could write her out of the show with no difference. Overall, Priconne S2 is still a fun, even enjoyable show. But I do wish Cygames would just learn to pick a singular theme to focus on for whatever upcoming mobage adaptation they will do in the future. I mean, that's what the mobage itself is for isn't it? 7/10