Ishura 2nd Season

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.

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.

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