So here we are at the end of the first season, and a second season is announced for Fall.
This episode has that annoying feeling like I just got to the end of a visual novel's first and least interesting route, the one where the hero romances the most obvious girl (or in this case, the heroine romances the most obvious guy!
) and 75% of the interesting stuff is left unexplained (see, e.g.
Fate/stay night with "Fate" and
Tsukihime with the Arcueid route).
Now, of course, since there's a second season, this could only be the jumping-off point, as the Logos regroup, Drei's personal agenda is finally revealed, the Ministry of Health starts its scheming, and the like. In that case, things could get good in a hurry.
But the main reason I've stuck with this series for so long is the simple fact that time and time again, it's been asking questions and providing no answers. Questions like:
1) Why won't Baba-sama ever tell Tamaki anything useful at all?
2) What, exactly, is it about the Shugogo guardians that makes them "beasts"?
3) How did that Oni get into Takuma, anyway?
4) What is Logos?
5) What does it mean that Aria is the "Monado" of Logos?
6) What is Drei's personal agenda?
7) What is the Ministry of Health up to?
8) What is Sixth Guy's connection to the whole thing?
9) What's up with the Shinji/Mitsuru romance and why does it seem like Shinji's duty as a guardian spikes it?
10) Why does Eins seem like he
wants to have Takuma get stronger? Is it just raw macho-ness shining through ("I must fight a worthy opponent!") or is it something more?
11) When Mahiro keeps calling Zwei a shinigami, does he mean it in some literal fashion, or is just a mark of how creepy Zwei is?
12) Just who is Mitsuru anyway, and what's her role in all this?
13) And yet again,
WHY IS BABA-SAMA SO DAMN INTENTIONALLY UNHELPFUL?
Okay, sure, the answer to many of those questions could just be "bad writing" and "we wanted to make it seem like there was depth here" but knowing VN-based anime, it's usually the case that there
are answers to questions like that even if we're not going to get them.
So, does anyone with familiarity with the source material know if we're right now just at a halfway point, or if the second season is going to be by default a second route?
On a more positive note, oni-Takuma was kind of cool, and it's neat to see Tamaki wake up and do things. Thus far, I haven't disliked Tamaki as a heroine--she's not sloughing off her responsibilities or whining about being normal or any of that nonsense, it's just that thus far she's basically been useless because she had no way to use her powers and, really, no idea what those powers even were--but these things were in no way
her fault.
(Speaking of which, it's too bad she couldn't use the Tamayori-hime ability she shows in this episode as an offensive weapon. That would be mildly awesome, being able to seal off an
enemy's supernatural abilities so that, say, Drei stops being a powerful magician and starts being an old guy with a stick:
Eins: Is this all you have, Takuma? Only with power can you achieve anything!
Tamaki: *zap*
Eins: *sound of receiving fist to face*
Takuma: I don't need to find "more strength" when my girlfriend/boss can give you "weakness" instead. )