Shangri-La Frontier Season 2

Episodes 26-27

The anime that celebrates the best and worst parts of watching somebody play a video game is finally back! This show was definitely a highlight for a lot of people back when it first aired. Though I was feeling mixed about the show, I'm curious about the direction it's going in. Shangri-La Frontier doesn't feature a lot of the dramatic stakes you see in other video game-inspired anime, but it does make up for that with a very fascinating world, colorful characters, and probably some of the best action to come out this year. Things didn't seem promising at the end of season one, where we finished on a very vague cliffhanger while our main character was grinding materials. Then the lack of promise carried over into the first episode of this second season, which was hands-down the worst episode of the premiere.

It feels like we sidestepped a lot of the interesting things that got set up in season one, and while the action was fun, the whole episode was just our characters getting from point A to point B. Episode two was MILES better and definitely showcased the show at its best. I think a lot of that comes down to the introduction of Arthur and Oikatzo back into the main cast as their dynamic with Sunraku is a definitive highlight. I love how these three are clearly friends, but they all give each other just the right amount of shit that makes me think, “Oh yeah these guys have been gaming together for a long time.” The comedy and facial expressions were absolutely amazing, and I like how we follow up on some of the intriguing stuff that was either sidestepped or ignored earlier.

Arthur goes off on Sunraku for running away and doing things on his own when he doesn't necessarily have the freedom to do that anymore. There is bigger lore and a lot of people that are now drawn to him, so getting that shoved in his face was a welcome addition. The fight against the guard was incredibly kinetic and gave everybody something to do. However, it was also funny that Arthur pretty much just explained that all the main cast does is whale on their opponents until they're dead, which definitely reminded me of when I team up with people in co-op action games. While I wasn't thrilled initially, episode twenty-seven immediately won me over and I hope we have more episodes like that moving forward.

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