English Dub Season Review: I’m Standing on a Million Lives Season Two

Overview:

The second season of I’m Standing on a Million Lives. Two new party members get introduced and Yusuke has to face the fact that the people of this world are real. He can’t hide behind the fact that he thinks the world is a video game anymore. Will he still be able to do what needs to be done? Having to get two new members up to speed might make that more difficult.

Our Take:

Where to start on the second season of I’m Standing on a Million Lives? There was some good but unfortunately, this season was mostly disappointing. The first season didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but it was enjoyable at least. I don’t remember disliking that many episodes from the first season but in the second season there were a couple that was very hard to get through. One of the biggest problems was one of the new characters introduced, Keita.

I could probably fill a whole paragraph with my dislike of Keita. If you were reading my reviews on an episode-by-episode basis you might already have an idea, I more or less tracked his douchiness each episode. I was excited at first because it would be nice to have another male character to avoid a lot of the annoying harem tropes. But man was he just insufferable, constantly picking fights with Yusuke and hitting on Iu every single chance he got. Which wouldn’t have been that bad but he just assumed she liked him and they were together which was frustrating. A lot of the characters didn’t really develop much this season. Oh would you look at that, I DID write a whole paragraph about hating Keita.

Two of the characters that actually did progress were Yusuke and Kusue. Yusuke had to grapple with the fact that these were real people in another world and that killing them meant killing an actual person. His interactions with the “NPC’s” had become pretty favorable but his attitude towards his party members wasn’t always the greatest. It’s not outright stated but I think this has to do with the fact that he knows if they “die” they can come back to life so he treats them like they’re disposable. He and Iu progress their relationship a bit and I would actually be interested to see where that goes if another season is in the works.

Kusue has grown quite a bit. Her character was interesting to me because she was this timid girl that manages to get chosen for an up-close fighter class. So she was never very good at her role and had trouble killing monsters when she needed to. But in the second season, she progresses and even starts to lean a bit towards Yusuke’s way of thinking on things.

The most frustrating thing about the characters of this season is either a new character would be introduced but be short term or they got introduced later in the season. The first arc was definitely the best one and part of that is because all of the characters introduced there were really interesting. Aoiu was a particularly interesting one and her having feelings for Yusuke introduced some interesting plot developments for him and the party. Then there was Glenda (or Glen) who became the next party member. She was really interesting, and her being a lesbian was so innocently revealed like it was no big deal and I loved that. Her backstory was fascinatingly heartbreaking as well and I would like to get to know her more but she got introduced in the last arc.

When it comes to the voice work everyone from the first season returns. For the new characters, we got Griffin Burns voicing Keita and Wendee Lee voicing Glenda. They both do a fantastic job, and seriously no hate towards Griffin. It’s not his fault that Keita is such an annoying character. The biggest problem with the voice acting this season is just how many VA’s are recycled. I swear I heard Cherami Leigh as like five different characters and the same goes for Zeno Robinson. I know that happens a lot but when it gets to be that noticeable it’s a problem.

The animation was very hit or miss. Sometimes it would be passable but then other times it was really bad. It was never very good or great at any point. The first season wasn’t anything special either but the second season seemed like a downgrade in a lot of respects.

I’m Standing on a Million Lives’ second season was not very good. It seemed like a lot of parts were missing or rushed. I haven’t read the manga to know for sure but it felt very disjointed at parts. You could do worse than this show but you could also do much better. If you liked the first season you might want to watch it to continue but with no confirmation of a third season, you might just be better off reading the manga.