Kidou Senshi Gundam Thunderbolt 2nd Season

Well, this particular short gundam series, well the second season that I have seen of this, was actually like a gundam anime movie packed into literally four episodes that had both sides literally trying to eliminate each other, but also, it seems like each side or each individual ace pilot was trying to pause or hesitate in between or before each attack, but gathered themselves and do what they were told by the orders give above or at the "top" one should say, even though this was a short and limited anime series I still enjoyed it nonetheless. I just wish there was more of ... a specific story to tell about this series, they even made two side compilation movies about this, which i am definitely not going to watch.

This review contains terms/words which are minor spoilers to the gundam universe. Read at your own volition.

Story - 5
If you've thoroughly enjoyed the first season and think you can jump straight into the second season without knowing anything about the gundam universe then you're wrong. Unlike the first season which had a strong focus on war and its effects on people, the second season relies heavily on the viewer knowing about the Universal Century and important events in it.

The show has many unanswered questions for people unfamiliar with UC such as:
How did they rescue Io?
What is the Battle of A Baoa Qu?
What are Zeon Remnants?
What ... is the state of the war?
What are Newtypes?
These are all things you have to be familiar with beforehand which the show does little to no explanation.

And even if you did know all of that, the story is very simple and not really that interesting. It actually feels like more of an introduction to the new setting of Thunderbolt than a complete story.

Art - 8
Another thing which is very subjective based on whether you're familiar with the Universal Century is the art. Sure you can say: if it's a robot and it looks cool then the art is good. But there's actually more to the design of these machines than you may realize. The main focus of this show in particular is aquatic mobile suits and it takes models from the original series and redesigns them to have more aquatic features. And although you may think: who cares? You have to realize that gundam is more than just a show, it's also basically a huge advertisement for their line of plastic model figures, and if they make the designs well enough, people will be interested in buying them so it's very important to make interesting designs which people want to buy.

Animation wise it's almost as good as the first season. The fight scenes are really fluid and there aren't really any badly animated scenes considering how short this series is. The setting however is very much different and I feel it takes away from the appeal that the original series had where the setting played a huge role in the art, this one doesn't utilize it as much.

Sound - 9
Soundtrack is as good as the first season. If you enjoyed the style of music in the first season, typically jazz and blues, then you'll definitely enjoy the music here as well.

Character - 7
They introduce a few new characters which I really liked how they designed and introduced them. In terms of development of old characters, there's not much simply because of how short the show is but obviously it's also because they assume you've watched the first season before watching the second, there's no point reintroducing characters within such a short time frame.

As I've said, this really feels like an introduction to the new setting of the Thunderbolt Series rather than a full story. There are a few new interesting characters but don't expect that they'll do anything dramatic or too exciting.

Enjoyment - 9
Your enjoyment of this show is entirely based on how much you like mecha or gundam. If you're watching this without any knowledge of gundam or the Universal Century, you have to keep in mind that there are a lot of things they don't explain which are important to the story so you're basically watching it for the sake of seeing giant robots fighting and nothing else.

Overall - 8
Even with a mediocre story, the art, sound and overall enjoyment of seeing giant robots fighting makes this series a really enjoyable watch. It's probably one of the best animated gundam series if nothing else.

Gundam Thunderbolt's second season is nothing more than the burned out husk of a once great show. A bold-faced insult to the glorious first season it succeeded which sucks it dry of the energy it once had in favor of hollow pandering and incomplete, shallow storytelling.

Let's start with the very basic premise of this season, more specifically how it's broken from the very foundation. What defined the first season of Thunderbolt was the intense, morally gray rivalry between its two leads and the squads they represent. The show gave you time to truly get to know both Io and Daryl, grow attached to them and ... know their understandable reasons for fighting. This, in turn. made it all the more weighty when the two sides clashed, perpetuating their self-destructive cycle of vengeance over an ultimately-worthless sector of space in a fashion which is both exciting and tragic.

It's here where Thunderbolt Season 2 utterly fails. Being set after the One Year War, the fundamental conflict which defined Season 1's themes and characters is gone, and with it goes everything which made the story interesting. In its place, we now have the South Seas Alliance, an entirely new faction whose defining traits are "is evil" and "is vaguely cult-like", made up entirely of faceless minions with no definable character traits or motivations of their own.

Consequently, every battle in this season is absurdly boring, the character motivations and emotional intensity of the first season traded out for brainless, plotless schlock where no meaningful character writing or investment can be found.

Now in response to this, some of you might say that a big part of what makes Thunderbolt good is that it's cool action spectacle which you can turn your brain off to, so the fact that the writing has went to shit shouldn't be a huge impediment to one's enjoyment. I'm sorry to say, however, that the action and spectacle in this season are also rather lacking.

Now, to be clear, the show isn't exactly bad looking. The art style is still on point, the Mobile Suit designs are great, and the animation is a bit above your average seasonal trash, but it's still a major step down from Season 1. Moving the setting from space to Earth did a number on its action choreography, which now feels so much more sluggish and watered-down compared to the infinite creativity of the first season. The storyboarding rarely feels very striking or impactful outside of a few memorable scenes in the first episode, and the new color palette means that so very few of the visuals truly pop like they should.

This isn't helped by the fact that it just *drags*. Each episode is a few minutes longer than in Season 1, and while that might not sound that bad on paper, in practice it means that the season is collectively over 20 minutes longer than the first one, yet not nearly as much happens in it. Fights are drawn out longer than they should be and the plot tying it together is too thin to justify the extra time given to it.

The collective result of all this is that the entire season just feels so stale. watching through it all feels like it actively drains one's energy simply because it's so much more of a time sink next to Season 1 without nearly as much to get invested in. And coming out the other side it just feels like you've actively wasted your time.

In many ways, this season feels more like a crude parody of Thunderbolt's first season than a true follow up. A work which sets out to be a vague facsimile of the action fest it looks like on the surface while failing to understand the human core which made it work. It's a truly soulless *product* rather than a *story*, and I can't in good faith recommend such a thing to anyone who truly enjoys Thunderbolt.