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This is definitely the kind of sequel that does nothing but disgust even the most casual fan of the first season. Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis even with its lack of ambition deserved and should have had a better sequel. First, because the previous season was as basic as it could have been, a clichéd and predictable narrative, but above all pleasant and functional. Something Virgin Soul is far from, although it shares the same weak structure. Genesis is simple and well-executed, while Virgin Soul is a mess. We'll start with the story first.

The story takes place 10 years after the events of Genesis. The capital ... of Anatae lives an era of great prosperity, thanks in part to the new king, Charioce XVII, being as stupid as the previous king, his peculiarity being that he is a tyrant who strongly encourages war between the races. In this age of prosperity, mankind subdues the demons and opposes the gods. This conflict makes room for moral and social themes and inaugurates a setting and construction of the world not seen before, in addition to the various possibilities of direction for the narrative. The story starts to develop and explore that path, right? Wrong!

First, because the real reasons for the human revolt are never explained and the story does not bother to explore this, although it uses it as a central premise, making clear the lack of creativity and ambition. Ultimately it serves more as a justification for the theft of ancient technology, which makes me question whether the previous season is as "genesis" as its name suggests. This technology has the power to rival Bahamut, but its lack of proper contextualization, like Bahamut's, returns worldbuilding to square one. Second that development is so slow that when things take a normal pace it seems that everything happened very quickly. Third and not least: the lack of focus, this is definitely the biggest problem with this work.

Any minimally well-written narrative traces a path and then develops its concepts, but when a story shuffles several ideas and does not prioritize a route, then we have a problem, mainly because it exposes all the other defects. Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul doesn't know if it wants to be an epic adventure, a light adventure, a plot about conflict resolution or a stupid story about a forbidden romance that has everything to go wrong. It has no focus and doesn't even bother to have it, it prefers to go around in circles, a truly mediocre structure. Your objective? Trying to deliver various subplots to the viewer in a lame, lazy way. A shallow story isn't a problem, not if you don't try to turn it into something bigger, you have to set boundaries with anything. Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis is superficial and recognizes its place; so it manages to be functional. That's the main difference between the seasons, but don't be fooled! Both seasons share similarities, for example, the weak script and bad resolutions.

Oh yes, the resolutions... some of them would make any generic Mexican telenovela writer envy. If you're the type that likes a proper conclusion and closed endings then give up on this anime, it's not for you. Even the most basic solutions for secondary characters are a disaster, exposing again the narrative mess that perpetuates until the end. And speaking of characters, here we go.

If a shallow story isn't a problem, at least when you recognize it, shallow characters are a problem 90% of the time. The few times they don't, happen when the characters serve at least for comic relief or script device, if before Favaro and Kaisar were astute adventurers now they are mere supporting characters limited to cliché lines in occasional dialogues. Kaisar boils down to a pacifist knight who wants peace, but doesn't know how to make it and works more like a lackey of the king, faithful in any situation. Favaro boils down to a bum who appears when the story needs catchphrases and some moral lesson for our dear new protagonist.

Ah yes, the protagonist... Nina Drango, she is definitely the worst character in this story, calling her a generic shoujo character still wouldn't be enough to describe her ditzy personality and her depth of a saucer. Its narrative importance is basically making a romantic couple with King Charioce, Stockholm syndrome style, apparently the writers thought that this would bring depth and realism, but it was just the opposite. A couple so boring that it would make Favaro and Amira seem like the best romantic couple ever written in history. Apart from her role as a passionate girl running after a tyrant with a pretty face and no development whatsoever (although there was a huge possibility) she is disposable like a plastic plate, she adds nothing.

An honorable mention to Azazel and Jeanne, the only ones who have real development from start to finish. With personalities and aspirations that make you create intimacy and feel connected to them at some point, although they don't show good consistency. The rest of the characters are so one-dimensional and without charisma that they don't deserve to be mentioned. Characters were never the strong point of the Bahamut saga, there was a chance for that to change, but entering the cycle of stagnation and abusive cliché was the decision of the staff and creating the possibility of a new season with more mediocrity was their priority.

But come on, not only does this anime live on disgrace. The narrative part is dark, but the technique is relatively good most of the time. The previous season had more fluidity in general, Virgin Soul presents a better design of characters, scenarios, composition and color palette, but it lacks in the lines, choreography of the fights and framing and precisely because of the lack of fluidity, this camera game ends up being abusive in terms of some scenes. Oruim da arte is a dark CGI, used mainly in crowds and general extras, but also in keyframes. Which doesn't make any sense except in terms of the economy, but it's not like that economy renders very well animated scenes later, so it ends up being in the middle ground, besides, the MAPPA studio knows how to camouflage 3D well, which ended up not being done.

The openings and endings are good, the soundtrack lacks emotion and can easily be forgotten. Most of the characters' voices match well, although the mixing is poor. The sound part is just ok, nothing memorable. Even with its weak narrative and its terrible and slow development, it is an easy work to watch if you have a good tolerance. You can pass the time, but I confess that it took me a few days to complete, I couldn't see the possibility of watching more than 3 episodes a day because the execution was so bad that it slowly destroyed any desire to continue. A tiring experience, but nothing that will kill you.

With all these points duly explored, it is not difficult to call Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul the word that best describes it: disaster. This season was not a good sequel to Genesis at all and to make matters worse, it ends the path that the first season provided. It starts with several possibilities for advancing and building a truly solid plot, but prefers to follow the path of a silly novel disguised as an adventure. If in Shingeki no Bhamut: Genesis the cliché had charm, in Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul the lack of ambition is a chronic disease, if before it was functional and pleasant, now it is badly done and tedious.

If you are looking for the same emotion as the previous season, this is not where you will find it. Shingeki no Bhamut: Genesis deserved and should have had a better sequel.

Weak, very weak! Not necessarily bad, I mean, it's bad too... but it could be worse. Starting with the premise, which, despite being interesting, proves to be more of a background than a tool for building a solid narrative. The idea of ​​"fairy soldiers" in a post-war world would open up a sea of ​​possibility for main and secondary stories, exploring how society deals with these soldiers. I mean, it would be interesting a work with fairy soldiers full of action, fantasy, a memorable story and of course, a darker aspect so as not to lose its charm. The anime had everything to make that ... happen, right? Right, but he didn't, who knows if out of laziness, lack of creativity or both.

What is presented to us is a world construction worthy of laughter, only in this way the story manages to extract some sign of emotion that is not mental fatigue and boredom. Contextualization, space, time? Forget it, none of this is important here. In fact, it is preferable to introduce several characters without any charisma and spit several monotonous dialogues in the viewer's face. Dialogues that when they have a small importance you want to remember them, because they leave you overloaded, and it's not as if the construction of the universe creates a minimum bond of familiarity to the point that you care about what is happening.

The narrative structure is so messed up that it leaves you lost most of the time, hoping that something might come along that will change the course of things and make the story finally take shape, I'll tell you a secret: it won't. Most of the scenes that add something to the story can be summed up in old people discussing politics in the most superficial and generic way possible and after that a sudden change of scenarios that makes you dizzy.

The characters suffer from a chronic personality problem, with no defining details. At no time did I feel connected to them, they don't have ambitions and aspirations relevant to the narrative, perhaps with the exception of the protagonist, who still manages to be as shallow as the others. Interpersonal communication between them is quite shallow and the dialogues do not work to create intimacy with the viewer, as they are very mechanized. The main characters don't have enough charisma to leverage the script and seem more extras with more screen time.

Although the fights are not excellent, they manage to be well choreographed, but still very average, they could be better. If it had a greater focus on fairies and action it might be useful, but fairies are so irrelevant that they only appear in the heat of the moment and pure juice of convenience during battles and to make matters worse they are done in CGI. A CGI so lame you want the fairy to disappear as quickly as possible, just so you don't have to keep looking at such a visual atrocity.

In the other aspects, the art is ok, neither good nor bad, tolerable I would say. At times the 2D animation looks well done, at other times it looks like it's run out of budget. The settings and environments are more detailed in the first few episodes, as are most things. The character design, however, is bad most of the time, in addition to being disproportionate, it seems to differ in every episode. The photography is quite simple and the composition, on the other hand, is exaggerated at times, especially in flashbacks, with retro filters that make it seem like you're looking at a low quality image. Well, if that was the intention then it worked.

All these aspects and their respective flaws lead us to an interesting conclusion: the direction is definitely not good (as if it wasn't already obvious), but it's not a complete disaster. Lots of economy scenes with static frames and close-ups while dialogue takes place well define the lack of ambition that Fairy Gone has.

The sound part is by far the best thing here, but not as memorable as it initially appears. The opening song is good but generic and it would be better if it were simpler. The closing song is excellent, with beautiful vocals and a melodic piano instrumental, really well done. The OST, however, is repeated about fifty thousand times so it loses a lot of the emotion, it's good at first, but nothing remarkable.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Fairy Gone was written by someone at the height of their laziness or during a get-together with its extremely drunk authors, to be honest, I think in either of those options everything would make more sense. There is potential in its premise, but it doesn't really do anything remarkable. It fails in the main aspects of building a good narrative and this extinguishes any small flame that the work could have had to be an elevating, extremely dull anime, a disaster.

Although the story has shown a subjective idea from the beginning, I think it lacked a more conclusive touch on the premises established. What is Mitama really, how did she come about and what did she really want? What are extraterrestrials and powers really? What is Akuro and what does it mean? Points that, regardless of anything, only had to add, in the end, a lot of things just sound like a mere background to incorporate the narrative. This narrative, although it does not have a linear writing style, manages to develop very well while making a pleasant transition of arcs and spaces/times.

However some plot ... conveniences are really boring, some powers quite convenient with the moment are a good example, although the explanation that they arise from the "holes of the heart" is good as far as possible, it is clear that the author was not even a little worried about actually explaining it. The battles are more of a gimmick for the script to move forward than anything else and at times they are extremely lazy. This unfortunately reflects in other points, as in the art itself, which even being incredibly well done is not as immersive as it could be, I would say even devoid of introspective details at times.

And speaking of introspection, I would say that here the work lacks a little. Although there are several good characters that mostly just add, I felt a difficulty in seeing them in any other way than as support tools, or even develop any trace of intimacy to the point of caring about the death of some. The positive point is that the characters develop more and more, with the slight exception of the protagonist, who is above all a simple ready-made model.

The existentialist plot is great and well executed, with events that leave you intrigued and anxious with each chapter. Predictable at various times but still manages to satisfy the desire for resolved conflicts, although it lacks a little in the endings. Even with its subjectivity and some loose ends it managed to close the story well, a finished ending is still more valid than something open, regardless of any other factor.
It is definitely a work of potential, well structured and intense reading, but nevertheless pleasant. Although it prefers to develop its subjective and existential aspect more, it does not sin in being prominent and well written.