天下制覇

Only you can prevent mana theft.

I missed this in my season preview since I pay as minimal attention to Crunchyroll as I can, unless it intrudes on other things, but they're streaming the movies a couple weeks after they air in Japan, which works out to a couple weeks before each set of four episodes (that are combined to make each of the three movies) begin actually being broadcast. So these first two episodes, and the next two, have been up for about three weeks now, and in a couple weeks, the next four will be. I've never really liked being 'slow' to these things, and the broadcast versions are not in any way significantly different from the movie stuff, so I'm debating how to proceed; treat it like a monthly 90 minute OVA going forward, or continue weekly on the broadcast schedule. I'm a little loathe to do the former since Saturdays are otherwise hopeless this season (I'm just assuming the last idol show yet to air is going to suck), but again, I don't like putting things off for no real reason.

Impressions:

In any case, weaker episode than the first. The first half was spent mostly faffing about without contributing much to characters, setting, or plot, and the second half, while still impressing on the action front, had that Symphogear/StrikerS thing going where it was all up against a bunch of weak NPCs who maybe sorta became a threat for a moment because they farted up some black smoke. Compared to the first episode's fairy-crushing, face-smashing evil overload, it doesn't match up, especially when the protagonists start whipping out personal nukes.

It was also a bit more of a mess on the character front too, despite settling down a little more. It still lacked focus, especially with the whole thing between brash and petulant rogue versus stern and imperious knight. The chip on the latter's shoulder against the former made no sense at the start, but then the former started dicking around with him in the middle of the fight with seeming no understanding of what he was doing, which may or may not have gotten one of them grievously hurt, but even that was too far separated to really connect things together. Even on top of that, whiney rogue throwing a temper tantrum and then coming back lasted only a few minutes, so it came off especially flighty instead of some kind of maturing moment. It was just kind of a mess.