PLOT: Having learned the true nature of the Sybil System, Akane Tsunemori chose to obey the system, believing in both humanity and the legal order. She’s part of a new police section and spends her everyday life facing down criminals. Unbeknownst to Akane, however, a monster who will shake the system to its core is about to appear before her.                    {Taken from ANN}

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Noitamina is in full swing with the return of one of the most popular shows from their broadcasting to date.  I absolutely loved the first season and with the announcement of an additional season and feature-length film I was nothing short of excited.  A dystopian cyberpunk sci-fi series that uses full-advantage of its background by integrating a Sibyl system set out to maintain order and peace to its people.  Every bit of the main cast including its 3-episode villains arc received just enough attention to develop a build-up onto the main story that made this series much more fascinating.

I won’t go into many details about the first season as to avoid spoilers for those that haven’t seen it yet, but with the knowledge gained by Akane about the system and what she ends up doing in this first episode is rather smart.  Pushing onto others that the system can be tapped with by human emotion and interaction as we see with Akira Kitazawa–  really shows how much Akane has grown since the very beginning of the first season as this paid off really well.  Also would like to point out how well Ginoza is here–  he still protects Akane like he used to and he’s got his father’s coat from Season 1, this all illustrates how much he has grown up as well.  Loved that scene where he overlooks Akane’s decision in the apprehending of Akira and how he is able to accept things the way they are now.

The show is back but I felt that there were tons of problems with this including how it is only 1-cour.  For one, the animation looked as though the budget is lower for this season as there were a ton of disjointed still shots and camera angles–  especially that fight between Akane and the drone were mixed with some very odd 3-d and 2-d animation styles that were never there before in the first season.  It really is a shame that Production I.G. handed the animating over to Tastunoko productions because they have not done a very good job with this first episode.  The fact that this studio screwed up Yozakura Quartet Hana no Uta has me very worried about this anime and even the character designs look more rounded and childish-looking than the first season!  That isn’t even the biggest issue I had with this first episode let alone this second season as the series writer is the main issue.

Gen Urobuchi proved to us that he can write some really good stories with Madoka and the first PSYCHO-PASS, but why hand it off to Ubukata, the creator of Mardock Scramble?  Those were decent films, but this anime did a hell of a lot better than those and yet they chose to completely change the atmosphere with his style here?  Why do this?  No more rigid and tight closeup scene rather they are replaced with some very generic wide angle shots that are the least bit impressive.

In regards to the music score, Yuugo Kanno’s approach at maintaining the momentum of classical mixed with a few cuts of electronic beats have been entirely overhauled in favor of a techno-infused soundtrack.  That first song that was re-done from the first season was horrible here.  What has happened with this show?

I just hope that the story at least is its strong suit as the after-credits ending provided a nice cliffhanger that raises some interesting questions about a post-Makishima’s endeavors and a possible return of luring out Kogami Shinya to solve another set of strange cases.  Also is there a reason why Sho’s voice actor is Takahiro Sakurai the same as Makishima’s from season 1?

OP: “Enigmatic Feeling” by Ling Tosite Sigure

This band is one of the best if not only aside from HaKu that is consistently experimental hard rock music, I say this only because of vocalist TK’s soft whispers to screams in the first season’s opening Abnormalize.  This rekindle that same feeling I had of that, a hardened world caught up with an intelligent system [Sibyl] that can completely control our lives.  Interesting idea to repeat the same animation to move along the with the flow of the music, somehow that style worked here.

ED: “Fallen” by EGOIST

I typically enjoy the music SUPERCELL involves themselves in and this band was a creative project in 2011 involving Guilty Crown’s Inori Yuzuriha’s vocalist persona Chelly, but this song here was bad.  I enjoyed both endings of the first season that this band did, but somehow did Yuugo Kanno take the influence on his soundtrack and collaborate with EGOIST to write this piece of trash?  Awful instrumentals.

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