Well it's hard to comment much without spoiling stuff..but yeah i'm glad the made the animation better. I do rather find satoko annoying too and the second season didn't do much to redeem her. Well yeah like i said i can't say much without spoiling things..all i will say is that it did catch me by surprise at some points..i really wnjoyed watching this.
Actually, I'm hating Satoko far less thus far. I'm now in Minnagoroshi-hen, but before any bloodshed. The previous arc whose name I've already forgotten seems to be anime-original to try and explain some bits and pieces that got left out of the 1st series that were a part of the games, and to introduce the idea of Hanyuu so that it wasn't totally out of the blue when she shows up in this arc. Anyway, still lots of Rika so I'm happy. Though Shion's presence in the 'club activities' and school/etc. is still a bit jarring, it's nice to see the sisters getting some screen time together (even if one or both of them hopefully goes homicidal later...! I for one want to see Mion doing some killing.)
Also: how disturbing are the next episode previews??
Just finished Minnagoroshi-hen, and frankly I'm a bit disappointed. Though getting some actual explanation is nice, I guess I like it better when you're continually second guessing everything that's going on. Having it all handed to you in one big long explanation after another was a bit of a let down. That and I was led to believe on another forum that this was supposed to be a particularly bloody climax, I was hoping they'd all lose it and start attacking each other, but no such luck.
I'm also not too suprised that Takano was behind things, she was so obviously fishy from the very beginning, it's almost disappointing. I'd have preferred a real Oyashiro-sama just manifesting himself as a giant dinosaur or something and ripping 'em all to shreds (especially Shion, in this arc. Her one-woman mission to protect Satoko is even more annoying than Satoko herself. Where's that loveable psycho that charmed me so well gone to? Bring back Homicidal Shion, she's more fun :( ) The climax did have some good moments though, specifically Rena's dreamy look cradling that sword/axe hatchet thing, Mion's bad-ass kick to those boiler suit guys, and the Keiichi/Rena double-teaming. So much fun! I even got a bit of a chuckle out of Satoko the trap master managing to foil a bunch of trained assassins.
OK, so I finally finished series 2 - on the whole this arc has been a bit of a let down, and I finally worked out why - friggin' HANYUU. Her constant squealing was just so annoying it made Satoko's 'Nii-Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.....' seem adorable. Fuck. A lot of this stems from how much I hate Yui Horie as a seiyuu (she has ONE VOICE, and it's always annoying.) and it doesn't help her case that her silly catchphrase is so close to the one she had when she was Ayu in Kanon 2006, who was also annoying. I just found a lot of her role quite...convenient. It all seemed a bit too easy, and having her be the one who brings it all together was kind of annoying - I really felt like it should have been Rika herself, or one of the others, rather than Hanyuu, who'd done shit all up to that point.
But yeah, happy end, etc. SNOOZE. I didn't expect Satoshi to still be alive, which was nice, but on the whole Shion got kind of a bum deal in the happy-end arc. She didn't get to go to school with everyone, she was left out entirely until virtually the last minute, Irie dangles the whole 'hey, Satoshi's not dead y'know' carrot in front of her, only to not bother to say 'oh yeah, but he's still a complete nutjob and has to be strapped sedated to a hospital bed in our crazy underground research facility.' I suppose there is a glimmer of hope there, but it's all still pretty bleak for poor old Shion. I did like Mion's mini-breakdown for Shion though, I love them when they have sisterly moments. It was also nice to see a lot of Sonozaki family time, given how much a fucked up bunch they seemed in the first series. Mion and Oryou having a little moment, and especially Shion and her mum together at the dismembered guy's grave. That said, can anyone really picture Oryou making ohagi? Really? Some how I just can't see that grizzled old yakuza boss making sweets.... Still, this arc was just mostly lame for well, everyone. Rika was a bit bland, Keiichi and Rena were complete non-entities, Satoko's only saving grace was calling Shion Nee-Nee at one point (really, this series has made me warm up to Satoko a lot, mostly because I find Hanyuu more annoying than her) Though the focus on Takano was interesting at first, I just got bored of her delusions really quickly. Again, you were beaten around the head by the answers, and when the mystery isn't so much explained slowly (as it was in say, Meakashi-hen) it's just handed to you on a silver platter, it loses something.
Overall it's a decent continuation, but nowhere near a patch on the 1st series. I think I actually enjoyed the anime-original arc at the beginning of the series better than the other 2 game arcs. I'm intrigued as to where they're going to take the franchise for Rei though, as apparently there's so little left from the games that might be worth covering, it's hard to work out what they're going to do with it. That said, there's a fair bit of speculation that Rei might just be an original spinoff, possibly in the same kind of approach as Fumoffu was to the FMP! franchise - which would be SO AWESOME. The comedy bits from this series are utterly hilarious. The scene where Hanyuu introduces herself to the class and the shot switches to Keiichi, Mion and an evil-eyed, drooling Rena as she eyes up her prey had me in tears virtually. Rena is comedy gold.
