Sorcerous Stabber Orphen

Season 1 is a 6 while season 2 is a 7,5, near 8, so my final score is 7. I know, Studio Deen. "Let's rate this 1 since Deen sucks". It's not quite like that, Orphen has a solid worldbuilding and character development, at least in the books.

They are indeed being somewhat respectful to the source material, but Deen lacks vision, creativity. Most scenes look bland and generic and anime is mostly visual, no matter how good or bad the plot in the source material is, the visual is what matters most.

So I advise you to read the books, they're all translated into english and check the 1998 anime. They didn't follow the light novels.faithfully but it's a better show because it's well written for anime, has a superb art direction and a, let's say... different ending, kind of bittersweet if you ask me.

But, uh, coming back to the remake series, once you get past the issues I appointed, the show gets enjoyable, specially because the plot is good, the worldbuilding is solid and the characters go thru some stuff that makes them grow. I don't wanna give spoilers, so I won't enter in specific details, but expect that to happen by the end of season 2.

Talking about it, season 2 had major improvement in animation and pacing, since season 1 managed to screw it up in the Heed My Call, Beast arc, a shame if you ask me cuz the first book is one of the best, but still, the plot twist is still interesting to watch nevertheless.