annabelle33 - 2016-07-24 04:10:11

I had no idea the 2nd season of Hitsugi no Chaika series, Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle [棺姫のチャイカ AVENGING BATTLE], would be so damn good series.
I got question mark popped out of my head invisibly why it got serialized when the 1st season didn't have any superb quality. I thought the reason for 2nd season to be there was because the 1st season was hanging, Chaika's unmet desire and the viewers might criticize about it.

I will combine the summary Chaika's series plot here. The 1st season was all about Chaika's never-ending battle to collect her father remains after great war killed her father. Even if Chaika didn't have memories left except her believes about she is the Emperor Gaz daughter and to collect her father remains is her duty. Emperor Gaz was the strongest but so thirsty about war, so the brave knights united to kill him and ended the war. The problem emerged after Chaika met other Chaikas with the same resolve, whilst Chaikas considered as threats by other Empires.
    That was the 1st season, ended without any explanation of what is Chaika? and our Chaika wasn't success yet to collect all of the remains. Chaika's journey is continuing on the 2nd season, where the story gets so appealing, enchanting! The battle and the truth behind all of this series  (/❛o❛\) 

    There aren't big differences between 1st season and 2nd season art. It's pretty average, dense or bold colours with few gradations to make it feel more alive. The visuals for its battle tho', is nice. I like their battles, the fast movements are presenting well and clear while the effect is sparkling. It is collaborating the action & fantasy aspects, so no wonder the effect of battles is one of the charm.

    The main point here is the story and how it's developed, although there aren't much new characters involved, but that's just the way it should be! Every characters here are improving, presented well in detail and showing a good passion. It lures us with the issues arise and the tense of the ending of the world. Can they stop the god of war—I mean, Emperor Gaz, since he won't stay quietly in the world with no war--from its resurrection? How every characters face their own troubles that connected to a single main point, the Chaika project? The 2nd season is afar from its predecessor (1st season) from story and characters development aspects.
[Somewhat SPOILER] I really like the fact that Vivi turns into half Chaika, opened up my mind that Chaika might be not just about the children used as guinea pigs when it was young and aimless but it might be related to psychological thingy and will to survive too. All of the ambitious Chaika, they are so charming.

    The unchanged aspect here is the music. Both 1st and 2nd season theme songs, just along the continuum of satisfying. Nothing to brag about, I feel sad about that, I bet they could give us more for enjoyment through the music. The OP song is "Shikkoku wo Nuritsubuse (漆黒を塗りつぶせ)" by Iori Nomizu and the ED song is "Watashi wa Omae no Naka ni Iru (ワタシハオマエノナカニイル)" by coffin princess. Well, I do like the insert songs here,

    Damn I love every episodes, everything as the story went. It also provides lots of meaning, especially friendship and trust. Their friendship is what tie them up to not get separated so far to their own self, the trust binds them to not lost their way, their desires are what keep them to move forward and do more hard-work and still on sane mind to think positively for gloomy matters which must be faced.
I give Chaika's 2nd series 9 for rate.
Pros:

• Alluring story, alluring characters and the developments
• The meaning of its story. Don't know why but I can find easily the meaning here, it is clearly projected from the story which has positive meanings.
• The enjoyment

guiseppe.jacobs - 2016-03-07 21:41:22

Watched the entire Anime, both the first and the Second Season. The thing that really sucks is that the anime is too short. It had great potential to be like atleast four seasons, but it sped up so fast that you didn't really catch that it was over.
Too bad actually, I enjoyed it as long as it lasted.

ukub - 2015-11-18 08:06:21

I loved this anime from the start to the very end. I think that this anime was done amazingly. I don't care if someone tells you that it sucks I give it 10s across the board and the same for the first season too. Although I wish they had more at the end but they never do 😋

roosevelt.graham - 2015-02-07 09:10:53

Hitsugi no Chaika, Both season 1 and 2, were done very nicely considering the amount of episodes both seasons had to work with. I can't say I ever felt a dull moment in this entire show. There was always something happening somewhere that was interesting to me. If I had to complain about one thing, It would be how the ending of the second season wasn't entirely well explained. Some could argue that It felt rushed, but honestly, the animators didn't have that many episodes to work with. So If you ask me, they did a phenomenal job at making this happen.

max.crooks - 2015-01-28 18:23:25

Really wasted my time. The ending is too fast like one conclusion can be done by one episode.

nwalsh - 2014-12-21 23:13:49

I think it was a fun little adventure, both seasons of this show. The story can get little cliched, the animation was solid and the characters were enjoyable, especially the sister, my god do I love her. 

bshields - 2014-12-11 06:09:27

As I'm sure you've noticed, in recent years it's become increasingly rare to find a good series that has an end. Many works that have shown great promise for a firm and decisive end to a story have left us to go read the source material to be satisfied. Many recent popular series come to mind such as Noragami and No Game No Life. These series create an interesting world and premise. They create this story that you want to see through to the end. Yet, they don't end. They seem to run out of episodes, some even chose to end on a cliffhanger, yet, they likely will never have a second season. The Coffin Princess Chaika is one of the few series that is not like this.

Story - 9

In short, this is the story of a girl named Chaika who claims to be the daughter of the recently killed mad emperor Gaz. She and a pair of saboteurs named Tooru and Akari set our to find the scattered remains of emperor Gaz so Chaika can give him a proper funeral. This thing hit the fantasy setting perfectly, however, there's a lot more to it that I can't cover without getting into spoilers.

If the Chaika series does anything right, it's that it drives the story forward and wastes little time doing so. Each episode contains some piece of information, some plot twist, some... thing that drives the story forward in a way that kept me wanting to see what would happen next. With each little piece of information added the world grew. After each episode the universe became larger, more expansive, and more interesting. The progression of the story felt fast and exhilarating, yet balanced, especially between seasons where a series normally fumbles. I never felt like an episode lacked content.

This rapid progression, however, was too fast at times. Chaika had some rather apparent pacing issues. There were times, more than a few, that it felt like they were trying to squeeze too much information into that tiny twenty minute time space. This was especially noticeable in the end where confrontations that should have been multiple episodes were condensed into one and critical explanations with many episodes of buildup were shortened to a few minutes.

Despite that, I found the story, and especially the universe, incredibly engaging. There was never a dull moment for me. Every episode just became more and more interesting. The amount of work the original author put into building the world truly shows.

Animation - 8

2014 the year of good art continues. Bones did a wonderful job with the animation. Every fight scene looked crisp and fluid and the character designs were amazing. The original light novel designs were a little odd and more unique than most, yet Bones managed to convert those designs into a more normal style while still keeping them unique. Even the main male protagonist, who should look incredibly standard, stands out among as a unique design.

Sound - 8

I'll have to really try and prove the high score on this one.

Done.

Character - 6

And this is where Chaika fell on its face. This is what kept a great series from becoming a masterpiece. Those pacing issues I mentioned earlier are very apparent here. Chaika has a very large cast of characters, interesting ones at that. Because of this, it has the same infamous problem as Angel Beats: you have all these interesting characters to develop in just an ity bitty time space. Chaika chose to dump a lot of the character development it could have had for advancement of the plot. Only the main two characters experienced any kind of decent development and it was marginal at that.

Despite the giant lack of development on everyone, each character has a firmly established personality and is very likable on the good guys side, and rather distasteful on the bad guys side. It managed to hide the GIANT lack of development behind interesting characters that didn't need an in depth explanation of why they are the way they are. For example a recurring side character that I would have liked to see more of but didn't need too was Konrad Steinmetz, the leader of an organization that pops up in the second episode. He was always tired and sighed a lot, but you didn't ever need to ask why because he was very obviously the middleman between two very hotheaded and stubborn political sides. Most characters held this sort of occupational personality, but it worked well enough.

Enjoyment - 9

This is quite possibly the anime of the year for me. This is the only thing I've seen this year that stood out as well done and unique in all areas against older anime that I consider great. It was fun, sad, exhilarating, suspenseful, and everything in between.

Overall - 8/10

Recommenced for:

Fantasy fans

People who like a continuous story without arcs.

New anime fans. This series has practically no fan service 

Not recommended for:

People who like slow paced shows

People who hate fantasy

People who demand character development

Should you watch Chaika the Coffin Princess? Yes, yes you should.