Interesting, an episode without nearly anything about the main cast. They only appear at the final minute or so. Instead, the antagonists get fleshed out. We see the two bomb-technicians (what where they again? My memory about the first season is too fuzzy) from first season back, and they team up with a newly introduced character named Pinocchio, who if I understood correctly, works directly under one of the five great families as an assassin.
What surprises me is the huge amount of hate-reactions this series has been getting, but I think that the huge expectations that everyone had about this series are partially to blame. The first season was of a really high quality, like expected from a studio like Madhouse. The second season just doesn’t have the same budget, and instead has had to sacrifice a lot in the graphical department. Artland just doesn’t have the experience nor the budget to make this the visual feast of the first season, and I can indeed imagine that if you had great expectations about this series, especially after waiting so incredibly long, the thing will disappoint. It’s for the same reason why I’m nearly certain that a lot of people will be disappointed by Haruhi II, even though I know hardly anything about the series.
In any case, there’s one thing that for me definitely improved in terms of the first season: the soundtrack. It fits the series much better, and it’s much more memorable than the soundtrack of the first season. There’s also nothing wrong with the storytelling. The first episode did a good job of refreshing my memory with a random fight-scene, and now the second episode starts building up for real, and it’s good to see so much attention to the villains this time.
So, long story short: the first and second season are, just like Solaris said, completely different series, and for now I have no reason to look down upon the second season yet. It knows how to build up and for now, that’s the most important for me.
First,thanks for blogging this.
Havn’t watched the raw yet,but it seems from your description that it’s just manga stuff.
I kinda expected the animation to take a hit,but here’s the thing,when madhouse adapted vol 1 and 2 of the manga,they didn’t have much of a plot to work from so it HAD to rely on great animation and athmosphere,”the Pinocchio arc” is different,there’s a main plot and I think it’s easier to adapt,I don’t think it will need the great animation to be good,even if I wish it did have it.
Though I do love the OST from season 1,even if it’s just mainly 2 themes used over and over again in different ways,i always listen to it while reading the manga.
My favorite part of the pino arc is the “villains”,hey,even the arc itself is named after a “villain”,they just add another dimention to the story,a dimention the first 2 volumes didn’t have.
Thanks for blogging this, I was eager to see what was going to happen after last weeks… disappointing opener.
I think for me – as a fan of season 1- it’s less irritation at it being cheaper, but also the way the new cheap character designs imply a concerted effort to make it *cute* or *moe* or *loli* or whatever stupid term us geeks are using this week. Season 1 was adult drama, and I think the fans are quite protective of it.
Having said that, you seem to have some nice positive comments about the plot. So fingers crossed.
“Artland just doesn’t have the experience nor the budget to make this the visual feast of the first season”
I disagree with this, Artland more than have the experience and contacts to produce a beautiful series, case in point Mushishi from 2005/2006 which looks better than anything in this Winter Season.
It’s more than likely a budget thing (Mushishi had a massive array of top notch free lance animators) and Studio Madhouse have produced a lot of stinkers due to low budget and too many series running at the same time before.
About Haruhi II, I don’t know how it will turn out. But being the same studio and a previous big hit, I don’t think it will have a lower budget. If the expectations are not met it will be probably because of the story part of the equation not because of animation.
I think I found better the soundtrack of the first season but I like this one too. And it’s good to see the characters back again , whatever the character-design is. I can’t wait to see what’s gonna happen to them! I couldn’t find this second episode yes. I hope I’m going to find it somewhere.
I think I found better the soundtrack of the first season but I like this one too. And it’s good to see the characters back again , whatever the character-design is. I can’t wait to see what’s gonna happen to them! I couldn’t find this second episode yes. I hope I’m going to find it somewhere.
I’ve finally seen it ! This episode is so great !!! l also had the impression the design got better. Well all the plot about Pinocchio was quite well introduced even if I haven’t understood everything the characters said and above all it was so great to see Angelica again ,god, I really thought she died in the end of the 1st season cause when Marco or whatever his name is called her name at the hospital she didn’t answer. What a relief ! Even if I knew that in the manga book she was still alive. And it was great to see she hasn’t changed a bit, well maybe she became even cuter and prettier . I liked her character design as much as I liked the previous one though I haven’t noticed the big change in it.
>it was so great to see Angelica again ,god, I really thought she died in the end of the 1st season cause when Marco or whatever his name is called her name at the hospital she didn’t answer.
How stupid of us. She wasn’t dead, she just fell asleep -.- How could we think otherwise?
This ruins all the drama and tragedy expressed in that old episode. The Comet episode was to compare the life of the fragile (ehm…) cyborgs with the short and magnificent life of a comet. They live a few but shine like stars before going back to the dark where they came from.
I read the manga version of that episode, and it was nothing special, cause Angelica didn’t die. She just missed the show and poor little girl. No drama, no tragedy. It was flat. On the other hand the video version by Madhouse turned out awesome.
It was better if Artland just kept it like it was, instead of changing back reviving Angelica.
Angelica’s role was to DIE from the very start. All the first season was centered on that. The gunslinger girl have so little time and how will they spend it? What feelings?
Bah… 15 second of an episode to ruin 13 episode perfectly well made.
I want to comment this episode a little more.
It’s a shame the animation still doesn’t get better yet.
We find again flat, rough and static pictures as backgrounds. Animation is still missing, even in fight scenes.
The characters seem to be rather unpropotrionate. Look at pinocchio, he seems to be a giant in comparison with Aurora… but Pinocchio should be a boy a little older than Triela, after all. Josè seems to be a boy and Marco is simply ugly.
Well the little girls seem some way too cute, after all.
But the episode was all devoted to the villanins. After all we all expected to know something about tjem since last season. Just tell me who, back when watching last season dind’t say something like: “Who the hell are these Franco and Franca?”
A least, they fuck it up with Angelica, but succeeded in building up something…
and the shows continues…
I guess I’m in the minority here, but I personally didn’t quite like the soundtrack in this season. And reviving Angelica after the first seasons beautiful last episode really made me feel like I wasted my feelings on that episode.