KAGI-NADO

I already talked about this in my review for season 1 so I'll try not to focus on it, but a working knowledge of all 6 main visual novels by the company Key is necessary to watch this. All of them have anime adaptations, if you've seen those you're probably fine, but there will still be some jokes that leave you scratching your head and checking wiki articles or vndb trying to figure out who such and such character was. This is a show for people who were already big fans of Key's work, and trust me, if that's not you you're better off justenjoying something else rather than spending the time doing your homework first. One more note on that before moving on with the review is that they've included Angel Beats to their line-up this season, which is notably an anime original story. But Key made a visual novel adaptation of the anime back in 2015, hence their inclusion. Honestly the story seems like something they'd do anyway, and even has a lot of parallels that can be drawn with stuff like Little Busters and Rewrite. Seeing all these characters together and the way they play off of each other is really fun. I love the running joke where they group characters that fall into similar archetypes together and have them complain about their pigeon-holed position in their respective story. The meetings of the protagonists club, the main heroines club, and the rejected heroines clubs are all hilarious. I love how blatantly salty some characters are at what happened to them in their stories and how matter-of-factly they talk about traumatic moments. The framing device that it's all tied together as a presentation from the Planetaian girl to Ushio and all the in jokes about this being a convenient universe where anything can happen, there's just so much meta humor you start to get confused about what's a joke and what's serious. They masterfully use the dramatic climaxes of the individual stories as punch lines and undercut any seriousness with some goofy misdirection. It's just the sort of humor I like. /

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW: Compared to Isekai Quartet, which didn’t fully utilize its cross-series-interactions and meta/reference-heavy comedy, Kaginado got no brakes what-so-ever. It starts by tons of Key Universes getting thrown together and chaos ensues, as it pokes fun at everything the works stand for, where nothing is taboo. Not just using the comedic elements or similarities from the different shows, but also using the most emotional moments/climaxes for laugh, where you burst out laughing from what would previously make you break down crying… and I absolutely it. Kaginado S2 is more of the same, but adding Angel Beats to mix. The chibi visuals are cute, with many funnyfaces and visuals gags. However, I’d say the audio production is the most important aspect, of what makes the show that much fun to watch. It got a really strong soundtrack, where I especially love how it uses the more emotional tracks for comedic purposes, either contrasting with a scene or abruptly interrupting the music. The constant use of sound effects also makes the show very active and fun to watch, despite its minimalistic animation. Heads-up: -DO NOT WATCH THIS, IF YOU’RE AFRAID OF SPOILERS FROM ANY KEY ANIME! Kaginado thrives from spoiling (and poking fun at) the most important climaxes of every Key anime it references, whether it’s emotional climaxes, the romance, tragic moments, similarities between their franchises, etc. -It’s not well animated and got Chibi visuals. Favorite aspects: -Heroines and the new sides we see from them, interacting with heroines from other universes with similar experiences, both mingling and whining. Very refreshing and fun. -Favorite VA-cast (and usage of said VA-cast) of the season, with VA from that many different Key anime. Love how it pokes fun at some similarities in VAs, and allow them very different performances from their main show in this bizarre setting. Least favorite aspect: -Angel Beats was not a good addition to the cast, and I’m not a fan of most jokes focusing on their cast. Overall, IF you have seen all(most) Key anime out there (or at least the ones you have an interest in watching), and want to see something poke fun at these melodramatic stories, Kaginado is totally worth checking out.

If you're wondering whether or not you can enjoy this anime without having seen any of the shows within it, the answer is simple: "No.". It was hard for me to follow and I've seen Angel Beats (One of the best anime ever made), Clannad and a couple of episodes of Little Busters. This thing is absolutely loaded with inside jokes that only those familiar with all of the series will get. The ones that I understood were funny, and there were a few universally funny gags like slapstick humor. But, overall, it is very inside. You will not enjoy this or get it atall if you aren't familiar with Clannad, Angel Beats, Kanon, Air, Little Busters, Planetarian and Rewrite. I powered through it because I started it while doing my cardio so I was kind of stuck watching it. It was funny at times, but it really made me wish I had spent the time to watch all of those anime, so I could enjoy it more. The anime itself is nothing more than a slice-of-life school anime, going from gag to gag in 4 minute shorts. It really is just the production company mocking all of their own tropes. Most of the episodes were about taking characters that were similar from each anime and putting them in the same room to make fun of each other. Such as all the male protagonists would have meetings about being in a harem, all the calm characters will have a moment where they drink coffee together and shoot the breeze, there's a baseball game between the characters who have little sisters, etc... That kind of humor. It wasn't a bad anime, even though I missed like 60 percent of the references. I feel like I would've loved it more if I knew everything. And I think that's the point of why Kagi-Nado was really made. It's an attempt to get people to go back and look at the series involved. Because most of these shows were released nearly 15-20 years ago. Around 2004-2008 for most of them. I think its an attempt to get people to go back and get interested in these franchises, or re-watch them out of nostalgia. Still, I was relatively entertained. If you know these series you should love it. But, don't watch this if you haven't seen (or don't remember) the above mentioned series.