Shangri-La Frontier Season 2

Well the second season is here and since the specifics were already covered on the first one, this one will be shorter and more straightforward, kinda like the show itself. People keep playing videogames in a mostly fun looking way so there are still reasons to be pleased with this continuation, but it’s definitely worse than its predecessor due to the following reasons: -The pacing is slower. The first season already had a slower pacing on its second half, and it became worse in here. Now the main characters have interacted and formed an alliance with other players that care about the lore and unique scenariosand epic bosses of the game and stuff, which is good, but now there is a lot more sitting down and talking and exposition going on. -Speaking of exposition, it had become worse in this season compared to the one before it. Since the protagonist has leveled up and unlocked new weapons and abilities, there’s a lot more inner monologues about that, and even on screen there are a lot more explanations about in-game mechanics. And since the show moved on to the fights against the epic bosses that affect the whole in-game world, there is a lot more strategic discussion between the characters. Infamously, there is an episode where half of it or more was about a party planning what to do against an epic boss while having it occupied with a decoy. -The protagonist is now more broken. He has access to an OP inventory full of powerful items that even serves as a room to teleport to, so he uses it in battle as an escape route to rest and heal a little, and to come back from, more geared up. Speaking of gear he also gets more powerful weapons as he levels up and works with NPCs, so he doesn’t struggle nor is as creative against small enemies as he used to be. Yes, it is a natural course in videogames in general so it makes sense for the writing to be that way, but it doesn’t really prevent it from being a slightly worse watching experience. Even when it seemed that he was disadvantaged at some point, he works his way around it and comes off as more OP and it never feels like he struggles much. -There is little plot progression. Despite seemingly moving forward due to showing more characters, enemies and places within the in-game setting, the characters don’t really progress much in what they want to do in the game. The protagonist even gets a second chance against that one epic boss from the first season, for the MMORPG and the show to pull out a troll. -There is focus on other type of content in it and not in the best ways. The series now bothers to explore the backstories of other characters and how they began to play videogames and roleplay and why they choose their playstyles in specific. Character fleshing is good but when an action show does it in the middle of a fight interrupting the flow of the series, it is an issue. And although I now don’t find Rei to be a creepy stalker, I still feel like her attraction to the protagonist is rather silly and superficial and I wish there was less focus on it. -Related to that, the anime is now slightly more serious. Although still primarily a comedy action adventure show, since now characters even have entire episodes dedicated to introspect about why and how they play videogames and roleplay, they started to take, well, videogames, more seriously. It is nowhere near the embarrassing levels of other shows, which I already criticized on my review of the first season, but it was preferable as it was before. -The series dedicates runtime to other videogames. I don’t really find this to be an issue, as it shows more of the characters outside the main game and playing more stuff and using other mechanics. I find that to be a nice change for a short while, and the anime even uses that to show how someone can get a burnout from a hobby, and it even ties the characters and events from those other games to the main one, so I don’t take it as wasted screentime. The directing even went to change the title of the anime at the beginning of some episodes and commercial brakes, which was a nice touch. Other people did find it to be an issue, so I think it was worth mentioning. -Since I covered the occasional change of videogames, that leads me to talk about another actual problem which is the animation becoming worse. One of the other videogames is a so-so and far more generic looking mecha fighting game with far less customizations, so its aesthetics are more plain and boring looking, and even has weak CGI and less detailed artwork all around. But even within the main game, the artwork and character figures became weaker, the backgrounds and special effects, and even some epic monsters have now far more and more noticeable rather poor looking CGI. Even the motions and impact frames feel and look worse than they did before. At its best the series still looks great and sometimes even far better than it did in the first season, but its overall decline in visual quality is very prominent and can’t be denied. Near the end of the season, the characters play another fighting game with roleplay elements, which although it had uninteresting gameplay, it also featured interesting mind game like abilities and much more interesting and better visuals. -Even the audio department is considerably worse. The music is still the same but less prominent and with a several case of lacking good insert songs, there are two new openings and two new endings, none of which I liked particularly but the first ending was nice to look because the characters were in suits and dresses. The voice acting is about the same, and the sound effects are far weaker than they were in the first season. -The ending is still open of course, as the source material is ongoing, but it is also a double cliffhanger of sorts, so it is worse than the one from the first season. Luckily the continuation was already confirmed, but is that a good thing? As a whole, the anime is still watchable to kill some time but it has undeniably become worse than it was and if they don’t stop its production for a little while to try and polish it to its previous level, it might affect the following entries to the point where they might become bad.

Shangri-La Frontier, Round 2 — The God-tier game never ceases to amaze, and Challenge 2 Challenge is the perfect animosity for a studio name that never once shuns from giving the audience its hype train that never stops. What comes to mind when you think of "the greatest game that's ever lived?" There are a lot of games for that matter, so let's dumb it down to just anime depictions of it. Some will say that Sword Art Online still plays a huge precedent, being the franchise that has lasted on a golden platter since its 2012 debut, and that's no question at all being theVR MMORPG that pretty much influenced the gaming landscape in terms of anime. And within the last few years or so, the newest contender of mangaka Katarina's Shangri-La Frontier has been going strong since its Fall 2023 debut with studio C2C at the helm, and it's no surprise that we're once again back yet into another Fall-Winter seasonal crossover with the studio's first-ever 2-cour back-to-back sequel series enlisting of a god-tier game that never refuses to say never, because never is NOT enough. With Season 2 continuing the leftovers from Volume 7 to the middle of Volume 14 of the manga, it's evident from Season 1 that there's no definition of a good stopping point, because from the intents of director Toshiyuki Kubooka, it is meant to keep each and every episode hyped for the next, to the next. And yes, given that Sunraku and the gang have weathered the storm against Weathermon the Tombguard (which was one of the major arcs of Season 1), going into Season 2 with the Ether Reactor arc, where Sunraku would eventually make his own secret Inventoria, only to face inherent difficulty in reckoning switching to yet another game for help and ideas, to then revisit his lifelong in-game nemesis once again to try and remove the initial curse set upon him with the Nightslayer's Shadow arc (which is quite the action-heavy arc), thereby taking a switch with yet another Unique Scenario of the Abyss City arc and the much-anticipated GGC arc that clearly defines what SLF is all about. If you have to take a gander at how Season 2 does things differently, I will have to say to look out for both Lycagon's revisit as well as the other games that were played in the middle of SLF. Remember, Sunraku started out his journey as a total noob, only to be affected by Lycagon's curse the moment he was about to break the bank of the game's development stage. And because this boisterous creature is so hard to locate, it takes comrades and a well-executed strategy just to find the rare enemy alone to convince it to undo the curse on him. Sadly, as much as Sunraku wants to exact revenge on Lycagon, it backfires and induces him to a fault that everyone, from players to NPCs, will notice the evil aura emitting from him. The GGC aspect, though, really turns SLF into one glorified Gamer's Aura of a video game anime because of the other games in place, like Nephilim Hollow that allow for unlimited parallels of other SLF players in those games to take even more precedent. Once again, remember that when Sunraku met OiKatzo for the first time, it was in the trash game BERP for hardcore trash gamers, which is how he and Arthur Pencilgon a.k.a Towa Amane got into the whole SLF shtick in the first place. And the sequel expands a bit more from the local to the international stage, where eSports is at its height of fame and the hardcore know their skills fully well. It's always the integration of both internal and external factors that makes SLF one of the most tightly confined series I've seen, and it has been proven in Season 1, so it should be in Season 2 here as well. I need not say that C2C has been pushing themselves like (the once) Studio Bind to pump out only one core source material, and they're continuing to nail flawless production and near-perfect animation prowess even for Season 2. Yes, there have been somewhat of production cuts that are obvious for the sequel, but it is overall still better than the average 3rd-rate studios out there who can't muster much. OST continues to be just as great, with the tight integration that always works no matter what. The OP/ED set is where I have reservations of a hit-and-miss experience. LiSA's OP and otoha's ED knocked it out of the park for the 1st Cour, but Awich's OP and CVTLE's ED regressed it back for the 2nd Cour. To be fair, the songs are not bad at all, especially for the 2nd Cour with its rather dark depiction and 8-bit stylized features, but I don't think that it held its weight against what we have heard for almost 1.5 years now. Still, managaka Katarina's Shangri-La Frontier still continues to impress in its consistency, and heck, we're not even anywhere remotely close to done with the adaptation, especially since Season 3 has been in the works for quite some time already. If there's any chance of catching up to SLF, now's the time to respond to the gamer vibes within you and just let loose your gamer bait rage to experience one of, if not, the greatest video game-inspired adaptations out there.

After finishing Shangri-La Frontier season 2, I’m left with mixed feelings. Unfortunately, it’s hard to ignore that season 2 lost the "magic" that made the first season such a compelling watch. The excitement and mystery of exploring the world of SLF and taking on quests just aren’t there this time around. The animation quality has also taken a noticeable dive. The Weathermon battle in season 1 was intense and gripping, creating a real sense of tension, even with no actual stakes. In comparison, season 2’s battles feel hollow, almost cheap. I think the show could really benefit from a "Souls-like" system where dying has consequence(you lose all your money or drop 5 levels), without it, the fights lose their weight. Ironically, the most engaging part of season 2 happens outside the game itself, but with those storylines still unresolved by the season's end, it leaves the whole arc feeling like it’s gone nowhere. By the conclusion, it’s hard to shake the feeling that not much was accomplished. For anyone reading this who hasn’t watched Shangri-La Frontier season 2 yet, I’d recommend going in with lowered expectations. And for those of you who have already seen it, I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that season 2 deserves a score lower than season 1.

I feel like this season had a lot of promise but it fell short of it's predecessor for a couple of reasons in my opinion. Season 1 presented other players as threats and the whole idea of PKers seemed a bit more important but in this season there weren't really any outside threats at all. Another thing that I liked in season 1 that they completed fumbled in season 2 is the eerie, mysterious feeling of the truth behind the world inside Shangri-La Frontier. For example, the vibes that were given off between Setsuna and Pencilgon felt like there was something deep and dark behind thegame that we would follow up on further this season. The last problem I had with this season is the pacing. There's nothing wrong with our MC playing other games every now and then but there are times we are ramping up to a major plot point and Sunraku takes a break to meet up with someone in another game and it just takes you out of it because he'll be out the game for a couple episodes. Oh! And Saiga (Psyger 0) is annoying.