Series Review: Rinne no Lagrange 2 (by the power of friendship and flowers)

Instant Summary: An excessively helpful Mary Sue saved the universe with the power of MANLY GAR POWA friendship and flowers.

Pretty visuals and an ambitious setting can often give an impression that a title is worth more than it actually is. That is perhaps the effect Rinne no Lagrange had on me, as I was so impressed with the first season. Of course, with the second half of the story came the increase emphasis on the plot, and then the weakness began to show.

A whole lot of concepts weren't as crystal clear as I hoped it would be, especially with the alternate reality of Rinne, and what the Vox really are. The series made no real effort to do that anyway, after all, the title really is all about friendship and flower power. Please take my Instant Summary literally.

I kept thinking how good it would be if they actually blended Yurikano's story (in the manga) better, or made the friendship between the girls harder to blossom. A story full of twists and climaxes isn't always required in the presence of a fantastic concept, but Rinne no Lagrange simply doesn't have very much to go on at all. I'm not exactly praising the concept either; the yuri and friendship power thing is pretty interesting, but it gets overbearing after a while, when it seems like it's the only thing fueling the finale. I see that the optimistic and cheerful atmosphere is a huge selling point of the anime, but it's weird to think that these girls actually killed shitloads of people, and it's not like they felt particularly bad about it (or even anything at all).

And there's the surprisingly lack of action for a mecha based anime. It turns out that whatever deadly forces the mecha can unleash are totally irrelevant; they served only as in instrument for space flight and channeling the power of friendship into the power of flowers, which is literally capable of anything from planet-wide surround sound to moving galaxies to alternate dimension transition to time reversal. Holy shit! Respect the blooming mother nature, kids.

And with unlimited power comes the opportunity for as many crazy experimental CG they can churn out. I think I talked about that before...

So yeah, this is a cleverly disguised deus ex machina ending. Well I'm not all that disappointed... it's just all for all the things I hope Rinne no Lagrange could be, this is all there is to it.

Plot/Concept: Fair
Story Style: Awesome!
Audio/Visual: Excellent!
Value: 7