I’m going to start where I left off with the conclusion from my review of its season 1.
It just feels that this show was a wasted potential during its season 1. I’m waiting for season 2 to end so I can binge watch it again and see if my opinion about it differs. But don’t take my bias as your guide. You might want to try the anime out and maybe you can see something I didn’t. The King’s Avatar isn’t something I would recommend for viewers that have high focus on character development and dynamics of storytelling. But I’m hoping it can redeem itself on Season 2.
It didn’t redeem itself and it just doubled down its strengths and weaknesses as a show. Reading my old review about season 1 made me realize that if I were to copy paste what I’ve written, it would still be the same opinion.
A disclaimer here is that I haven’t fully read the web novel source material written by Hu Die lan. My review is limited to the anime aired.
Plot:
The plot for Season 2 continues from Ye Xiu coping with the forced retirement and then eventually finding some desire to come back into the eSports scene in search for team members that will compete.
The Actual Review
King’s Avatar Season 2 used the formula that made the season 1 a season to all aspects of a show except storytelling. Overall, the show has done a fantastic job in showcasing how Chinese animation studios can compete in the anime industry. King’s Avatar features a fluid animation style that enhances the intensive fight scenes and music you can vibe with. It’s hard to comment on the voice acting part as I’m not yet acclimatized to hearing spoken Chinese language but given a few more shows like these would make it easy to get used to.
The show made a marked improvement on the opening and ending themes that it was easy to like the beats especially the ending theme. I don’t understand the lyrics but the rhythm is nice so I’ll listen to it even more.
Ye Xiu, was made to be the Gray Stu that the fans are designed to like about. There are no flaws in his packaging and the story just seems to align every event on his favor. This undermines whatever conflict the show tries to dish out for the protagonist that makes it boring. But there’s a market for this type of storytelling for those that want to enjoy the power fantasy so it sells.
The amount of greatness this guy radiates from his presence is just too much that the entire server he is in gets involved in taking him out. And of course, by some plot armor, he and his group wins all challenges and gets the best deals out of the events. It’s moments like these that make the story so out of touch with reality from a gamer’s perspective. You can be realistically be good enough to get your name known within the server but not that good that in the event when everyone comes after you, you’ll just win.
It was during these moments that the show just started being ridiculous but I just stayed long for the sake of finishing what I started. I would say the viewing experience isn’t that bad if you were just watching the show passively but it makes a terrible viewing experience if you had to think proactively about the show with a review in mind. It’s a case of the show’s success being its own shortcoming because there’s no saving a perfect protagonist and a plot that serves only to seal this image of him.
The show could have been improved if there was more emphasis on the side character contributions and growth even if Gary Stu was still the main protagonist. In this types of setup, one can still create a good story without undermining how great the main character is by showing the progress and conflict from the lens of the supporting characters.
How their growth is affected by the support of the main hero, how the supporting character finds their place in the story, and all things that indirectly can involve Ye Xiu. But no, this show didn’t go for that approach and maybe there’s not much that can be done if the source material is fixated on glorifying the main character too much.
Conclusion
It's not all bad but it certainly isn’t all the great story wise. I’d say it’s just above average with the protagonist’s perfection keeping it down while all the rest of the show’s elements are near excellence.
