As my favourite series I have to talk about the good parts as well as the meh ones. So of course Id do one for s2 as well which improves on s1 in basically every aspect And dont you dare say Oh but its full CGI not watching/how could it be prettier I literally could not tell it was 3D first time I watched it and honestly still cant except in certain circumstances. And also... its not like you could do much worse than s1s art/animation putting aside the fact that SANZIGEN is basically one of two studios Im aware of whose full CGI works are wellliked. This season is a bit choppy looking back at it but it really is a vast improvement on s1 Music: With Roselia finally doing some songs for this I pretend the OVA doesnt exist its obvious the music quality goes up But it isnt even just Roselias and Afterglows songs that up the quality. Popipa has some far better songs this season too in fact two of my top three songs of theirs are from this season Ill talk about this a bit later The quantity of inserts also goes up to an honestly incredibly high level. While s1 failed drastically at quantity and slightly at quality s2 has very high quantity and generally high quality When it comes to insert quality/quantity you cant have too much of either unless it sacrifices the other too much which as Ive stated this doesnt The openings are both really great. Kizuna Music is a really catchy and brilliant song one of Popipas best and BRAVE JEWEL is Roselia. Only standard for Roselia but nonetheless Roselia The endings though... Jumpin is kinda... awful. And Safe and Sound... sigh as much as I like Roselia their endings are among their worst songs for me. This is a better ending of theirs but its just an alright song... Also on the inserts... PasuPares are forgettable and Hello Happy plays perhaps the most techno song of the entire series in their focus episode... But meh. Minor issues. Characters: I mentioned in my s1 review how there is often a problem in music anime where theres a huge cast with littletono focus on 90 of them and how the small cast let s1 mostly avoid that. Now with a cast about six times the size of s1 some may expect it to fall into that problem... But no. It doesnt Each of the four initial bands obviously excluding PoppinParty gets an episode dedicated to them fairly early. So does the one lone character with lots of relevance. And the other band that shows up... they dont really need the focus as far as this season is concerned as only two of them are truly relevant. And they well... get the focus they deserve. Sure the first episode is a bit sudden with introducing everyone and it can feel awkward especially with how PoPiPas members have seemingly developed some strong connections with these new characters offscreen. But it does introduce them well overall through those aforementioned focus episodes. Also it doesnt try to make them all super important or waste precious time having them all help out somewhere when they dont need to or anything like that. I wont be going through the characters onebyone like I usually do because that will take too long. Whats important is that the characters get the right amount of focus. The ones who dont contribute much to the plot right now have one episode in case theyre needed later. Those who are highly important get the necessary amount of development alongside the drama. Story: As I mentioned earlier the first episode starts off awkwardly. And also the focus episodes of the bands can feel kinda pointless especially episodes 4 and 5... but I think better to have and not need applies here right? Its best to develop the bands as soon as possible in case they become relevant later and theres not enough time to properly introduce them again. But the drama itself... yeah I mentioned in my s1 review music anime often seem to take half the season for drama. This season also follows that pattern. The other band that wasnt part of the initial five of the project gets first referred to as a band in ep7. This stirs up the drama as a plot thread alongside the cultural festival. Said cultural festival also being the first anniversary performance of Popipa. Episodes 9 and 11 are full of emotions and the climax of the story this season The drama here is simple but very powerful. In other words its really good It... actually falls under something which I claimed to be a favoured trope of mine in music anime though I didnt actually think of this instance when I said that. Anyway it is definitely a plot point that gives really good drama... The song that was written in ep11 at the climax of the drama and emotions is also just one of Popipas best songs Overall: As I said in the synopsis this is just much funnier and more emotional. I said s1 was only a fraction of what it could have been and s2 proves why. The music quality animation quality the plot the comedy... its all so much better in this season While there are couple tiny bits of badly timed comedy that drag down the drama a tiny bit that barely makes a difference. It still strikes the right emotions only a couple seconds later. Thats also still better than a bunch completely unfunny though perhaps better timed jokes right?