Review of Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 2

I've been trying to make up my mind how I feel about this series since I started it a little while back and finally completing it today. So let's tackle pros and cons without spoiling anything. Animation: it can be REALLY bad. Honestly I don't feel like they make too many attempts at hiding the fact they barely have a budget for animation. It can be as simple as showing an image while the characters continue to talk or a chase scene where it's a still image and the characters continue to talk, or an awkward moment where maybe someone should have let go of anitem. It doesn't make sense until you remember oh yes, they don't have a budget to show that do they?

Designs: oh boy. Sometimes I really like it, I like how you can tell who's nobility and who isn't based on clothing alone, however most everything is pretty standard designs.

Character: I think for the most part I like the characters personalities, but I don't like how the character interactions play out which is very episodic. which brings me to

story: (what to expect) I really like the concept, I like how clean the show is, and I really like how easy it is to digest. In that regard it's very slice of life, it kind of reminds me of K-On! with a different fluffy formula. There's not really any stakes and there is no real danger. However, unlike what I experienced with a show like K-On! There is actual growth. It makes me want to stick around and see what will happen later.

However
Every episode there is usually a formula. (Spoilers ahead) Myne is a savior, winning over her... slaves. She's good to them when they work, otherwise they don't deserve food? This portion of the story is very cringy. It's interesting to see how this world works but they don't really bring attention to the fact she has slaves, just that they don't like her and she has to win them over by one silly thing or another. One woman is scared of men and doesn't want to leave her safe space, but that's ok Myne asked her to redo one of her pictures in a simple style and that gave her courage to explore and work past her PTSD. It was so fast I am not kidding. It's brought up out of no where and is resolved by the end of the episode never to be brought up again. Ok. Eventually she wins over all her slaves and NOW we can get back to interesting biz.

All in all I can't wait for the next season, I just hope there's more to the story and less "lets save the day for one person we've never heard of til now!" There's so much they could do with this world and it really does feel like it's limited due to animation budget but we'll see!