The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent Season 2

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Three months after returning from Klausner's Domain, Sei is pressing ahead with her research, working on new cosmetics. Her boss suggests that she sell them through her own trading company, and setting it up leads Sei to discover that there are more familiar things than she expected in Salutania, like coffee. Excited by her discovery, Sei begins musing about what else there might be, and when Johann suggests that they take a trip to a nearby country with a large trading port, Sei is ready to keep exploring her possibilities in her new home world.

The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent Season 2 is based on a light novel series of the same name by Yuka Tachibana. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.

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Richard Eisenbeis
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I can see why this episode started with an action scene with Sei and her friends facing off against an undead dragon—even if it amounts to being little more than a tease of things to come. After all, without it, there is absolutely zero tension or conflict within this episode.

This episode is largely just Sei falling straight into success with everything she does. Oh look, her cosmetics are so popular she has to open her own company to sell them—and get stupidly rich in the process. Oh, and would you look at that? Coffee exists and she used to brew her own before getting isekai-ed—meaning she can revolutionize the burgeoning coffee industry as well.

Now don't get me wrong, I understand that The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent is a female empowerment fantasy. It's the story of a normal woman from our world flourishing in a fantasy one—finding all the love and success that she was unable to attain on Earth. There's nothing wrong with that. However, a season premiere is supposed to get you reinvested in the story and characters—and this first episode doesn't do that.

This episode is more of an epilogue to the last season than anything else. The massive amount of herbs Sei receives and the evolution of her make-up empire are all the results of events from the first season. Even the tentpole aspect of the series, the relationship between Sei and Albert, is left in a holding pattern in this episode. I mean, he does little more than stand next to her and give her permission to do what she already wants. I feel like we should get at least one romantic moment between the two leads in a season premiere!

So, all in all, I'd call this a pretty lackluster episode. It's not bad enough to make me drop the show or anything (I'm already good and invested at this point), I just wish it did anything to make me excited that the show is back on the air—to make me remember why I enjoyed it in the first place.

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Rebecca Silverman
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The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent is back! Now thrill as Sei…sets up a trading company to sell her cosmetics and discovers that coffee is a thing in Salutania. Whee…

All sarcasm aside, it's not hard to see why this episode uses its bountiful new animation budget to give us an action scene. The novels this season are set to adapt are a bit thinner on the monster/miasma battles than the previous ones. That's not bad; Sei's still trying to acclimate to her new life, and her first year in Salutania was mostly taken up with figuring her powers out and using them for the greater good. Now she has space to breathe, and it makes sense that that would also give her time to think about what she's been missing. She's been adjusting well, but when she and Albert discover a new café in the capital selling "foreign tea," Sei's suddenly struck by the fact that maybe she doesn't have just to get used to going without. That's an exciting idea for her, and one that should make her new home feel more comfortable, to say nothing of giving her hope that all is not lost. It's one thing to think you can't have something because it doesn't exist; it's another to realize that you can have it if you work a little harder to find it.

Since Sei has established herself nicely and sorted out the whole "she's the real Saint" thing, she now has the time and energy to devote to it. Rice is next on her wish list, and although none of her colleagues are familiar with the description of the plant she gives them, Johann has a suggestion: visit a different country with a central trading hub and see what she can find out. Sei hasn't been out of Salutania yet, and all of her trips have been miasma-related, opening up an entirely new sphere for her. She can travel for pleasure and see if she can discover more of what she's been missing all at once. It's a win-win proposition for her, especially if Johann can swing Albert as her bodyguard as usual.

It's not surprising that this episode is primarily set up. That's not only because of the gap between seasons of the show but also because it's adapting the light novel pretty faithfully. Sei needs to have this downtime, although one could hope that she'd be more comfortable with Albert by now. (Of course, she's also just realized her feelings for him, and everyone has a different comfort level with things like romance.) This is off to a decent, if unexciting, start, and I'm looking forward to seeing the next few novels in the series get adapted. Even if they're light on action, they're still fun, and this already looks more visually pleasing than season one. Grab your coffee, and let's get going.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.