Dropped: Saki: The Nationals--Lack of Investment

I'm two weeks behind on Saki and have no desire to catch up, so I'm stopping here.

 
I can't exactly put my finger on it, but this season has removed any investment that I had in Saki. While I said in my first impressions post that I was only really watching for the crazy mahjong battles, that was really only half of the reason. I also wanted to see how the main characters overcame the ridiculous obstacles placed in front of them. It was fun to see the characters one-up each other in increasingly crazy ways. The first season of Saki also had the benefit of having a goal for the plot and character arcs to build upon. With this season, I'm not seeing much of either of those things. When was the last time we heard Saki mention her goal of reconciling with her sister?

 
Nationals unfortunately seems to have taken a page from Achiga's playbook, at least in the six episodes that I've seen. Instead of further developing and exploring the main group, a lot of the screentime has gone to completely new characters that we little to no background on, and I don't know why I should care about them. I've never really been bothered by Saki's brand of fanservice, but it seems like they're mistaking character designs that are generally appealing to otaku as a suitable replacement for actual personality. The several episodes spent retconning to fit Achiga's storyline didn't really help either.

Oh boy, another scene with the shrine maidens

While I'm glad that I watched the first season despite disliking Achiga, Nationals has made it clear that the franchise is more interested in creating endless quirky character templates than in actually finishing what it started. That's still fun in its own right, but it's not working for me here, so there's no reason for me to continue with it.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.