Though it was actually among the first several series from last season I finished watching, it ended up being the last series in the end-of-season review block--it took me quite some time to write up a review that in my opinion is worthy of the series it's reviewing. On top of that, save the best for the last, right? So here comes:
Even towards the end of the second series, I still find myself asking the same question once a while: "What is this I am watching?!! It looks like a bunch of nonsense!" Yet at the same time, lack of coherence is never an issue, throughout the story. That may sound a bit contradicting, but it really isn't. Let me tell you why:
As I said during season one's review, in order to understand and appreciate this story, you have to wipe your mind clear of the realm you currently exist in, i.e. throw away everything you know as "common sense" or "indisputable fact" in the universe you live in, and then rebuild a new one from scratch with whatever this story gives you, at its face value. Then you'll have an universe that everything in this story just makes complete sense, period.
No doubt, denying everything you know since birth as the truth is a bit difficult to do. That may be one contributing factor that Horizon does not have as many stellar reviews as it deserves. But if you manage to do so successfully, you're bound for a wild ride with some amazingly interesting characters and lots of massively complex plots. I know this may come out sounding a bit, um, arrogant, but I'll say it anyway: don't hate the anime, hate yourself for not understanding it.
From time to time, I did forget to tune out of our reality. Those are the times I would roll my head side way and think "WTF am I watching?" But it usually wouldn't take too long before I was able to snap out of it and enjoy what to come.
Now I'm finished ranting about how you should prepare yourself for the series, let's talk about this second season. While it feels very much like the first season, the elements they decide impose emphasis upon has shifted slightly--during season one, due to the fact the audiences were forcefully thrown into an unknown universe, they placed more emphasis on character development, especially on the main group, so that audience would have something familiar they can feel attached to while desperately trying to not drown in the flood of unfamiliar building blocks for this new universe. In this second season, however, since those who are continuing on most likely already have a pretty good grasp of the settings, the story branched into a bigger scope where you see a larger number of additional characters come into play in a much more complicated political situation, which in my opinion, is the sweet spot of this series at.
If you honestly tried, but still have trouble getting everything, then I would recommend you to go through the "Preface" and "Glossary" of the novel (which, unlike normal novels, they are at the beginning of the book) that is available in fan translation by baka-tsuki (though it's a bit difficult to resist the temptation in continuing reading the rest of the novel once you're there :-)
One thing did bother me a bit during this season, is that either the animator or the author of the story up-played a bit too much on the "naked Tori". As I see it, aside from a very few situation that his "naked-ness" actually contributed to resolving certain situation (yeah, surprisingly), for the most part, it's just down right unnecessary.
Though there's no clear announcement like it had in the end of season one, the final moments of this season two showed some new characters that are relevant in the future story. It's possible they simply pulled them directly from the novel's original artwork, but I do hope they keep make more.
All in all, if you can shift your mind into the universe, this is one amazing story, even though it still gets my
WTF of the Year for 2012
award.
[Edit 11/14/12] One thing I forgot to mention because I was a bit too absorbed in recalling the story of Horizon, is that there's an anime that came out in 2009 that is equally amazing in terms of building a completely coherent story with elements that you couldn't make any sense of. It's called "Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo" (US release translates it to Girl who Leapt through Space, not to confuse it with Girl who Leapt through Time which is a completely different anime has nothing to do with each other). If you liked Horizon, you would like it equally.
Final Scoreboard:
Drama: 92 (Quite dramatic)
Comedy: 90 (No lack of that)
Action: 93 (Over the top, hilarious, and exciting)
Art/Animation: 88 (Original design from the novel)
Sound/Music: 90 (Quite good)
Character: 93 (Lots of interesting ones)
Plot: 97 (Wild ride)
Ending: 92 (Good wrap up point for the moment)
Re-watch value: 80 - You might need to do that to wrap your brain around it
Overall: 92 - Get ready to be Blown Away
Recommendation: If you get it, you'll love it. If not, well, sorry, you're missing out on one amazing story.
