I feel like I've seen this somewhere before...
Phi Brain is an odd bird, but an endearing one nevertheless. If you'd told me a year ago that I was going to watch 50 episodes of a show where characters spout cheesy lines about the "feelings of puzzles," I wouldn't have believed you. However, as I said in
my first season review, something about
Phi Brain grabbed me and made me a fan. But while the first season changed me from an ironic watcher to an ardent supporter, the second season fell a little flat for me. It didn't do anything particularly wrong or stray too far from the cheesy puzzle nonsense that makes it fun in the first place, but after a while the show felt like a retread of the first season, with some extra gimmicks added here and there.
The following is just my guess, but I don't think the staff of
Phi Brain thought that they were going to get any more seasons in the current light-novel-adaptation-12-episodes-a-pop industry we're in. The first season wraps itself up rather nicely, so when the second season was announced to air immediately after the first, I was excited but had no idea how the show would continue.
The first episode seemed to put the few fears I had to rest; the puzzles were brilliant (with solutions this time!), the cast was as quirky as ever, and the new villains struck the right notes of threatening and mysterious. I was convinced that Phi-Brain had hit its stride. However, it wasn't long until the shine wore off and the plot ended up copying the same broad brushstrokes as the first season.
Stop me if you've heard this one: A mysterious organization that wants to take over the world through puzzles and the power of the Orpheus Ring manipulates teenagers into doing its bidding. The man at the center of the organization wants all the power for himself but is double-crossed by a teen who was exploited since birth to become an ultimate being. This teen is utterly obsessed with Kaito thanks to a childhood relationship, and it's up to Kaito and his friends to save him from himself.
So it's basically the first season, right? The differences do lie in the details (the main ones in this season being mind control and memory manipulation), but the highs and lows of the story arc are extremely similar. Of course,
Phi Brain isn't exactly known for its compelling plot. The problem is how this affects the characters, since they carried the show in the first season. For the most part, it feels like the show hit a giant reset button, with the Orpheus Order as the new POG. All characters other than Kaito and his rival Freecell are whittled down to one-note side shows towards the end. The other members of the Orpheus Order are discarded as soon as they are defeated, despite their promising personalities. The show also teases some character development for Nonoha only to literally put her in the kitchen and have her main plot contribution be letting her hair out of her ponytail.
Freecell doesn't fare much better, with his backstory mimicking Rook's only with the angst turned up to 11. If you were like me and were bothered by Rook's clingy statements about "owning" Kaito, then you'll need to brace yourself for Freecell because
that's his entire character. The first season was able to justify this by establishing and further developing Rook and Kaito's friendship, but that doesn't happen here. Like I said above, the show decides that broad strokes are the way to go, with all of the cheese but none of the heart. I feel like the people who greenlit this season saw the popularity of the Kaito/Rook pairing among fujoshi and decided that they wanted in on that slice of the market and packed this season with even more bait. People can ship whatever they like, but I have a problem when a show is trying to monetize a demographic that they weren't catering to before. It's like they're hanging a giant neon sign on their product that says,
"Here, ship this!" I would've preferred more focus on how and why Orpheus rings twist people's minds; it's an interesting idea but it's never really explained, not even by
Phi Brain's pseudo science.
All of that said, ripping itself off is not the worst move this show could make.
Phi Brain is still one of the best examples of campy, cheesy fun. My problem is with the presentation this time around. A beach episode? More than three episodes to solve one puzzle? What happened? My guess is that the second season greenlight caught them off-guard, so they had to come up with something quick. That, and
Junichi Satou (who's second to none when it comes to character-oriented stuff) going from director to series composition in favor of a guy who hasn't directed a full series before, it's clear why this version rang a little hollow. On the technical side, the show's animation is far better overall than the first season, but it takes
a steep dip in quality after the first few episodes. The first and last episodes are the best of the season. The music was good overall; nothing incredibly memorable in the background, but it fit the emotion of certain scenes pretty well. The OP is no Brain Diver (I'm always going to miss that) but it works for what it is.
With
the third season already announced, I'm glad that this isn't the last that we'll see of
Phi Brain. I felt that this season was sort of thrown together with little regard to what made it fun to watch in the first place, and once again proved the rule that it's not the cliche, it's the execution.
Phi Brain is a lot of fun, but I hope that the space between this season and the next will give the staff enough time to come up with a plot that goes beyond finding another boyfriend for Kaito. The puzzles are still impressive and an event in themselves, and Melancholy was an extremely interesting character who stole the show by playing with the characters' and the viewers expectations, so there's still a lot to love here. There are some genuinely interesting ideas and characters in this season, I just don't think they got to their full potential. I still love you
Phi Brain, and I can't wait to see what you pull out of your sleeve next.
Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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