This anime is absolutely phenomenal, and the hate is unfounded. It's so very rare for an anime to both ask extremely intriguing questions, AND deliver with equally interesting answers. The OST is actually Godly (what did this anime do to deserve this? This is some of the best stuff that has ever graced my ears), the Voice Acting is mostly great (some of the children, understandably, are a bit hard to listen to in the midst of so many stellar performances), the ending is great and fits the show well, and it's simply a blast to watch. Not much else to say. Yes, maybe I havea higher tolerance for bad production. However, the high-points of S2 animation are so good in fact, that you'll probably forget this criticism existed. The thing I disliked most was that, while S1 animation maybe wasn't pretty, it was just messy. It showcased a lack of knowledge in animating movement, which I found quite charming and not at all a bother to watch. While S2 (at its worst) will be extremely distracting still-frames. For an anime that hinges on conversation, the facial expressions being completely off in some scenes is detrimental. And so on. However, as I said, when it wants to be, it gets pretty darn beautiful. And the REALLY bad animation episodes are maybe 2 or 3.

The world-building is wonderful: they more than make up for the bad animation with masterful talking scenes. It's been a while since simple dialogue kept me at the edge of my seat (probably hasn't happened since AoT): they build up mystery superbly well. The music definitively helps: they time it crazy well. I don't really agree that the anime is overly convoluted, either. Things are pretty much spelled out sooner or later, and, while you can probably connect something a bit earlier if you're super smart, you will still be able to understand the story in full as long as you watch the show. If anything, I wish they didn't repeat the information we've already learned as much as they have.

And yet, I think some story elements are wasted. Won't go into spoilers, but I was expecting a little bit more from Touko and Hinako, and there were some characters I found kind of useless and just didn't understand why they were in the story in the first place. My only real complaint is that I found all the big reveals being prior to the Finale a bit weird. It kind of left the Finale in a weird spot where everything has already been explained, so they're not sure what to do.

With all that, this season improved so much on the last. If you found the last one a bit slow and gave up on it, trust me, things pick up. A bonus is that it's highly rewatchable, as well!

Overall, I can't recommend this anime enough. It's well thought-out, has awesome dialogue scenes which give you just enough information to keep you invested, the voice acting is marvelous, the fight-scenes might not have the best animation but the hype is still there, and the music is going into my playlist. Absurdly good anime, and hated for so little reason.