Well, it came around faster than I imagined, but I realized why. So, we have had the second season of “Gin no Guardian” (or “The Silver Guardian”), which really upped the stakes, but also really left you hanging in the balance.

For the uninitiated, we have Suigen Riku (him of the red scarf). He attends a prestigious (and expensive) academy and at night played a very popular video game. That game was closed out in favor of another game. Now, he is good friends with Rei Riku (the pink-haired maiden above him), but because she is both very rich AND the daughter of the game developer, she is a target and gets kidnapped. And then she is brought INTO the new game, “Grave Busters”. Suigen must enter the game to rescue her, but this is a far more dangerous and involved game than the one he left. Does he have what it takes? Will his skills be enough? Did he bring a change of underwear?

Well, he might, but we can’t tell. (I HOPE he brought along a change, as some of what he meets would cause anyone to soil themselves.) Although the second season went to full-length episodes, they only put out six of them. Yes, they are well-crafted tales, but we are also left far short of the mark in things. In fact, it felt like a sop to keep people interested in events while the parent company works to get out new episodes before you lose interest and start glomming onto episodes of “Boruto”.

Also for something as serious as rescuing Rei, a lot of the support characters seemed to be fighting each other to be the comic relief and even the in-game bad guys are more of an annoyance than a genuine threat. The real problem for the show is that it comes at a time when I am seeing a lot of in-game diving, led by another season of “Sword Art Online”. This is still an intriguing show, but it needs to be more than mere leveling up and battling the next boss; otherwise, you might as well take in “Tower of Druaga” and not have to really worry about anything.

It’s a short run show, so you binge it anyway, but the nature of the show demands it, as it is no different than playing a video game.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork           7 (Standard standardness)
Plot                  7 (Been there, seen that)
Pacing              8 (Does have a crispness to it)
Effectiveness   7 (Too short of its own good)
Conclusion       7 (It reaches a ‘coupler point’, but hasn’t ended)
Fan Service      2 (A similar show would be “Okamisan”)
Bingeability     9 (It can take it)

Overall            7 (We seem to be running in place)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. I gave how much away?