~ By Jordan

Once again I'll say watching this series is like Watching an Videogame RPG. Not as much as the first series, becuase this time around, the girls are pretty much as strong as they are going to get. Not much "leveling up" to be seen. So shortly after the girls returned peace to the magical world of Cephiro, a new war wages as rival countries try to take over this now weakened land. So the girls are once again called back to save this forein world from 3 countries looking for personal gain, as well as a mysterious dark force that is looming. Nothing truely original, but a decent idea to milk another 29 episodes out of the popular manga series. Altho, in the end a lot of repititive anime ideas come out, and it becomes pretty predictable.

The largest upgrade has to be the animation. You can tell the animators had a better grasp of the characters when they started this series up. Character Designs are top notch,and setting animation is a gem of eye candy. (mmmmm eye candy) Fight scenes are alittle better looking, and special lighting effects are around in full force. I surprised I didn't go into shock from watching this in a dark room, while in bed. I think my only complaint with the animation is the fact that the majority of the time, the girls faught while in there original armor stages. (aka shoulder armor, and thats all.) The only time they had their sweet armor is when they were in their Rune Gods. It didn't really make sense, but its a small complaint.

All of the characters, (with the exception of like two of them) returned to this series. Even Precea ... All of them have gone through changes in outfits, and in Ascots case, age. The characters are once again one of the nicer parts of this show, when there isn't some kind of fight going on. One of the bigger differences this time, is the focus on setting up love interests for all of the girls. I can't say I really agree with the way Ascot felt about Umi, and how Umi felt about Clef, but desperation has always been a factor in Anime love sagas.

Once again, the original J-Pop has been completely striped from the debbed version of this series. altho once again, the english music is surprisingly not bad. (I'll admit I found myself humming along after the 3rd episode.) Instyramental music has also pretty much stayed the same. It goes nicely with the scenes its played in, but near the ending of the series you may find yourself bored with it. Lastly is the voice acting, which was once again a nice surprise. Especially the evil, and vendictive Nova, to the nasaly Princess Aska. Nice job Bandai!

If you were entertained by the first series, you will definatly get into this once quickly. Lots of plot twists and mysteries are annouced early in the series, but I'll be honest when I say that it got alittle too complicated near the end, and I just began losing interest at times. The Fight scenes were nicely done, and the Rune God fights were allright if your into that whole mech-fight-genre. Like I mentioned before, this series focuses a lot more on romance, which is nice at times, but beware if thats not your bag.

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