__WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1 AND 2 OF VIGILANTES, AS WELL AS A (BRIEF) SPOILER OF SEASON 3 OF MY HERO ACADEMIA
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I liked Season 1 a lot. There's plenty positive to say about it, mostly that it manages to continue portraying MHA's world in a realistic, and even more grounded way than the original had time (and scope) for.
However, I feel like Season 2 has, quite frankly, wasted its time and muddied the waters of what was a simple but well crafted story.

I'll be brief on my negative points:
- The show is filled with filler villains. This would be fine if it wasn't, like, at least 30% of the screentime. I was already complaining when Season 1 was coming out about how every enemy was simply a "big guy heteromorph who smashes things blindly": well, this is only exacerbated in Season 2 when you have already been filled in with the issues and life in Naruhata and instead want to go on with the show's plot. However, not only are you still forced to go through Godzilla #33, every character who is mildly problematic for society is now suddenly a heteromorph (talking about the grasshopper dudes and so on).
One of the things that helps sell that MHA's world is alive is the diversity and intricacies of Quirk-based society. Not only does Season 2 present the same kind of Quirk, making the day-to-day boring, it also fails on delivering that diversity of Quirks that makes the setting what it is.
Which brings me to my next point...

- Koichi's Quirk is kinda bad writing. Okay, this might be just my opinion, but bear with me here: the interesting thing about Koichi and his Quirk is that he's just kind of a guy. Average dreams, average life, but that doesn't stop him from being a good samaritan, because that's the point of the show. This was nicely portrayed by his Quirk, which was not at all what you would imagine to be a Hero's quirk, and is simply one of many Quirks one might find in the setting.
However, this Quirk's capabilities have been warped and extended for the sake of making him stronger (I have no idea why you would need that with the current level of threat) to the point where I'm struggling to believe it is the same Quirk. Well, I believe it because that's what the author decided, but it feels like a lazy overwrite and frankly, a missed opportunity to make interesting situations to allow his Quirk as it was intended originally to shine. Why does he get projectiles now? I thought he was supposed to crawl around, he's called The Crawler for crying out loud. But I don't think this is the only part where Koichi is treated badly this season...

- What even happens with Koichi (or at all) this season? While this season has the great Aizawa's flashbacks, I have to wonder what this entire season is for. Koichi doesn't really do anything until the end, and we managed to just go through more idol stuff (really, did I miss that this was supposed to be an idol show?). I get that there needs to be breathing room, pacing, and stuff like that, but is this really what we could have gotten with 12 episodes? Speaking of pacing and the end...

-Knuckleduster's fight would be cool, but we've already seen it. Again, adorned with that bit of sakuga, Knuckleduster's return was cool. But apart from the aura farming and animation, why did we just do a repeat of Season 1's ending portion? That part was cool specifically because we'd never seen someone like Knuckleduster, who would step away from the good guy's party and do things on his own: that's because we've been used to heroes, not vigilantes.
And that fight was amazing, because of all the quirkless tactics that went alongside it. But those hype moments only work because there's a clear narrative and thematic reason behind that setpiece: the mystery surrounding him, his family troubles, the buildup of the villain for that season, etc. Instead, here we have a couple of scenes of Knuckleduster that slowly reveal his real identity (which is cool, albeit sad that he isn't a true quirkless), then he just appears at the second to last episode to fight Number 6. Again, we've seen this before, but done better.

- Number 6 makes little sense to me. I mean it in the way that, to me, he seems to ruin the story of the original. We're basically talking about a better Nomu, before Nomus were even invented. What's the point then? I was already hesitant about the existence of a precursor of Trigger in the first season, which in and of itself is not a problem considering that expanding the origins of things we already know from MHA is not a bad thing, but this is especially silly considering that Nomus are a big thing. Again, why are we doing the same things?

-A lot of the good parts are merely taken from MHA. I'm talking things like Eraser's flashback, and all the nice moments where heroes you know show up. These moments help elevate the season, but unfortunately it's not thanks to the author's writing as much as Horikoshi's original ideas. I know that implementation takes effort, but it's easier to implement when everything's explained to you: to make sure that you stand out, you gotta come out swinging, and while I think Season 1 does a good enough job at that with its contrast of vigilante and grounded life compared to MHA, Season 2 only carries on by rehearsing the same things.

I want to reiterate that there is a bunch to like about Season 2, and Vigilantes as a whole. The character interactions are still great, and most of the new characters are genuinely fun to have around. I like that Captain Celebrity isn't a joke anymore, and the guy made me do a 180° on him. The Eraser Head flashback was great, although I imagined the tragedy to have transpired a little more suddenly and shockingly than it did.
Anyways, it seems like Koichi wants to retire soon, thinking adult life will not coincide with his vigilante work. However, Pop doesn't want his inspiration to end yet. I can't wait for her to give him the hoodie he used to save her that day. It'll be a good moment, I'm sure. We'll see eachother then, hoping that Season will be way more packed and inspired than this one.