Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress: Unato Decisive Battle

I was really excited to watch this after the generally good first series, what a huge disappointment, I could barely make it through this by contrast.

Whats good?

• Well the animation is still broadly good, fight scenes are fluid and creative
• The soundtrack is acceptable, the Japanese voice actors also do their best (broadly speaking)
• There isn't much in the steampunk/zombie anime genre to compare by

Whats bad?

• As another reviewer mentioned, the Kabane have been hugely nurfed from the deadly threat to a minor inconvenience. A hilarious scene at the start shows about 30 Kabane jump a single solider and pile on in a huge zombie snowball...only for Ikoma to come along and throw him out and blow the lot up. What a load of tripe - compare this to the tense first episode of season 1 where (in the first three mins) we literally see a man have to commit suicide because of a minor bite, what a change in stakes.
• Hugely disappointing story, oh boy, I wonder who the obvious bad guy is? Say, those other 'allies' seem a little dodgy, 'no we don't need to station troops at the back, trust me' - oh yeah, twirl a mustache while you do it more idiot...I mean the heroes buy it so I guess wtf do i know?
• Ikoma and Mumei - oh dear, oh dear...Mumei at least was an interesting character (for the first six episodes of season 1 before changing to 'oni-chan' mode), now both her and Ikoma are hugely unlikable anime cliches. The previously excellent supporting cast of season 1 make appearances here and there but are largely stock anime characters now.
• Oh and a fairly nonsensical story about an attempt to retake a city, was that really the best they could do with this series, a shame...

Bottom Line

• Enjoy the first season for the fun it is (and seriously, the first six episodes are genuinely, really quite enjoyable), don't bother here unless you have a very low barrier to entry, just love Kabane that much or harbor a morbid love for idiots.

Rewatched the whole first season in anticipation of this, but couldn't make it through even one episode.

They nerfed the Kabane, and made Mumei's personality change to complete s***.

Another example of a second season being a bad continuation of the first.

Granted that is often the case, but it's much worse in this instance.

The story is weak, the total runtime is a fraction of the 1st season and there is no real development of note.

It's watchable but I'd avoid paying money for it.

The animation, the background art and all the technique is a master piece, very high quality, but the story felt a little "meh" Not much chemistry between most of the characters, poor dialogues, it really wasn't an engaging story.

The way the story and characters progress is childish and is a mess. The interactions between characters is not believable and little of what story exists is explained properly.

Given the high quality of the audio and video it's clear a lot was spent on this flop of a sequel.