Review of Nanbaka Season 2
Well, what can I say? I'm frankly appalled at how the author cold-heartedly butchered this crap. I'm let down and I want my time back as I feel pretty much tricked in a way. This was supposed to be a nonsense gag comedy, that's what it introduced itself as. Even in season 1, it wasn't THAT bad even if the author decided to introduce a lot of out-of-place serious drama/tragedy into a show that can't survive without being moronic. But in season 2, it was decided that being a gag comedy sucked and they wanted to, all too late, go the more serious shounen battleroute with comedic relief in style with such a work, it's not even good comedy anymore, it's just boring crap. Giving it a 4/10 was quite generous of me, I can't see anyone but teens or people who haven't experienced much manga/anime/novels to ever give it a higher score than 6/10, and that's pushing it.
Tsk. How retarded do you have to be to take what people watch your show for and remove it in order to twist and disfigure it into something it can't ever be good at? This is a show that repeatedly goes on about how it's a gag anime and its very title shows that it's not meant to be serious. The flamboyant colors and excessive energy of every character is also something that could never be taken seriously. However, for some reason, they thought it was a good idea to try. If I want tragedy/drama or a nice serious story, I will damn well go read/watch something that is meant to be one, that actually CAN be taken seriously and is interesting. This is just extremely tepid. It doesn't go all out for anything and thus fails big time at everything. I can't take any of the characters seriously and the drama/tragedy is so bad that I don't feel anything for the characters, I've seen so much worse, you want me to feel sympathy for some butthurt chuunibyou-esque people that can't help but feel sorry for themselves over something really stupid? That's just not happening, especially not when there's no good mood going on.
So, now we have a whole bunch of pimped-up chuunibyou-like prisoners and guards looking like peacocks and as colorful as christmas trees running around with the maturity of ten year olds acting cringeworthy and trying way too hard to look cool while we have to sit through their sobstories that no one cared about and that isn't even a big deal to anyone who've watched/read true tragedies/dramas before, I've seen mcs do a hundred times worse things to other people than what these guys has gone through despite being the "good guys", it's so damn mild. The comedy has become just as horrible as the action and drama, it's incredible. Even the first episode wasn't really good despite being full-on comedy, because that idiot in the background just couldn't shut up with his announcements.
The story is just horrible in every way possible. It's pure chaos as it jumps around and can't decide what it wants to be. It's good at nothing and absolutely subpar. The art is probably the thing I can complain the least about, it's the same as season 1 after all, not much to complain about, well, if anything I guess that I'd have to point out that characters and buildings more pimped out than the biggest pimps out there who can't act like adults does not fit in with this more serious story at all. The sound isn't that bad, but I feel like it wasn't anything special, the opening song didn't even change and that was the only thing that pulled the sound score up in the first season. As for the charcaters, pretty much all of them are either boring or irritating, they have no proper personality, sure, they have extreme traits but that's all they are, they feel empty and dead, like machines. My enjoyment was, at the best of times, around average, that means 5/10, that it's watchable without feeling like it's a pain. Usually it was lower though. I'll just go for 4/10 for the overall score because it had promise and it had moments now and then that were watchable.
We also don't get any explanations for anything. People just mysteriously has powers but no one knows why. The guards thinks it's scary that the mc and the other people have powers, so does the inmates, but it's a fact that everyone is pretty much as powerful or more powerful than the mc and those people they experimented on. No matter who it is, they all have weird superpowers that no human can possibly have, but it seems they're blissfully ignorant of how they're freaks and monsters themselves whenever the author wants them to. If it was just a comedy anime, no one would care about the fact that nothing is explained, but since it wants to be serious, we need to know more, however, seems the author doesn't realize that like many other authors and fails to explain what needs to be explained. The power levels are also extremely dependant on whatever the author wants, there's nothing set. In one moment, they're so OP you'd think they could fight a demon king by themselves, the next moment they're so weak they would barely match up against a midboss and at other times, they're so weak they'd get their arse handed to them by the start village boss. Sometimes one character becomes weak and the rest becomes stronger. I absolutely despise it when authors can't keep power levels consistent and doesn't care enough to do so, feeling like it's okay to change it as he goes.
Oh, by the way the ending sucks more than anything I've seen lately. Guess what? It stops pretty much in the middle of everything. There's no conclusion whatsoever. We're left hanging in the middle of a climax, I'd say there's at least another several episodes left before we can see that particular dragged out battle ending. I guess they planned to make another season but failed. This garbage doesn't deserve a third season, so I hope they never make one, but it's still frustrating to painstakingly sit through this thing only to get left hanging in the middle of the action without even knowing who will win in a battle you just spent several episodes trudging through while feeling like dropping it the entire time just because you feel like you have to watch the rest when you've already come so far.