After really enjoying season one of the new Samurai Troopers, I was not about to hesitate to watch season two. I did fail to see when it went live because it snuck up on me, but that’s beside the point. Our story continues right after season one left off; the world was saved from Ramaga. However, while the demons are still recovering, the Divine Realm decided it was time to attack as they deemed the humans no longer worth saving. Our Samurai Troopers now need to form an alliance with their former enemies to take on a new threat.
The story really has a much better pacing here than season one, and in fact, it kind of explains why season one seemed so fast. Without spoiling anything, there were a lot of things happening behind the scenes and a lot of stuff that wasn’t quite what we thought it was. What I really liked most here was that we had a lot of different antagonists to the Samurai Troopers this time around, and these foes were not on the same side. The story not only added to the character development of the main cast but also took some time to methodically explain each foe’s perspective. It does so really well, and I think the way it all came together was done really nicely. What really helps with the pacing is how major moments were teased with little bits and pieces of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it details that built up to the major moments towards the end.
If I had to make any kind of critique of the story at all, it’s that at times it feels like a better-paced version of what we saw with season one. A lot of the goals were the same, and it follows a similar progression of training to get better at fighting the enemy. It’s still very entertaining and adds elements to this formula to make it distinct. It was just similar enough that it was a little bit noticeable.
The characters were also amazing, as the Samurai Troopers used the character development to help recruit their new allies, the 10 warriors. It not only shows their change from season one, but it also adds to the character development of the warriors themselves. Because the 10 Warriors needed more development, the Troopers served more as mentor roles as the story focused on them, but it was nice because I ended up really liking these characters a lot. Though the story is also not afraid of killing any of them off, because quite a few characters die by the end of the season, which was pretty shocking. I didn’t think all of them would survive, but I did expect more of them to make it to the end than we saw. I like how the season wasn’t afraid to go there, as the shock after what these characters went through created a pretty emotional moment.
As a bit of a side note, I felt like White Blaze was redeemed this season. I hated how he was treated in season one, but loved his role in season two. I’m not adding anything more to that; I just wanted to express how happy it made me.
The fights were also pretty interesting as we got entirely new dynamics for our heroes with the 10 Warriors working with them. Because the show is changing the groups of people fighting each other, each battle feels very different. For example, some battles will only have members of the Troopers or the 10 Warriors, while others mix up the rosters a bit. Same with the enemies, as sometimes one foe would take center stage while others would pivot to a foe with a different agenda. Plus, the last fight had an amazing group transformation sequence, like any end of season should, that was so much fun to watch.
It’s very clear here that season two is the end of this version of Samurai Troopers. It went out well with an entertaining season full of mystery, fun fights, great character development, and a shocking number of deaths. Overall, I think the original one still holds up and reigns supreme, but the sequel does a solid job of continuing the story.