I really don't know how I fell off on this show so hard whenever it came out, because it rules. The simple artstyle lends itself fantastically to how absolutely buckwild the animators can go, both for the sake of really good sight gags and incredible fight scenes. This show absolutely looks good as heck at pretty much all times, and it does a great job at making all the characters look unique. Part of that is ONE’s extremely strong concepts and part of that is the fantastic animation team.

Of course, the animation is just one piece of this extremely delicious pie. The plot’s simple enough, but the characters and themes accompanying it are fantastic. The arc where Reigen actually experiences consequences for his actions actually struck me as really raw, which was surprising given it’s, you know, Reigen. But that’s what makes the show really great, in my opinion; while the show is very fond of making fun of its characters, it’s actually super compassionate to them, even if they made some objectively bad choices over the course of their lives. I would rather not go into too many spoilers, but I was happy to see a bunch of faces from the first season come back in a pretty unexpected context. Also the Body Improvement Club, the most glorious pack of himbos I ever did see.

Thematically, I think the show does a fantastic job on following up from the first season. It’s definitely a coming of age story about Mob growing up, but I think it’s about maturity in general, much like the first season. I think the major difference between the seasons is that Mob kind of surpasses his master, as I think his confrontation with the main villain of this season mirrors Reigen taking the Scars to task for being immature losers at the end of the first season. There was a pretty strong comedy element to Reigen’s rampage, of course, even if he was right, but Mob’s talk with the final villain is serious and heartfelt.

I guess if I had to criticize anything it’d be that I wish the pacing leading to the big conflict was a little more consistent, although the sudden shift in tone was really well done, so I guess I’m not too fussed about it. Also outside of the OP and ED the music fits the show but isn’t really a collection of major bops I’d want to buy an OST for. The OP and ED are definitely bops, though. The OP is definitely the song I like more, but the ED is very cute and absolutely instrumental to one of the show’s final gags.

Anyway, I really hope there’s a S3 at some point, because this series owns really hard. There’s one character in particular who I’m excited to see get a longer arc, and well, I just wanna see more good jokes, excellent animation, and heartfelt characterization!