The second season ends with some nudity potential and a LOT of drama. Will there be a third season?
Episode 11
This transformation scene has nudity in the manga:
The way the ribbons cover her in the anime seems primed for a BD change, so I think there will be BD nudity here.
(End Card)
Episode 12
The series ends at the conclusion of volume 12 of the manga.
Will there be a third season?
The “ending” of season two seems to strongly suggest another season is coming. There are seemingly kill-offs of major characters and the good guys endure near total defeat. It’s a clear middle chapter ending with a dark twist much in the same vein as Avengers: Infinity War or The Empire Strikes Back. The end feels like a pause on the story rather than a conclusion.
If they had known this would be the end of the anime series, they could have chosen an anime original ending, or skipped to a different part of the manga. Ending in this way very much feels like the people involved are planning on a third season the same way that the aforementioned movies very obviously led into sequels.
This doesn’t mean we’ll actually get a third season, but the intentions seem very clear to me that the producers are banking on a third season happening.
Keep in mind that the first season got a sequel greenlit despite very weak BD sales. Not only that, but despite the lack of fan support the production values actually INCREASED in season two. That suggests to me that either there is a hidden profit mechanism for this series or that whoever is paying the bills is okay with operating at a loss. Either one of those outcomes suggest another season is very possible.
A third season has yet to be announced, but the second season wasn’t announced until a year after the first season aired. If this happens again, we’d hear an announcement in 2021 for a third season that would air in 2022.
Overall thoughts:
I guess we can’t really tell until BD, but the second season seems unlikely to live up to the lofty fanservice standard set by the manga, although it has been an improvement over season one. I say this for the simple reason that fanservice scenes seem to be hurried through in the anime whereas the manga dwelled on them quite a bit longer. There’s a lot of nudity that will probably be shown at a glance in the anime whereas the nudity was more brazen in the manga. Girls partially covering up more a lot in the anime, etc.
This is an unfortunate cost of doing the Monster Musume style of redraws for nudity, which is why I’ve always been partial to the To Love-Ru “unwatchable fog” style since the latter prioritizes BD content much better. Unfortunately, the To Love-Ru style seems to be a relic of the past now.
The one major positive of season two were the production values, which were genuinely above average. Normally ecchi shows are not known for great looking action scenes, but this series was actually able to deliver there. Normally series with heavy amounts of nudity don’t get to enjoy this much animation quality.
This show will probably be overshadowed by many other prominent ecchi series this year, but it quietly did its job and hopefully is a bridge to another season yet to come.
