This review about Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2 contains spoilers. If you haven't seen the chapters, we encourage you to do so and then come back to read the review.
Off with Pecorine, both of you guilds They decide to go back and come up with a plan to stop the golem. However, Yuuki, Kokkoro and Kasumi realize that the the shade are on their way to Kiri's location, so they go with her to the lake to set a trap for him the shade and buy time while the nearby village is cleared. But just before reaching his goal, a light makes Kiri disappear, causing Yuuki to desperately lose control of his power.
Once Yuuki recovers quickly, he returns to Maho, Makoto, Karyl, and Kaori along with Kokkoro and Kasumi. Help them defend themselves.
For his part, Pecorine psychologically confronts "Her Majesty" and engages in a conversation they never had. But also the desperation at the thought of being forgotten again, this time by her friends from the 'Gourmet Guild'. However, Pecorine also manages to recover, so Her Majesty brings her back to the battlefield by teleporting her to where she disappeared. Entering the game with Yuuki's support power and a 'princess strike', they manage to stop the golem. Reunion with all members of both guilds and saved the village.
memories
In Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2 - Chapter 5 Something that definitely helped the development of the storyline was what Yuuki started to have flashbacks your memories Again. Saw one this time kuhai in school uniform but without seeing her fully due to interference from Ameth, who mentions "he still can't show her that memory". But Yuuki still had another memory, this time strangely seeing a cat named Kiri.
I think it's pretty obvious that the kouhai was about Kasumi, as was her the shade, Kiri, was the interpretation of the cat in this world. However, that leaves some unknowns, one of which was heavily mentioned at the beginning of the anime.Princess Connect! Re: Diving“: «Is Princess Connect! Re: Dive an Isekai?». I think the answer is still the same, but not as radical. Is not a Isekai. At least not in the way they are commonly known due to the genre's overuse. I have a feeling it's something like in "Sword Art Online', with people trapped in another world, but 'without actually traveling there'.
In addition, there is the one who Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2 - Chapter 5 contained a bit more about Yuuki's "immediate past" just before he came into this world in the first episode of the first season. Sacrificing herself to save her teammates and having to make a decision so difficult that I feel like I couldn't have made it myself, at least not so quickly. The choice between returning to an insurmountable struggle that may end just as well or worse, or returning to the beginning of it all with the opportunity to take a different path but recreate the bonds and relationships you previously had with others. Something that reminded me a bit of the events he had to go through Subaru (“Re: Zero') at the beginning of his anime.
As if that wasn't enough, the scene of choice shows that Ameth wasn't the only one with Yuuki, as there was also Queen Labyrinth, a character who has proven to be quite important behind the scenes. And who was really the one who gave the protagonist the second chance?
After so much action in the previous episodeI won't deny that Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2 – Chapter 5 I had mixed feelings because while I liked learning more about the anime's central plot and a character as mysterious as Yuuki, I also felt that she felt the euphoria the ending of the last one ended with. "Severed" Chapter had left me. But, although it did not have the same effect, the end of this episode left me wanting to see more, to know what will happen to Metamorregnant that was inside the golem, but it seems that only His Majesty is remembered. Or maybe it was always his goal, but he needed "a chance."
psychological struggles
In Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2 - Chapter 5 isn't the first time the character of "Your Majesty" has introduced himself as "God“. Although he has shown that he has great power that seems to surpass that of the world's most powerful combined, I have a feeling that this is not his true power. Rather, it's a lot weaker, but it literally takes advantage of that insect' (the shade) to increase its power.
Speaking of bugs, I found it odd that Ameth was the one comparing this the shade With error so that Yuuki could understand his explanation more easily. Something that, to me, lends more strength to the theory of resemblance to the species Isekai of the first arc of "Sword Art Online“.
Well then, while Yuuki had to face a bit of his past with the limited memories he could get Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2 - Chapter 5. Pecorine had to face this and stand against the one who had stolen everything from him and who could do it again, but with a determination to regain what he had once lost.
To be honest I thought the conversation between Pecorine and His Majesty would be much longer as it is the main plot of this episode. While Yuuki didn't expect to show so much of him. Basically, I thought the screen time would be reversed for these two characters.
From story to story in Princess Connect! Re:Dive 2 - Chapter 5
Compared to the previous episode Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2 - Chapter 5 had hardly any action sequences worth mentioning. One of them is without a doubt the return of Pecorine and his majestic 'princess strike'. Which showed an animation quite similar to the one shown above. However, I don't feel like it had the same quality, just barely in this scene.
In general, I feel like the quality of the animation "decreased" at the episode switch, but not necessarily because of a drop in animation as such, rather I think I noticed it because of the switch between the amount of action presented and storyline between both episodes. In Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2 - Chapter 5, since there weren't that many scenes with battle sequences, the quality didn't have to focus on character movement and special effects. Although I also don't feel that the quality of the environment and character design would be comparable.
By that I mean that for me this chapter had to focus all its quality on the animation of important scenes of the plot through the emotional transformation of some characters. Both Pecorine and Yuuki felt they had a chance to show much better facial expressions than they did. In Pecorine, I didn't see a face of "despair" as I imagined listening to His Majesty's stories, while Yuuki could have shown sadness at the loss of Kiri and at the same time "despair" as he began to take control of it to lose his can. Those moments were key to the chapter and they didn't have the same comparable quality as the previous one with their struggles.
Also, I also think the sound section had something to do with it. Well, they could have accompanied these situations perfectly. With a pecorine showing fear in her voice and then regaining her determination and enthusiasm in it. While Yuuki will exhibit greater vocal range, he envisions me with a voice "broken" by his mental conflicts from the lack of memories and the abrupt flashbacks that seem to be more regret than relief.
Maybe my expectations were too high after the fourth episode and that's why I felt a "change in animation quality". And for that I felt more "empty" than disappointed. Of course, there were times when the animation seemed suspicious to me in terms of character proportions, with body limbs that seemed smaller to me. But then again, maybe it was just my own way of thinking and not a bug in the animation Princess Connect! Re: Dive 2.
However, it was reassuring to see that Karyl Pecorine was already so dear to her heart that she couldn't help but cry. See how the tsundere shows more natural emotions coming from her heart.