Review of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan - Demon Capital
Nurarihyon no Mago ~Sennen Makyou~ is indeed the continuation-- the second season of Nurarihyon no Mago, but this season really differs in overall story and intensity. While you're just gonna stay relaxed and breathing normally watching the first, wait until you actually start watching the second! The story itself is way better than the first. The first one always focuses on bunch of kids on their adventure on searching yokais, and that sucks. The battles themselves didn't have much of a meaning and many of them were just wall displays-- they ended so quickly without any tension. Everything just remained unclear there and leaves us intosatisfaction. Well then, trust me, you'll get the 180 degrees different feeling in this second season. Since the very first catchy episode, we've been hooked straight to the main, whole point of this season. While the first doesn't have any main goal to achieve, the second one really does. The battles were amusing and completely different from the first one that lacked of almost everything needed in a shonen series. And all the aspects of this story was described well, beautifully... and when the story ended, they didn't left us confused. My personal best part was Rihan's story.... no spoilers coming out from my mouth though.
The art is slightly different from the first season, and it improved in a good way of course. The fights were drawn and animated quite well, got to admit.
The sound... what to say, the seiyuus were outstanding. We've got FukuJun for our main character that is a professional seiyuu, has played hundreds of roles, and is able to achieve that high because of his awesome voice and great understanding of the characters. It's such a shame that we couldn't get much of Aya Hirano's cute voice in Kana but at least Yura and her dialect was pretty entertaining. The opening and ending were cool as well. Then.... the BGMs quite fit the situations. The only thing that disappoints me was that they change Natto Kozo's seiyuu.. and he totally lost his cuteness. *le cries*
To me, character is one of the best part in this series besides the plot itself. The characters changed so much from the first season, where they didn't have much of a personality. As for Rikuo, i was so impressed, he was completely different from how he was on the first season. He matures a lot in personality, he becomes braver and more competent as a leader, he came to agree with his fate and decided to work himself out to be better. Aaand what got me stunned the most is how Night Rikuo changed. In the first season, he was shown as a ruthless, cold, and inapproachable scary yokai. But here, we got to know his soft side. He becomes more humanly and he himself finally shows some weaknesses, that we didn't got to know in the first season (well, one of the reasons for us to relate to the character is when the characters are weak. If they're so, duh, PERFECT, all we can do is just staring at him in awe, nothing more). And he finally shows some realistic way on learning-- what i meant was how he trained to be a better person, something that the first didn't offer much.
Aside from Rikuo's overflowing coolness coming from the 2nd season, the supporting characters were also getting cooler and have some stronger roles in this season. Yura, especially, has gotten much stronger, unlike her first appearance that was so..... pathetic that it hurts just to watch her fighting, and seconds later she loses. Yura is also getting more humanlike here, she has shown some of her alter-personality like the tsundere her. Way to go.
Well... this series was really enjoyable, either the first or the second season. Duh, it's a series with cool boys, fights, and ghosts. But if you're craving for a more intense and heartpounding one, be sure to watch the second. Well, you could just watch the second and ignore the first but i think it's better to watch both of them, so you could have some more understanding and could relate better to the story.