Harem

Alternate Titles: Hiiro no Kakera Dai-ni-Sho

Hiiro no Kakera – The Tamayori Princess Saga 2

Plot Summary: The story continues to follow Tamaki as the special shine priestess of her family and her five guardians.  Picking up from where the previous season left off Takumi – one of Tamaki’s guardians – is of course the forerunner for her love interest but there are problems in paradise as the monster within him is on the rise.  If that isn’t bad enough, Logos is back and is determined to circumvent all the plans for their own interest.

Technical stuff – Does this even matter for this show?

Because I know many people are interested in this kind of thing, Hiiro no Kakera, unsurprisingly, has about the exact same staff as the first show.  The director, script writers, chief animation director,  series composition, and just about all other major positions involved with the show feature the same group of people.  The only major exception is music, with music for the second season being done by Hikaru Nanase.

Speaking of, the series opening is really good, better than the first season which is actually saying something.  (See, I said something nice about this show)  Otherwise the music was your generic of generic land type of thing.  An action sequence, or sentimental moment, may have stood out here or there but its nothing you can even remember right after finishing watching the episode.

The art is of the same style as the first season – of course – and looks nice but the animation quality itself I would put just below average.  Maybe even a little worse than it’s predecessor.

Review – Not that it had that much to live up to.

And that’s just the thing with this show.  It didn’t have much to live up to.  The first season was based off an old PS2 game and the second season progresses an already basic story further in ways that, all things considered, weren’t really necessary.

As a girl reviewing this it’s possible to find the first season charming, in a “shut your mind off and look at the pretty boys and squeal at the romance kind of way.”  But, maybe I am just a bit bitter at the notion that I wasted another six hours of my life watching the same reverse harem run around and do, well, more shit I couldn’t care less about.

Now, I suppose I shouldn’t launch into a complete hater-aid fest, the second season did do some things that I think were improvements, however slight, over the first season.  Chiefly being a faster-paced plot line, more involvement with various characters including some development that was missing from the first season, and even more fleshing out of the romance between the two mains. But it really isn’t enough to spare this show some hate and at the end of the day it walks in the realm of generic romance at best.  It’s everything you’ve seen before and a lot of what three fourths of us never wanted to see again.

If you are a HUGE lover of romance anime then this is for you, without doubt.  Or, if you love reverse harems, it has bishies for days.  But if you’re looking for a substantial, realistic, love story this isn’t it.  Or well, if you’re looking for anything else.  So my recommendation for those who watch this remains people who watched the first season and loved it.  Speaking of, this series gets off to a bit of a confusing start even if you have seen the first season as you work out what they’re doing with the characters.  So if you want to give it a try I definitely recommend watching that first.

In the end, I could slam this anime a lot for what it is and I likely should.  Everything feels so average and mediocre of what we’ve all seen countless times before.  But, to be fair, if it is what you’re looking for average fits the bill and is a lot better than shows that make you want to gouge your eyes out.  For that reason I’m giving this half of the series a 2 because I gave the first a 2.5 and I think on a 10 scale a 4.5 for this series sounds about right.  Maybe the romantic in me saved it a little.  But it’s definitely something I could slam and see people slamming a lot, lot, lot more.  It’s average though, in my mind, and therefore deserves an average score.

[starrater]