armstrong.natasha - 2016-07-22 23:59:31

There will be no big difference from the 1st season of Date A Live series (the 1st season: Spring 2013, 12 eps + OVA, Studio AIC PLUS+ and the 2nd season: Spring 2014, 10 eps + OVA, Studio Production IMS). The story still tells about the spirits, whose destroying power are so damn dangerous for the future of the world. These women spirits then being haunted by the AST, somewhat futuristic organization with so many handy weapon to handle spirits, and even the missions to kill 'em. On the other hand, there is an organization called Ratatoskr whose mission to seal the spirit powers by luring them with "a date."
    The one who carries the task of dating the spirits is Itsuka Shidou, As time passes, Shidou discovers the true form of his younger sister, Itsuka Kotori, as a spirit too. Itsuka Kotori is the one behind the Ratatoskr organization, the head of Fraxinus under Ratatoskr's command. Later, Shidou makes his move and successfully bring the spirit under control, sealing their powers by dating [Shidou makes them believe that they are precious and wanting by someone so they will learn how to love and embrace others rather than destroying living being with their unbelievable spirits power]. The 2nd season brings the same story, but with new characters to fill the scenes.

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    The show indeed silly and funny while the battle scenes are good. As the starter, the humour was very bad. Tohka powers are fluctuating due to her suspicion over Shidou and Origami affected by the television show she and Yoshino routinely watch. This and all jokes of story opening irritates me since it makes everything looks like silly coincidences, and it turns worse when analytically it happens just for the bridge to the main course of story.
    The detected Spirit power comes from Tohka makes her being targeted and immediately be pursued to get killed. Summary the silly television show raises Tohka's power and lead her into a mess faster. In the middle of our main course, we are entertained by new characters and so many fan services out of nowhere as  a downfall. I don't mind with fan services as long as it places right on certain situations like the 1st season. The 2nd season presented the ecchi-ness in such low level of beast.

    Due to many newcomers in this series, I can't identify clearly the development of characters. It feels like all of them forced to involve in every new conditions and troubles that lead to the main course but vaguely, weakly developed. The character introductions seem not natural anymore, the coincidental meetings are not making sense.
    If I should combine two aspects, animation and character development, then my opinion is the animation went so damn well but the story was in rush, it was not good since I could feel the tense of the fighting without the good story and development followed. From the story aspect, Date A Live II series is my guilty pleasure, an average but has a pretty nice animation. The enjoyment boosts a bit around the end of the show, two last episodes are such a blast! All hail war among AST & Spirits ⁽ˆ⁰ˆ⁾

    The music is so-so. OP theme is sung by sweet ARMS "Trust in you" and ED theme is sung by Kaori Sadohara "Day to Story". Sadly the catchy character songs aren't my favorite either. Only the insert songs are quite nice, but just by the insert songs won't help much. What needs to be underlined is Kurumi's seiyuu scintillating voice, gives only Kurumi extra point in my sight. The mysterious, psychotic aura of Kurumi is increasing unstoppable whenever she speaks in absorbing tone.

    I still enjoy the series because of its graphic and intense fighting, especially last two episodes it's still burning in my brain. Feels like the story shows us the meaning of trusting someone and try the hardest even if others stop to looking at you. My rate is 7 only.
Pros:

• Good animation
• Intense fighting scenes

• Overwhelming amount of fan service
• The progress of story is somewhat so silly (like ecchiness only)

abdul75 - 2015-01-07 18:19:11

In my opinion, I found season one much more entertaining than the second one. This was just plain boring and it wasn't at all surprising. Kudos to the ending though, it wasn't too bad. 

susana.hane - 2015-01-07 04:03:47

This season the animation is better, the antagonist is weaker. the new girls are fantastic, the comedy is great and those who liked season 1 are going to absolutely adore this second season.

loyal.hammes - 2014-12-17 20:02:20

Although I'm writing this at the 8 of 12 episode mark, it's safe to say at this point that the story isn't really all that different than the first season. It's the same setup with similar pacing and premise. The addition of the new girls is a bonus partially because they are prettier than the original set, but beyond that there isn't much else.
If you liked the first season, but don't wanna rewatch it all the way through, you'd enjoy this season. if you didn't like the first season, this one isn't much better, if at all.

rubie95 - 2014-11-18 04:30:22

This show is bad. Need to figure out how to get rid of review.

mraz.cynthia - 2014-06-17 03:29:32

Note: This review assumes you have seen the first season and might include spoilers for that season. 

Date A Live II continues the exploits of Shidou to seal off the spirits with a kiss. This time around the stakes are even higher and the conquests more difficult.

There is a huge problem with Date A Live II and that is they changed the formula of the show. It used to be a decent comedy with really good action sequences and now it's more of a show with decent action sequences with overused comedy. On top of that the "Date" part of the show is gone. Do you remember when Shidou took the girls in S1 out on dates? Doesn't happen in S2.

To be fair one of the reasons there are not really dates it the difficulty in the conquests themselves this time around are more akin to the difficulty the entire cast had against Kurumi back in S1. The first conquest are twins, Kaguya and Yuzuru. The former being a tsundere and the other one of those quiet types. The other girl is Miku, whose gimmick is that she really hates men.

As for the rest of the cast nothing really changes. They make returns, but you might be surprised which ones actually get some of the spotlight. That said none of them make any types of growth. For the most part most things stay the same. This includes Kotori where the ending of S1 kinda made you feel like there would be some big revelation in this season. There isn't.You'll also notice I didn't even talk about the new characters in any detail. That's because what I told you is essentially their entire character. They are just kind of boring. In S1 the characters were one-dimensional but entertaining. Here they are one-dimensional and boring.

Now let's get to the main villain, or for that matter all the villains. Like last season they don't show up until near the end of the anime but they are handled even more poorly. They don't really explain their motives or why they have to do what they are doing in the first place. That or they are simply extremely shallow.

Now for some good things. The animation is really good and flashy.Action sequences are pretty crisp, despite not being interesting. The anime also makes great use of sound effects. From a production stand point it has a lot of the flash.

I know I might have seemed some what hard on the show but in all honesty it's not a terrible anime, but it is a pretty significant step down from a show that was only pretty good to begin with.

murphy.miller - 2014-06-14 05:55:56

The quickest way to review this show would be to say "If you liked Season One, you'll like Season Two"... but that'd be boring.

This is a weird show for me to review. It's one of those shows that isn't objectively good, but I find myself enjoying regardless. It isn't painful to watch, and if anything is rather well put together, but there's nothing about it that really jumps out as being amazing.

What started out as an interesting take on the concept of dating girls visual-novel style has pretty much turned into typical harem/action series. While I don't think there's anything all that special about the series... I can see why it's popular.

It looks and sounds great. It has the same character designer as the Neptunia franchise and her signature style permeates this series as well, without getting too repetitive. It has a lot of twists and turns, it has cute girls in badass fight sequences and some good humor too. It's actually fun to sit down and watch.

But at the same time, it is also a hollow experience. The characters mostly boil down to stock archetypes (although they can be fun), there's a lot of vague jargon tossed around and the plot is all over the goddamn place. I have no idea where this series is going most of the time, which can be both a positive and a negative.

Like seriously, can anyone explain the plot of the series beyond the premise? I've tried and it is difficult to put into words but it seems like just a sequence of events just sort of happening, rather than a cohesive plot one could adequately describe.

This season evidently suffers from being a rather rushed adaptation of the light novel volumes it is adapting, most likely due to its shorter length. Only 10 episodes compared to the usual 12. The animation was also not as high quality as the first season, with noticeable off-model shots and cheap panning techniques.

The end card of the last episode tells us there is a film in the works. Whether it'll be a continuation or a stupid recap movie is unknown at this point, but for what it's worth, I'm glad the series in continuing. It isn't at all bad, and I'm willing to follow it through wherever it goes... but it isn't really good either.

If you like harem hijinks and flashy action scenes, this might be right up your alley. If you don't care for either of those things, skip it over.

Rewatch Value: Maybe (Based on a Yes/Maybe/No scale)