On paper, I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince So I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability (henceforth 7th Prince) doesn't seem like the type of show that would benefit from having any given season focused on one singular story arc, as opposed to a small handful of shorter ones that last 1–4 episodes. That was certainly the format of the first season, for example, and it seemed to suit it just fine. After all, the overarching story of this anime in general—at least in theory—is that Lloyd just wants to study magic, even if his actual studies aren't so much him in a library, and something closer to learning on the job. A format that errs closer to being episodic is the obvious thing to do for such a series. But this second season of 7th Prince isn't just proof that it can make this format work, but also that it might even work better.

This season of 7th Prince revolves around Lloyd's newfound interest in the church—or more specifically, their trademark divine sorcery, which he learns in mere seconds very early-on into this season. While it helps the story to progress, it takes a pervasive issue from the first season to its most extreme point yet: There's interesting ideas in this show, but rarely any meaningful exploration of them. Instead, they're just left awkwardly sitting there, collecting dust while they wait for the series to end. And in this case specifically, the scene where Lloyd instantaneously learns divine sorcery also means one of the absolute most anti-climactic, “oh, I guess that's it” moments I've seen in recent memory. I'm almost impressed that it had the guts to even consider doing something so obviously lazy, let alone actually going through with it and letting the show keep on trucking as though this were the norm. But the key word here is, of course, “almost.” If the show itself were better, this would probably come off as a bit quirky, silly, and charming. But instead, weighed down by the other shortcomings of this season of 7th Prince, it feels more frustrating and manufactured.

Shifting its focus to one arc that takes up the whole season, rather than a bunch of smaller ones with a steady stream of big magical fights peppered throughout, has surprisingly worked a lot better for 7th Prince. Make no mistake: the story, which revolves around Lloyd and Co. trying to sniff out a chimera-making villain within the church, is nothing spectacular. But it feels a lot more cohesive and impactful than anything in the first season. People who were fans of the fights in the first season probably won't be too pleased to hear this, but while they're far fewer and far between, there are still a fair number of fights in the second season as well. And like the first season, they're all pretty explosive and well-animated, so there's that. In any case, the story of this season probably would've been a lot more enjoyable, if it weren't for the occasional bouts of wonky pacing, and character writing that just can't find the will to care about any characters who aren't Lloyd.

It was a lot easier to not realize how utterly apathetic 7th Prince is to literally everyone but Lloyd in the first season, where the side characters barely had any time in the spotlight, and things moved at a much quicker pace. But now that they actually get some screen time, it's so hard to not notice how everyone who's not Lloyd may as well be a stick figure who exists only to hype up how cool they think Lloyd is. The worst of it is from the villain of this season. There's inklings of cool ideas for him and his backstory, but their payoffs range from being half-baked to non-existent. In the hands of a writer more interested in him—or at least a writer who could think about literally any character but Lloyd for more than .2 seconds—he could've been a much more compelling character who could've elevated 7th Prince a lot.

Indeed, some things about 7th Prince just haven't changed. For starters, while the volume of the women thirsting after a 10-year-old has been turned down considerably, it's still far from being totally muted. Also, while the animation is a bit better overall this season, I wouldn't say it's to an obvious extent. And like with the first season, the music remains serviceable, if mostly unmemorable. Well, there's sort of one exception, but it's not flattering.

At the end of the season, one character—whose whole deal is how much she loves to sing—pretend to be shocked, because she has to sing. There's no lyrics, she's just “La La”-ing, but it goes on for a while. And in the dub, they've made the disappointing-but-not-surprising decision to let the track by the character's Japanese voice play, rather than have her English voice sing. 7th Prince's is far from the first dub to not bother with a diegetic song, but that doesn't make it any less jarring. The dub for this series is fine overall, but the Japanese cast has some pretty heavy hitters, and this is just another point for watching the sub over dub. 

Overall, this season of 7th Prince is a marked improvement over the first, but still suffers from a lot of the same problems as its predecessor. Still, it's making visible efforts toward being different, and I'll give it credit for that. But alas, the strength of the results—which have been very mixed—don't quite match that level of effort. So I doubt this season is going to convert people who didn't care for the first.