Season 2 starts off on a good note!
Seriously, you can tell right away that the artists have gotten way better with their tools, and the whole production has way more money put into it. Things like backgrounds and lighting that used to be merely serviceable are now detailed and expressive. It's not all perfect - one scene has someone turn off the sun with a dimmer switch - but the show is so much better looking now.


This probably sounds stupid in text, but they improved the writing in much the same way. The first season was oddly structured, starting off more like a film before spending some time as a CW drama and finally settling as Squaresoft JRPG. Episodes here are scripted like a proper TV serial, with hints of the larger plot at the beginning and end sandwiched around the episode story. The villain, who showed up briefly in episode 1 wearing entirely too much blackface, now has a name, a voice and a place in the story. She's also smoking fucking hot holy shit


The main cast are still high schoolers so they have to be quirky and swoon over dreamy boys. Episode 1 is almost entirely taken up by a food fight. That might sound dumb but it's shot like a Matrix fight scene if Neo was also Superman and Goku. Action scenes are still the clear highlight, and if anything they've gotten better? I think it's the camera work; framing and panning is a lot smoother, and there's some really fun fast-moving shots sprinkled in.


The plot is still about animal racism so that's cool. Blake wants to know why her fellow furries are working for a guy that can't even apply eyeliner correctly, and the other three get roped into helping. The big team-up scene is bizarre; it's written as a comedy where Weiss is the nagging buzzkill, but all of her points are valid and no one has good reason to get involved. They are high schoolers and they should leave things to the police or military. But it wouldn't be a proper shonen if the rascally kid heroes didn't rambunctiously try to take down terrorist organizations!


The big take-away from these first few episodes is that the whole production is much more professional. I unironically thought to myself, "It's like I'm watching a real show." The plotting and world-building is much better, and the episodes have structure and purpose. They even modeled crowds! You still have to deal with the occasionally jittery talking scene or bizarre Lucky Star gag shot, but they're much less frequent and less egregious when they do show up.


Also best girl is back so yeah they're giving it 110%

Yeah, S2 is a huuuuuge fucking jump in quality. S1 is very quirky and amateur and S2 is what they did when they got their bearings. S3 is even more involved, it's a trip.

And yeah Weiss is meant to be the naggy straightman except everything she says is 100% logical so it kind of lands in unintentionally hilarious territory.

Yeah draku is basically Weiss irl

even in these screencaps the characters kind of feel like theyre just in a halo machinima when it isnt an action scene. cinder and her idiot cronies are just standing at attention like theyre just spawned in on yoyorast island and theyre looking at their clan leader giving them orders while people blow each other up on the warthog race track. not that i dont appreciate this series' jumps in quality, because it really does continue to get better and better, but its like the closer it gets to a generic shonen the more the problems stick out to me

WHAT THE FUCK I HAVENT THOUGHT ABOUT YOYORAST ISLAND IN LIKE A GOD DAMNED DECADE
I MISS THAT MAP IT RULED