Anime – Strike the Blood II

Anime Nov 22, 2019

Overview:

This may be in OVA form, but it is a continuation of the first season and actually a second season to the anime hence its naming they did. It covers 2 arcs in its 8 episodes one involving a beast from old times and the second being an artifact from old times to put it as simple as possible. There was definitely the `No Sempai, This is our fight!` but it is nice to know it’s not hammering down at you several times an ep which some hated from the first season. It never bothered me but when people pointed out to me how much she truly said it I did get a laugh out of it. Back to the main 2 arcs, the first one spans 3 episodes and takes place on the main island with a threat that is shown to, if left alone, would bring about destruction to everything and would not stop until everything is destroyed. Our Boi, Akatsuki Kojou is not about to sit by and watch it happen though. He gets himself in gear and deals with said threat in the end.

As for the second part we see more new faces, one of which is a nice surprise and when you see him will immediately know. This arc has a lot of organizations involved and can be a bit hard to follow everything that is happening due to the pacing being a bit fast. You are expected to keep track of quite a bit and a couple times I did rewatch some parts to better understand the situation and all the current events with who and what is involved. We are introduced to what appears is going to be a major plot point in the coming seasons and was hinted/shown a bit in the first season but a tad more expanded on here. The entire second arc was more of a setup it felt like for what is to come and brings out the who and what will be involved. Of course Kojou has expanded his harem a bit within these couple of arcs. The ones added are different enough from the others and have their own personality that keep them from being completely bland characters and I don’t mind seeing how they interact with the rest of the cast in due time. Should be some fun and interesting times ahead of us.

Visuals/Music:

The visuals, due to this being an OVA series look great all around. Everything is well polished and crisp. At times there are even smaller details such as one of the characters jumping up and when he landed the hair actually didn’t stay stagnate and went the way it would be expected. Nice little touches like that can be found throughout which is always nice to see. Since they are continuing the OVA style of season release we can only expect this trend to continue onward and no complaints there.

With the music you can tell thee wasn’t a lot of budget pushed forth into it. Not that it is bad by any means, but the variety seems to be lacking in OST choices per scene. The OST’s do match what is going on and are not out of place but would be nice to see a bit more variety in choices. It is an average soundtrack though and compared to the visual quality, the soundtracks are not up to par with it. The sound effects, nothing terrible either, they did their job and luckily have not followed that godawfully trend of mic rupture sounds when explosions or high impact attacks happen.

Final Thoughts:

Overall it’s a enjoyable watch and if a person has not seen the first season I highly recommend it but in comparison to this season it doesn’t hold up as good. I would say that is mainly due to the lack of episodes due to the route of OVA’s that they are taking. There just wasn’t much that happened throughout this season that would be standout and make a person go `Damn, that’s good`. We do however get to see a loli in her natural state hehe, Natsuki still best girl. The entire cast look good and even if a person was to watch it just because of the style of characters, it would not be regrettable by any means. Forewarned though, this is not a show for everybody and does contain some nudity with a fair amount of Ecchi throughout it.