The second season of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest is 12 episodes long, with an OVA released later. It follows Hajime, who in the previous season was summoned into this world alogn with his classmates. Hajime was stabbed in the back (so to speak) and casted off by one of his classmates in the dangerous Great Orcus Labyrinth. However, he managed to survive, changing significant in the process. He started off being weak and pathetic but by the start of this season, he is your stereotypical isekai male protagonist. That is, he is absurdly overpowered and has a harem of beautiful girls who adores him. It plays into this aspect a lot as each of them expresses their admiration and love to him, which can be eyeball rolling inducing.
Not only is Hajime without peer, but each member of his party is extremely strong as well. There’s Yue, who can use powerful magic without chanting; Shea is physically strong; Tio is a dragonborn, able to transform into a black dragon; and Kaori is a goddess healer. To be fair, it wouldn’t be that fun to see Hajime curbstomp all his opponents so he is thrown some significantly more powerful members of the demon race to battle against, and they can give him a run for his money… at first . with the demons being so smuch, you know that they will be destroyed by Hajime in the end. Hajime is pretty much the ultimate wish fulfilment character, and it can go overboard, but it’s more like a guilty pleasure rather than pure annoyance like some other isekai protagonists.
Hajime has several abilities that can seem unfair. He has an infinite storage pocket and had created replicas of modern-day weapons from his own world. This clashes heavily with the fantasy theme, especially when he pulls guns, grenades, an armored vehicle and even a submarine out. It’s ridiculous and also cringeworthy or lame. Supposedly, Hajime had enough knowledge, and time, to recreate all the complexities of such machines. You can’t talk about this anime without mentioning the subpar animation from the first season though. The aesthetics remains similar, but the animation quality has improved. It’s still weak in areas, especially in scenes where it uses 3D models.
The story itself can be interesting. Hajime and his party is traveling around the world hunting for the labyrinths that will grant him even more overpowered abilities. Given that these labyrinths are left over from past isekai heroes and that they are providing these magics to overthrow “god”, and given that Hajime was summoned by the church, there are plenty of intriguing directions that the plot could go towards to.
The plot moves briskly. Despite each of the new labyrinths that Hajime is visiting, supposedly each one as difficult as the initial one, only an episode or two is spent on them. This is a shame as it doesn’t portray the challenges that the party had to face and overcome. Rather, it only shows Hajime’s absurd overpowered-ness and uses the time to emphasize other aspects of the anime. In particular, it constantly shows the absolute adoration and popularity that he has with his female party members. Just like the first season, it can be too much so that it ends up having the opposite effect, one of annoyance and the fact that it is obstructing the plot.
It might be ironic and funny to mention the “plot” in such a fan service and wish fulfilment heavy anime, but there is a lot of potential. Even more so when there’s the fact that the powers that are granted by the labyrinths aren’t exclusive. Multiple people can be granted the same power. With the fact pacing, even the big twist in the final arc of the season doesn’t work too well. It spends literally five minutes to build it up before revealing the culprit and that makes it really hard to care. The motivations of the antagonists his season were all one-note. One is just because they are evil, while the other two are because of their love for another. Given that some of them are teenagers, it does make sense for them to go to these extremes for such a relatively shallow and stupid reason.
The actions of the villains are shown to be deplorable since they’re filled with betrayals and other more unforgiveable crimes. It also portrays Hajime and his party as not completely righteous either, given that they easily kill hundreds. A comment made by Shea during one of those battles was quite rationale, in that why should she care about an enemy’s backstory, when she is about to kill them, and they attacked first. Still, all this doesn’t quite work to portray them as anti-heroes when there are so many actions that they did that goes against that.
The season ends with another twist but one that is easily resolved. Why? Because coincidentally, just after Hajime learns a powerful spell that may seem like it has limited uses, the perfect scenario for it to be used comes up. It kills any kind of drama and tension, making the whole thing completely contrived. It’s one of those idealistic routes that is way too convenient. Hajime also has these crazy weapons and powers that he had made offscreen, never shown before, that he keeps pulling out and using to wipe out his enemies. He uses a weapon to nuke an entire army at the end without so much as an explanation on how he created it, or how it works, it’s just there and does. There is an OVA, which takes place earlier in the season and is like a random day in their travels. It starts off okay but the second part of it can be slow-going.
Overall, the second season of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest is average in the sense that at its core, there are a ton of plot points that is interesting and worth exploring. Unfortunately, the writing decides to rush through all the vents so that everything feels shallow and nothing is ever explored in-depth. It then puts the rest of the time into showing off Hajime’s harem, the adoration he gets, and the absurd power that he has obtained. Unlike the first season where part of it showed Hajime’s struggles and sufferings to get his powers, it’s complete now. He’s just that overpowered protagonist that gets whatever he wants and can mode down anyone and anything.
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