Ishura 2nd Season

A Disappointing Mess of Endless Character Introductions Ishura Season 2 is a frustrating and exhausting experience that fails to deliver a coherent story, instead drowning viewers in an endless parade of new characters with zero meaningful development. If you thought the first season had pacing issues, this season takes it to a whole new level of absurdity by introducing a new character in every single episode without resolving anything from the previous ones. The biggest flaw? There’s no plot—just introductions. Each episode feels like a poorly written wiki page, dumping a new overpowered warrior with a convoluted backstory, only to forget about them by the next episode. The show prioritizes quantity over quality, leaving no room for actual storytelling, world-building, or emotional investment. The animation is decent, but even flashy fight scenes can’t save Ishura from its biggest sin: being boring. With no central conflict or protagonist to root for, the series feels like an overlong trailer for a story that never starts. Verdict: 2/10 – A pointless sequel that proves more isn’t always better. Unless you enjoy watching a never-ending character showcase with no payoff, skip this one

Nothing. Nothing happens, at all, ever. It's just 12 more episodes adding new characters, some of whom die immediately. I REALLY don't care at all, nor do I have a reason to since most of the new ones are boring. 24 episodes, almost half a year, and NOTHING happens. This is just insane. I don't even blame the studio at this point, I blame the writer. This is garbage writing. I don't need 30 frikking backstories over a year just to watch a damn tournament. HOLY CRAP. I did find the animation and sound reasonable, some of the characters over the last two cours were cool, but at some point it just starts to feel like story padding. Just adding more and more and more and I really don't see the point. We just barely got a look at the big bad "demon king" but you could cut half of the characters and spend a little more time on lore and the outsiders because right now it's only barely understandable. Sorry dog, but at this rate we will never see a tournament EVER, and they only add the lore at the VERY END. Jesus who wrote this junk? 1/10

Ishura, Round 2 — Now this is certainly a better effort than Season 1, that's for sure. It's interesting enough that despite being similar to Shuumatsu no Walküre a.k.a Record of Ragnarok, novelist Keiso's Ishura goes the road less travelled when it comes to storytelling, albeit in the way that you need some time to get used to its rather unorthodox form. I need not say that if you look closely enough into the series, each episode is just like the said Ragnarok series of introducing character after character for what seems like an eternity. With Season 1 being the preface of the LN's Volume 1 and (parts of) 2 introducing Sojiro the Willow-Sword and the like, at least that had its own branch story of the Shuras involved in the cornering fight of the coup d'état between Aureatia and the New Principality of Lithia. With Season 2 continuing the adaptation of the remainder of Volume 2 and into 3, the story takes an abrupt turn to the outside lands, where Aureatia still lives on the recovery of finding more Shura to advance their cause, as well as the incumbents (now called the Old Kingdom Loyalists) now skirting around the lands to find the purpose of their living, though it's obvious that there's a bigger plot to play with new characters that come and go as the call to gather at Aureatia to determine who's the True Hero, once and for all. So here therein comes the biggest problem of the series: why are we still getting the exact same infodump about new characters? I did briefly mention this in my review last Winter that this tactic of storytelling gets old fast, especially when there are so many characters to go around and not see the overarching plot of what the season attempts to establish by the end of that count. Looking back at it now, while Season 1 plays mainly towards the division of Aureatia and the New Principality of Lithia (which should be simple to understand), Season 2 plays it in another ballpark of the entire world in general, showcasing more characters, but this time, really compelling ones like Hiroto the Paradox going around as a grey-haired child who's an excellent negotiator with his conversational skills that allow connections with influential people, highlighting that the postmortems of the True Demon King's war have not been quelmed yet and there exist remnants trying to understand what the bigger plot at play is, more than just the gathering of heroes alone. This, to me, is what makes Season 2 a progressively better follow-up than what Season 1 started out with. Passione and Sanzigen's co-2D/3DCG production have certainly gotten better this time around, with much exhilrating fights like the battles of Toroa the Awful against Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge, whose intense action is foretelling of the high stakes at play. The only change would of course be the OP/ED set, and as much as Mayu Maeshima's OP and (returning) Sajou no Hana's ED songs try to invoke that change, I find this to be a downgrade overall when compared to Season 1, which had the right amount of edge for a show like this. Even though we're only just getting started with the Record of Ragnarok themes of an all-out fight, Ishura is a series that has its lore on worldbuilding while simultaneously shifting characters around according to the needs of the scenario at hand. It truly is an eye-watering moment that I initially didn't buy back last Winter, but now I see the appeal of this, that with progress, comes enjoyability. It is a perfect example of how characters overshadow story elements, but don't break out of it at the same time. Still, you'd have to leave it at Season 3 for the epic battle, which I hope will come pretty soon enough.

Ok Ishura is here with more and the first thing to say about it is that the aesthetics became a bit worse. Not the actual artwork though, which actually looks slightly better thanks to the setting not taking place majorly on sand and thus not looking as grainy. The rest though got worse, the noticeable and weak CGI is there more present than before and even on the backgrounds, making them look worse, the animation during fights is not as good, and this season features a lot more human or humanoid characters, so the designs are less inspired than before. The sound effects are still as good as they were before but the rest of the audio got worse too, the new characters sound and are performed far more typically and at moments silly, and the soundtrack is not as varied as it used to and it doesn’t have the same quality. Don’t get me wrong it is still pretty good, especially the themes with choirs, but not as it was in the first season. The new opening and ending are kinda typical jpop/rock stuff highlighting the new cast, nothing remarkable, but they’re fine. As for the plot, well, it follows the same structure of introducing characters with some politics in the background, with now some first season cameos thrown around at times. At the very least the plot now has a clear direction that the audience knows about, and it is actually not ignored. The two kingdoms are actively looking to get the new cast on their files and the tournament, those of which fight amongst themselves even shortly after they are introduced. In addition, the remaining members of the original party that fought against the true demon king appear to negotiate with or square off against the new heroes, and there is even a new plot point with another enemy faction in the form of the royal army of the old kingdom. Guns are introduced in the setting and used to arm different armies and characters, though I wasn’t that impressed with it because there was already a character using a shotgun on the first season so what’s the deal. The bad part has to do with the novelty of the narrative being lost this time, but from what I understand the series will gets to the actual tournament, so the story and storytelling that might have gotten tiresome will hopefully change in the next entry or so, assuming it is done. From what I understand the tournament itself is also very long, so let’s see it this issue doesn’t persist even with the narrative change, again, assuming it is done. There’s still not an ending in sight of course, as the source material is still ongoing. As for characters, these are the new bunch: -Kuuro, a gray haired kid-looking detective with seemingly a past as an assassin or something, he has some form of clairvoyance directly tied to his own feelings and instinct and shoots arrows at enemies. He is very cautious and constantly analyzes the situation. He is accompanied by Cuneigh, a fairy sized harpy-like homunculus just there to be cute and help him. -Mele, a typical gentle giant good with kids and a protector of his village. Also an archer. -Lucnoca, a winter dragon tired of humans dying for coming after her, so she enters the tournament to face off actual contenders. -Hiroto. Honestly, I don’t get his deal much, another grey haired kid-looking character that distributes guns an puts characters against each other, basically manipulating various sides of a conflict, if you will. Fortunately, this character gets clearer in the last two episodes. -Kiyazuna and her “son” Mestelexil. She seems to be an engineer and enchanter of some kind that wants revenge against a sandstorm, and the other character is like a combination of a robot and a homunculus that constantly repair each other and transmutate their combined body with any variety of weapons, including some of our world, when needed. The machine seems to be want to get stronger and fight strong guys. -Linaris. This is the most mysterious character of the show honestly. A vampire girl that manipulates others by consuming their blood but not necessarily through the conventional way, and also by seducing them. She seems to lead a group of other characters that all together are manipulating events and armies from behind and with their powers, which seem to even be able to disintegrate people and monsters or something? High likely being the most broken contender of the season. -Atrazek, a particle disintegrator sandstorm that ends up being very disappointing. -Psianop, a sentient slime that wants to prove the strongest and thus it learned all kinds of martial arts. -Rosclay, an interesting fake hero helped with radio distributed magic chants coming from other people, but not actually a bad guy, He is a good swordsman but he is just a human entering a tournament full of monsters so what he’s gonna do? -Uhak, a seemingly blind?, and deaf? ogre that’s not bad, is very quiet and calm unless attacked, and actually seem to have learned to be violent because of humans, ironically. He is also unaffected by supernatural phenomena like the magic incantations of the other characters, so it would be interesting to see him against the most broken characters that were introduced on the first season. -Tu, a generic strong hotheaded good spirited high school girl, she bores me. -Toroa, the most interesting character in the season for me and the only one I gave a damn about for refusing to be used by someone else and for wanting revenge on Alus, from the first season. And of course some others that don’t matter much. Some details about some characters are lost because at times the subtitles were either incomplete or changed what the characters or the narrator were saying, and even some scenes showing key aspects of them were shortened or skipped and then played as flashbacks as if they actually were shown, but no, they were not. The main issue about this new cast is being far simpler, less interesting, with more typical backstories than we’ve seen before, and not a single one gets some sort of character arc like Yuno did on the first season. And just like before, there are no really interesting dynamics and interactions amongst the characters once they encounter each other and start fighting. So at the end of the day some aspects of this season are better than they were on the first but some are worse, ending on about the same level of quality. But I also have to wonder how many people are going to stick with its form of narrative for the whole season before it gets to the actual tournament, which from what I understand will also take plenty of seasons. On the good side for its fans, there will be less people watching the show and the most critical ones about it will leave and the scorings will keep going up everywhere (as long as the studio doesn’t fuck it up), as it happened with this season. Not mine though.

If you liked Season 1 or watched thing whole thing by impulse, Season 2 will work slightly better for you. If not, Season 2 does not justify taking up your time any further. Season 2 is very much like Season 1, a lot more new heroes introduced, telling each hero's backstory with the episodic format. Still got that brutal ugly gore, flowing fight scenes, charismatic business talk. Still got one pretty girl among the heroes just to keep me simping. (Please don't kill her again) Same old same old. Fortunately, this time, they finally get into the story of "The True Demon King", BUT only in a certain few episodes, with barely enough revelation to the whole mystery. Season 3 will most likely be the tournament arc that it has been setting up forever. And guess what... There are some known characters with their backstory untold. So chances are... they will run the same character backstory routine again. And I will still watch it. Despite the lack of main plot progression, I have never found Ishura boring. I'm a sucker for episodic anime, but that isn't all there is to Ishura. It's got great flow. Solid dialogue writing. Moderate use of shock value. Just high quality animation overall.

S2 is a definite continuation of s1, if you enjoyed s1 you will enjoy s2. If you were utterly tired of s1's format then s2 may not be for you, though by the end of the season the fabled and much built up tournament is finally in sight. Production value wise everything falls slightly, except actual direction work improves a bit, you can truly tell the director takes their work seriously. Slowly, very slowly, but surely, the worldbuilding and mysteries are drip fed and revealed, it just makes you want more. By ep 24 I felt very grateful that ishura got 24 episodes, its a special series in alot of ways.

While I think some may disagree, this season still falls into the same pitfalls as the first season, but even harder. The story is presented in a scattershot manner, and we will often go episodes between relevant plot details to introduce new characters. This is all building up to something greater, hopefully, but it is unclear whether the conventional contest that is now looming over the horizon of a third season will actually live up to expectations. At this point, I can't imagine that a standard battle competition would suffice, considering the large scales of things being toyed with here. I suspect and hope that we will see something more surreal, but as it stands this season is more of the same, just a bunch of new characters being introduced to awe us, without much in the way of relevant developments towards what is supposed to be the main goal of the show. This is not to say that the story is bad. There is a coherent through-line and the exposition into the different stories for each of the characters serves its purpose. For those who have been irritated by stories where tournaments intend to have you invested in battles where you don't know the first thing about the enemies, there is something to be said that this story is taking its time to delve into the backstory of these various characters and provide them with the much needed depth and intertwined backstories that would make the sort of tournament more interesting. However, as a standalone product, this story still leaves much to be desired. Much like the first season, we still have not gotten to what is supposed to be the main event of the story. To that end, I hope that we will finally begin to experience the tournament next season. That's the strange thing about this show. It is attempting to solve one of the common issues viewers have with these tournament arcs where random people who have never gotten the chance to share their backstory are expected to be considered real threats. The entire premise of this show is to show us large scale battles and the trauma of their pasts to give us more reason to get invested in each and every battle that will take place (if the tournament actually occurs). But it also has a dampening effect on the enjoyability of the story. There is no main character, we are left only to wonder which one could be the hero and who the true demon king was. Ultimately your enjoyment of the story comes down to whether you are willing to watch 24 episodes of backstory for dozens of people. This story is requiring investment for something it has not yet paid off. To that end, I suspect most viewers will find it pointless, but if you've already watched the first season then this is more of the same, where the story takes a backseat to the character prep for down the road. For those who haven't even watched the first season, I can' yet recommend picking up the series. I hope that it eventually becomes a sufficiently whole story when the anime concludes its final season, but until then it is too much of an incomplete product. Watch only if you are interested in aura-farming and the such, without any promise of seeing the story through. But if you've already watched the first season and didn't have too much of a problem with how open-ended it ended, then you won't have any issues with this season either.

Inshura S02 was very much like S01. A new Shura was introduced every episode. The change I enjoyed was that some the previous characters from S01 made an appearance in S02 so you learned more about that character and it gave them more depth. Even the new introduction of characters showed more depth and personality. The plot and progression of the storyline seemed more cohesive and not these random sequence of events all working together to this linear plot that we don't fully understand why or how. More was explained in S02 but it ended very much like S01, what's next? What's next? What will come about all of this other?

Reviewing both seasons together: You probably know someone who has impressive thoughts but struggles to articulate them clearly. They start saying something profound, but it comes out as one or two disconnected sentences that only make sense if you already know what they’re thinking. This anime is the equivalent of that person. There’s clearly a much larger world and deeper story beneath the 24 episodes shown. Instead of offering a brief world map and political overview—which would’ve helped a lot—it jumps straight into political action and somewhat loose character introductions. It skips over essential background knowledge while, at times, going into unnecessary detail about less important plot points. It often felt like the show assumed the viewer already had prior knowledge of its universe. As someone who’s watched hundreds of anime, many of them isekai or fantasy, I still found it hard to keep up. The show constantly throws out new names and characters, often expecting you to recognize or remember them with no context—and doesn’t slow down if you don’t. Going in, I expected something along the lines of *Record of Ragnarok* with added world-building. What I got was a surprisingly political anime, mixed with confusion and a parade of character introductions that were oddly entertaining in their own right. Despite all the chaos, I still give it a 7/10. The voice acting and animation are solid, the fight scenes look great, and the characters—once you figure out who they are—are actually quite interesting. I’m also hopeful that future seasons will bring more structure and payoff to what’s already been set up.

Season two of Ishura largely follows the familiar rhythm established in the first season’s first half. The opening episodes build up to what feels like the climax teased in the initial trailers, only to pivot in the second half by introducing new characters—many of whom are connected to the enigmatic True Demon King. While the fresh faces add depth and intrigue, not all receive a fully satisfying character arc; some remain a bit underdeveloped with only barebones backstories. Despite this, the series continues to hook me with its compelling narrative and knack for hyping up its cast. Each episode is packed with enough twists to keep viewers engaged. The character designs remain interesting and unique, even if a few could benefit from more nuanced development. On the technical side, the visual presentation shows some inconsistencies. There are still noticeable instances of bad-to-passable CGI and some static shots during key fight scenes, which might detract from the overall immersion. However, the way the colors blend—especially when they echo the thematic elements of a scene’s setting—is a definite highlight, adding an atmospheric layer to the overall aesthetic. The audio components shine as well. I particularly enjoyed the voice work for characters like the mechanical Mestelexil and the goblin Zigita Zogi. The moments when characters such as Olukt and Kazuki perform songs in their episodes enhance the emotional stakes of the narrative. Moreover, the atmospheric music perfectly complements the scenes, much like the careful color palettes that tie the visual tone together. While the long-hinted tournament still hasn’t materialized in this season, it’s evident that its arrival is being saved for what could be a thrilling season three, so viewers shouldn’t expect it to unfold just yet. All in all, season two of Ishura is a solid continuation that balances familiar elements with fresh additions. It might not fully satisfy every character arc and what the anime initially hyped up to heaven, but its compelling characters, memorable visuals, and standout audio work make it a great watch. Enjoy the hype, the character quirks, and more epic developments in the season - just don't go expecting the tournament.

A step down from the previous season. Season 1 of Ishura is almost like a miracle in my eyes. The writing is nothing special, the colors are bleak, the animation is passable, and it introduces a TON of characters and world-building. Yet somehow, it all clicked for me. That, I believe, was due to the show finding that right balance of introducing characters, world-building, and executing a season-long arc. It played perfectly to the series's strengths, allowing them to continue developing the story while creating emotional stakes, killing off characters that they built up to be big-time players to service other characters' legends. This is a long prelude to my review of Season 2, but I'm including it here because this special aspect of Season 1 that elevated the assembly of its mediocre parts is nowhere to be found in this season. There is no big season-long arc that pits characters billed as legends against each other while advancing a grand story. Some characters do meet and fight with each other during this season, but none of it feels unified. None of it feels like a big event with named characters on both sides, and someone's gotta die. Season 2 feels like 12 episodes of character introductions. 4 hours of prologue to a grand tournament that may or may not even get animated. I find very little, if anything at all, that I would want to revisit from this season on its own. The deeper world politics of the Gray Haired Child and the Clairvoyant, which dominated the non-introduction screentime of this season, do not interest me. What interests me are seemingly important characters fighting, where any of them could realistically die. That was dynamic, hardly used and used on a much smaller scale in comparison to Season 1. All this said, I didn't find this season to be a complete waste of time. Many of the characters introduced are somewhat interesting, and Ishura still does a good job in delivering traumatic moments when it wants to. But to me, this season is only worth watching if the grand tournament gets animated. If it doesn't, I can't really recommend this season because there's 0 payoff for anything that happens. It's closer to a 4/10 than a 6/10

The story is easily the weakest part of Ishura Season 2. It is a jumbled mess of characters, factions, and events with very little focus. The series keeps introducing new characters without giving enough time to properly develop or even establish the ones already introduced. There are simply too many characters to keep track of, and most of them fail to leave any real impression. The constant switching between characters and locations also hurts the pacing. Just when one storyline starts becoming interesting, the anime jumps to another one. Instead of making the story feel complex, it makes it feel disconnected and difficult to follow. The worldbuilding has some good ideas, but the execution is poor. There is clearly a large world with many factions and powerful characters, but throwing more information at the viewer does not automatically make the world interesting. The fight scenes are probably the best part. They are decent, have some good animation, and the gore adds some weight to the action. However, the fights are not enough to carry the series, especially when there is little attachment to most of the characters involved. The soundtrack is average at best. Some tracks work well, while others feel out of place and occasionally make certain scenes worse rather than better. The biggest problem with Season 2 is that it spends too much time setting things up without giving enough payoff. By the end, it feels more like preparation for future events than an actual satisfying season. There are some good ideas here, but the execution is disappointing. The large cast, messy storytelling, weak character development, and inconsistent pacing make Ishura Season 2 difficult to enjoy. 4/10