Kekkai Sensen
Watch Links: Crunchyroll
Synopsis: Years after hell opened up under New York City, the city has now been renamed to Hellsalem’s Lot, a place where the demonic has blended into the mundane everyday of city life. Following Leonardo, a young man trying to make his way and find answers to an event which granted him the powers of “the All-seeing Eyes of God”, we see the everyday lives of the members of Libra, a group tasked with combatting those who would upset the balance of the chaotic city.
Score:
Kekkai Sensen 7.7/10
Kekkai Sensen & BEYOND 7.2/10
Kekkai Sensen feels very self-aware of what it's setting out to achieve, that being creating a world so different from our own yet portrayed as so normal by the characters as they go about their lives. It puts in the effort to make everything about it work towards achieving that goal. The setting is really unique and plays into some of the themes in interesting ways. I like how the chaotic energy of New York is so well exaggerated to a level where there's constant death and destruction on a mass scale, and yet everyone treats it as mundane. Everything about the show is weird and out there, but at the end of the day it's always just another day in the life.
In general I thought the themes of normalcy were probably my favorite part of the show, and Leo was a solid lead for this purpose. I usually don't care too much for characters like Leo, but I found him pretty instantly endearing, and the execution on his character I found exceptional. He's easy to root for, he's genuine in a way which makes the audience understand why people take to him so quickly. I do think Klaus was kinda quick to hone in on the good parts of him, but it's well founded when you do get to know Leo. I liked most of the cast. The exception is Zap...I know they tried to make him out to be a scumbag who is a good guy when it counts, but honestly they went a bit too far on the scumbag angle for comedic effect for my liking.
The comedy is generally ok. I'm not really into the typical shounen "Yell a lot and slapstick" style of comedy, but there's some solid jokes, and the exaggerated comedic style fits well enough with the scale of chaos and destruction in the show, so I didn't mind it.
I did find myself a little lost in the storyline towards the end. I absolutely appreciate the show trying to keep exposition to a minimum and using visuals to convey ideas about the state of the world as often as possible, and I also love the way that the show mostly focuses on characters kind of just going about their everyday lives, even if those everyday lives are filled with stuff we'd find weird. This does sacrifice focus in some areas, though. Some of the establishment of what the mission with the vampires and some of the stuff with Black and White and their circumstances gets kinda glossed over and rushed, even if it could be considered probably the main plotline. I don't need characters sitting there explaining things to me necessarily, and maybe this problem goes away if I ever rewatch it, but it felt weird in the moment. In terms of the vampire stuff, I get the sense that they're out there and sometimes cause mayhem and the team has to clean them up, but many of the vampires feel like they just exist to give our characters something to do, and we don't really know what's going on with them. With the Black and White stuff, I was pretty confused about the circumstances of White's initial death and the death of their parents. We got the flashback episode, but I never really got why Black and White were in NYC with their parents when they were, as they were shown in the countryside prior, and how White dies. I get the whole "The parents needed to sacrifice themselves to put up the barrier, and they killed two birds with one stone by putting up a barrier and keeping their daughter existing", although it was kinda funny the first time we see this and they're just standing there as they're being consumed by the light which kills them and we don't know the context so it looks like they just wanted to die. I also get Black's sacrifice for White. But then how did White die? What was Black's sacrifice for? I’m really not sure.
As for Kekkai Sensen & BEYOND, it’s definitely an interesting follow-up to the first season. It’s pretty easy to tell while watching that the Season 1 was anime original for the most part, based on all the pieces which really don't make much of a return if they return at all, as well as the show's shift in focus to the cast as a collective instead of focusing as much on Leo. Some episodes felt as if Leo was hardly a part of the episode, and that wasn't a bad thing, nor were episodes focused on Leo bad. I did start to get a little tired of what felt like a formula at a certain point, but it quickly mixed things up just as I was starting to feel that fatigue, so it once again seems pretty self-aware of its goals and how to go about them. I also do greatly appreciate the show's decision to not fully dedicate any episode to Zapp. I dunno why he's listed as a main, he felt less significant than, say, Chain or Zed.
I do think each season having a different focus is interesting in weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each, as each definitely has pros and cons to its choices. BEYOND doesn't focus on Hellsalem's Lot and its chaos as much as the first season did, and in general that meant the setting was a bit less characterized than previously. But also we start the second season with Femt doing his usual tomfoolery and we've already gotten establishment of the character of the city, and it's not like it's gone, it's just not as much in the focus. This shift in focus is definitely not all bad. I loved the look into the lives of the various other Libra members. I think Episode 3 of BEYOND is one of my favorites in the whole show, and the other character focus episodes were very solid as well. It fits perfectly into the themes of the show to have the episodes focused on the mundane everyday of people in a world so different from our own, and expands greatly on a loveable cast of characters. I do miss the dynamic Leo had with White and don't think this season quite replaces it, even when his sister appears, but that's in no way an indictment of the season. The new additions to the cast were also fun, although pretty short lived.
I don't think I liked the production as much this season, which is more to say there was a slight downgrade from great to good than any sort of condemnation. The music was fantastic as always of course. I just didn't find as many shots where I was like "Wow, that's really cool" or "Damn, that's a beautiful shot". There's still plenty of fantastic stuff here, though, and the world is ripe with all kinds of unique imagery. I also missed the internal monologues for Leo. It felt like we didn't get nearly as much of that. The show is still pretty allergic to exposition through monologue, which I appreciate, but I did like Leo narrating his letter to Michella or going through stuff in his head during the first season, and this season being much less focused on him spent a lot less time in his head. This barring the finale, which did return to that a bit. I actually really appreciate another opportunity for Leo to show his own strength while also being able to rely on his friends. Very cool moment at the end, although funny enough I liked this finale less than Season 1's despite my complaints with that one. This did play really well into Leo as the knight but also showing Michella's own strength.
