I rewatched this as we head toward season two, "Virgin Soul," starting in April. MAL reports it will have
24 episodes this time around.
I found Bahamut immensely entertaining again this time around. I remain impressed with the writing. To take an online card game and make such a fully-realized story took a lot of talent. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with next. I assume that cygames and Comcast will provide MAPPA with another substantial budget even if they have to make twice as many episodes. It would disappointing if the sequel didn't live up the original in terms of illustrations and animation.
By the way, Rita appears in the PV that's on that MAL page, so she'll be back. Not so sure about Amira though. Even more disturbing is the absence of Jeanne. There's a male knight who looks something like her, but really Jeanne was the most beautifully drawn, and sexiest, character in the show. I'd hate to see her go.
cygames appears to be printing yen. Its Shadowverse game earned over $100 million in just half of 2016. The entire market for online card gaming is
estimated to reach $1.7 billion in 2017. All told that's only a bit less than
total Japanese revenues for animated works, including foreign ones, of $2-3 billion.
Last year someone spent
$6,000 in a single night trying to acquire a rare item in one of cygames products. That caused something of an uproar in Japan, so much so that the stock market valuation of online gaming companies fell
$1 billion in response. Sounds a lot more lucrative activity than producing anime.