Another Example of Bad Animation and Studio Editing!
As far Isekai goes Demon Lord Retry R is a standard run of the mill sort of show. It depends on the usual trope of a character getting stuck in a world he once played in as a gamer. As his designed character he must set out to survive the world and to do things isekai main characters do the best; meet cute girls, gain reputation, world build, and beat the bad guy.
Normally, this sort of set up would get a fairly decent reading on the My Anime List (MAL) score range but this show has flat out bombed as barely average with a current score of 5.50/10 and for good reason. Not only is it a second season of a series that was all but dropped in 2019 but it was also handed off to a different studio and voice actors.
Sometimes change can be good especially when picking up something like a dead anime series from another studio but these guys (Gekkou) went off the deep end with it. Not only did they dumb down the animation style but they also reduced characters to bumbling fools with modern comical style reactions as seen as above. Characters looked fatter than their season 1 equivalents and some had complete personality changes. Worst of all, they wasted two full episodes with filler content where they retconned and changed elements of the story which made the series confusing and convoluted;causing a lot of critical response online.
Oh, and don’t get me started on the unnecessary and lazy use of CGI. I noticed it the most in the cigarette smoke every time Hakuto Kunai takes a puff (which is excessive and frequent – dude has a serious problem). Gekkou can’t be completely blamed for lazy CGI however as that trend has taken over and reduced the quality of many good studios in and around Japan.
I found all this especially disappointing because when I was getting back into anime and watching just about everything on Crunchyroll one of the shows I liked was the first season of Demon Lord Retry R; and I finished it about a season before the new rebooted second season was released. I was pumped. I was ready. I wanted to continue the story and see how the story progressed. I’m a sucker for the isekai trope, even mediocre ones, so I didn’t even need buy in. I was ready to jump into it, buy the Blu-ray releases, and maybe even a figure or two. I was a fan. At least until I saw how they butchered the new release.
I often wonder what is up with Japan and good shows. They cancel too many, they allow studios to hand off great works to mediocre or less reputable studios, and they don’t book the same voice actors all the save money – but it never seems like the fan and the story take priority; and that’s one thing I hate about anime. There’s just so much waste in it
Story & Plot: 🍣🍣
The story is still there and it’s from a fairly popular Light Novel adapted to Manga and then adapted to anime. The new studio did retcon and change things in the fillers however
Animation Style: 🍣
The new animation as compared to the first season is atrocious and it makes the show very difficult to watch for anyone who enjoyed the first season. Poor use of CGI also didn’t help. A lot of the reactions, expressions, etc seem childish – which is a departure from season one.
Voice Acting: 🍣🍣🍣
I think the voice actors did what they could with this one. They adapted to what the studio expected from them. Replacing the original voice actors was a questionable choice however. Yes, they all had busy schedules but perhaps delay is the death of good shows continuing.
Musical Score: 🍣🍣🍣
The intro and outro music is catchy but nothing memorable. It’s certainly not bad but I doubt this will get stuck in my mind as some of the better songs do. I didn’t notice any real sound usage, at least anything memorable, within the show itself. What I do hear is rather stock.
