Anime: Hidan no Aria AA 3y26g

I didn't really consider Hidan no Aria to be a massive hit so I found myself quite off guard when I saw this on the calendar. To start, AA is not a sequel to the original Aria, but rather anther story that shares characters with the original. And let me cut to the chase on this one, unless yuri girl-girl interactions are your thing, this retelling falls short of even the original Aria, which itself isn't a particularly good show.

AA follows a group of girls one year younger than Aria's group in the first season. In particular, it follows a seemingly failure of a Butei named Akari who happens to have an inexplicable draw to Aria. The story revolves around her attempts to serve as Aria's apprentice as well as the various antics that her friends bring her into. Overall, I found this to be an even larger flop than the previous season four years ago. If you've watched that, you'll be disappointed with the direction that they took here. If you haven't watched that, you'll be missing so much context and otherwise meaningful cameos that you might as well skip this entirely.

Animation:
The animation in general feels lighter in mood than the original Aria; the darkest animation is probably in the OP, which I felt was inconsistent with the actual show. Otherwise, there's just a lot of lighthearted scenes of girls feeling and smelling each other in ways that... yeah. The animation is fair overall with decent lighting and coloring, but nothing particularly special. The original cast is recognizable, even if their screen time sometimes doesn't even merit them really showing up. Akari and her gang follow pretty established patterns and many of them take after someone in the original show (Kirin after Riko, Shino after Shirayuki, etc). It isn't a particularly deep show so I wouldn't expect much depth in expressions, the antagonists in particular are incredibly lacking in this regard.

There are a fair number of battle sequences in the show, but a lot of the early ones are rather pointless; the intensity is reduced when everyone is using rubber bullets and antagonists purposely miss their targets. Really, things don't get serious until the latter episodes. Even then, the battles are mostly particle spamming with Gatling guns and subpar choreography. There is also a pretty blatant inconsistency as they show a bullet go through a character and then, moments later, have another character declare that the bullet-proof school uniforms (lol) stopped all the bullets. Overall, the action is neither as intense nor as well executed as the original. As for ecchi, it's different in ways already mentioned; obsessed is an understatement in describing half the girls here.

Sound:
The show opens with a fairly forgettable light rock piece and ends with a slower but equally forgettable piece sung by the VAs. The BGM is ive but mostly forgettable as well, I didn't recognize anything familiar from the first season.

The VA cast is undoubtedly pretty strong; they even brought in additional big names such as Yui Horie and Ai Kayano to the franchise. It's been quite awhile since I've heard Rie Kugimiya in her signature tsundere role but if you're expecting a fair number of lines from the other characters in the previous season, you'll be disappointed; Akari and her group take up the vast majority of the screen time. Aoi
Yuuki probably gets the most memorable role out of that group, as unfortunately Ai Kayano's character, Shino, is just plain creepy.

Story:
As stated above, the show mostly follows Akari and her friends hanging out and occasionally doing Butei-like things. The fact that this isn't a harem should have freed up the plot in various ways, but instead they just turned it into a yuri harem with a lot of girls going after Akari. The dark, mysterious nature of the antagonists in the previous show is all but gone and the new antagonists are rather boring and shallow.

The show follows so many established patterns that a seasoned viewer can easily guess most of the plot twists. A group of people going to battle, with each of the non-hero characters shouting "go on without me" in succession? Check. Foreshadows to a protagonist's dark past? Check. The only real contributions to the franchise here for me were the discovery that the school's restrooms are really nice (granite/marble everywhere!) and that girls have weird dreams- each episode starts with a random dream.

This show just disappointed at so many levels from execution to flow and from lack of established setting to lack of meaningful contribution to the franchise. If you can, please just skip the season.

Character:
If you liked characters from the previous season (like Riko perhaps?), forget it as none of them get any development whatsoever here. The focus is squarely on Akari's group, and to be honest each of them is inferior to their counterpart in the last season. Akari is a strong-willed but clumsy female chick-magnet, Raika is your tomboy with inner-princess dreams, Shino is a creepy but rich best friend, and Kirin is a weak and immature mini-Riko. Many of them have semblances of personality but very limited exposition. As mentioned above, the antagonists are even worse with little or no exposition and cookie-cutter personalities.

Value:
The main value of the franchise for me were twofold, the ridiculous nature of the setting and the intriguing character of Riko. In this season, they tone down the emphasis on the special nature of the setting and mostly kill off Riko's intriguing nature, almost turning her into a rather ordinary "nice" person. Thus, the show's only redeeming chance of value is through bringing up a new cast of interesting characters. Unfortunately, I didn't mesh well with the girl-girl nature of the new cast and so am left with little value to report. I guess there's a slight residual entertainment value but honestly given the amount of actually decent stuff out there, why even bother.