After watching season one I wasted no time in watching season two. It was such an enjoyable story I was really curious as to where it was going next. Season two starts the war that was looming over everyone’s heads in season one. Ars Louvent now has the talented people needed to succeed in his endeavors; however, he now needs to show he is the leader they need to take them to victory.

The story makes a dramatic shift from season one. Now that Ars has several powerful retainers we get to see how they handle the war. We don’t really see our characters focused on learning their skills as they pretty much all know what they excel at. Now the story is how well to bring them all together and make best use of all of their talents. We see all kinds of leaders this season. While we focus mainly on Ars and his leadership journey we get to see what happens when dealing with other talented leaders and others who are less than capable. One of the things that impressed me the most is how well this season shows how drastically things change when you have a good leader versus a bad one and that’s constantly reinforced here.

While the leadership story is central to the season we have other smaller stories taking place. We have our main characters who already know their skills but as we learn the difference in types of leaders we also learn the value of diversifying your skill set. We really didn’t see our characters go up against anyone with skills on par with them in season one but that happens a lot this season. So naturally you’d think that put them on an even playing field but really the results are surprising. A great example is with Reitz. He excels heavily in combat but is faced with an enemy who’s skill stat is dead even with his. However, because Reitz has other skills that surpass that of his opponent he uses that to his advantage to tip the scales. It’s rather impressive how the story balances the overall war story while adding such amazing character focused themes intertwined with it.

Speaking of characters we once again have something amazing here. Our returning characters from season one are all still as captivating as they were and grow tremendously, especially Ars. Even so we are also introduced to a myriad of new characters that serve the plot beautifully. Some have captivating back stories. Others have amazing character growth and some are used to help reinforce the themes of the season. Regardless of what role they play they all do so splendidly and they were all entertaining.

This season really takes the story to the next level as we move away from the focus of finding and appreciating strong allies to a war where it’s important to know how to lead them. It’s a well told story that conveys all kinds of important lessons within while masterfully telling the stories of the characters it’s about. I’m again impressed with how much I’m really enjoying the show and it’s frustrating to have to wait for another season.