Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon Season 2

Short take: A clever twist on isekai that started as parody and, in S2, edges into “actually good.” If you go in expecting silly popcorn fantasy, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much thought goes into its constraints and world tour. What worked: - Constraints: The points/electricity economy delivers hard with highly limited choice of transformations/usage this season. Watching a literal vending machine min-max cost/utility stays fun. - Growth without cheap crutches: Problem-solving leans on vending ingenuity, not cheap upgrades. I expected him to be able to cast magic and such as this point, and I'm glad they didn't go that route. - Scope upgrade: We finally get offthe starter floors. Cross-floor travel and an outside-the-dungeon story bits give the world a more "full" feeling where season 1 felt a bit constrained. - Party dynamics (no spoilers): Plot-lines with the Menagerie of Fools was quite good. The soft harem around, yes, a vending machine, remains knowingly absurd and genuinely amusing. What didn’t: - Still not deep: Even with the broader canvas, this isn’t going to scratch a “mystery drama” itch. Motivations are straightforward; themes are comfortable rather than probing. But, you likely didn't expect this going into it? - Bit slower pacing than season 1 (not too problematic though). Vibe check (for fellow trash-popcorn fans): You sign up to see how far an inanimate protagonist can go under hard constraints. Season 2 delivers that promise better than S1 while also upping the stakes. The show is fun, and shows off a handful of imaginative environments and historical vending machines. It’s not perfect, but it outperforms the premise you’d expect. Rating: Subjective 9/10 (expectations set to "silly isekai," pleasantly exceeded). Objectively ~7/10 (still light, not very deep, but a clear step up). TL;DR: Come for the gimmick, stay for the min-maxing and cool world. If your bar is "fun/unique isekai," Season 2 hits.

A smattering of reviews and a (current) rating of ~6.5 kind of says it all. Season 1 was fairly novel, due to its absurdity, with the MC being reincarnated as a Vending Machine. Season 1 had the focus being on Boxxo becoming a member of the Clear Water Stratum's community, while becoming a reliable friend to Lammis. He eventually gained multiple friends, including Hulemy, who was one of, if not the only person, to figure out that he was indeed a human soul trapped inside the Vending Machine. Season 2 continues where Season 1 left-off, focussing on the hidden secrets of the "Menagerie of Fools", and buildingup the cliché Demon Lord threat, while the gang traverses the different Stratums of the dungeon they're in. We get newcomers like Hevee and Kikoyu, voiced by the greats of Yoshitsugu Matsuoka and Rie Takahashi, who add quite a lot to this season, while we also continue to get some good moments between Boxxo and Lammis, Mishuel, Hulemy and many others. Unfortunately, whereas Season 1 had novelty on its side, this Season doesn't. It follows a very generic plot-thread of Demon Lord, bad guys, and basically the same kind of story that a majority of other fantasy/isekai shows follow. Here, it's also quite shallow. A lot of the bad guys just get plopped into the story with no real depth, and spout things like "haha, I'm a bandit and I've done evil things~"... But, it's just, well, read from a script. They're added filler/road-blocks to progress the plot forward. It also doesn't help that the animation and art quality are still as bland as they are in this Season of the show. Every time Mishuel does his special sword attack thing, you'll very quickly notice, that it's the exact same animation frames played over and over again. As he uses this attack quite frequently, it becomes almost too noticeable to ignore, and just makes the show feel lazy overall. What holds this show up, or rather, what is supposed to hold this show up, are the interactions between the different characters. Although the introduction of Hevee and Kikoyu were much appreciated and were standouts this season, everything else is just a repeat of Season 1. Yes, as I said, there are some good moments between Boxxo and the mainstays of Lammis, Hulemy, Mishuel, etc, but they don't really progress anyone forward in terms of character development. Lammis gets a bit more development with Boxxo, with her feelings toward him growing, but it's not really anything standout. Overall, it's more of what we got in Season 1. It's definitely not the worst isekai/fantasy show, but it's definitely not one of the greats or anything you should immediately check-out. 6/10 - "Fine" suits this show quite well honestly; Mixed Feelings is also an obvious label to give.

This season, unfortunately, ended up disappointing. The reason is only one: the pacing is too slow so there's almost no plot development. This season felt like watching a bunch of fillers, one episode after another. The only 2 redeeming achievements on this season were that Boxxo's communication skills improved, and him and his group found out a huge secret regarding the leader of the Menagerie of Fools. But that's it for this season, the rest is filler. About what we can objetively evaluate: on the good side, the animation kept the same quality as season 1, and we had new characters introduced with a proper background sceneto give them some depth. On the bad side, the pacing of the anime is very slow, and it's like the main characters decided to stop the main quest to solve the side quests instead, so we end up with quite a few episodes that we can skip without missing out on anything. In fact, I would dare say that out of the 12 episodes, we only have 4 that are plot related, and the rest can be skipped directly to season 3. This is the reason for my review being "not recommended"; if 8 episodes could be discarded, then the season is a flop. For example, I don't need a whole episode about a beauty pageant. TLDR: I wish there was a recap episode of this season so people could watch it instead of having to suffer through 12 slow paced episodes full of unnecessary scenes.

The novelty of the first season gets lost, you know what to expect, you know the dynamics. It´s below the first season but after all, it´s not a bad season. The bond between the two main characters gets stronger, the new team members are certainly funny and even the new adventures are a bit weak, there's no time to be bored, you go from level to level, to another new machine and the most important: the new ability to "talk". If you liked the first season, this really worth it. But if you dislike even the concept, why are you watching this entry? There are some animesin which the second season is really awful that makes you want to forget it, (I'm talking to you Oshi no ko) but this one keeps some the charm. Let's wait together for the third season.