Sekirei… has its problems. Most notably revolving around the well endowed bosoms of all the females that gather themselves around Minato, the male lead. It’s obvious that its premise is partly there for the boobs, but alongside that it does pull off something that just about every fanservice show is missing: an actually interesting plot.
The first season was plagued by having to actually set up its partially awful premise, but in the second season things come a lot more together. This series still pulls a few deus ex machina, the most notable being them suddenly changing the freaking gender of one of the characters and the pointlessly moronic antics of the main villain, but the overall storyline does get better and better, and especially the last arcs succeed quite well in their attempts to tug at your heartstrings. For all its faults, this is a series that does know how to develop its cast of characters.
It’s also interesting how Seven Arcs managed to significantly improve the animation budget for the second season. Especially the second half of this sequel has quite a few beautifully animated fight scenes. I mean, the entire series has really improved throughout its run so far.
Even at this point, the story is still nowhere near finished, but at this point I can’t say whether or not a third season is going to come in two years to wrap up the story. This second season mostly finishes the introduction of all of the characters, it rounds off the basic back-story behind the entire premise and it concludes a number of side-stories. It really made the franchise a lot more solid, but a third season really is necessary to delve into the essence of this story because regarding the core of the series, all we got was a bunch of vague hints here and there. I’m not going to recommend this series until it becomes clear whether or not that third season is going to come, but either way this was a pleasant surprise.
| Storytelling: | 7/10 – The excessive focus on fanservice and a few Deus ex Machina hold this one back, but overall it’s a lot more solid than the first season. |
| Characters: | 8/10 – If you get part the premise of all of the characters, they’re actually pretty good and well developed here. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Surprisingly well animated fight scenes here, the rest of the animation is also pretty solid. |
| Setting: | 8/10 – The biggest improvement over the first season. A lot of time was spent on making the foundation of the series more solid, and it works quite well. |
Suggestions:
– Futakoi Alternative
– Code-E
– Sola
