Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 4th Season: 2-nensei-hen 1 Gakki

Well, I enjoy it so far... even if the adaptation isn't faithful at it's slightest. Like I get that adaptations are never gonna be 1:1 but this one just kind of said "yeah nah" to the source material and did its own thing I suppose, i mean I appreciate the attempt to stay faithful but they do cut a lot of things out, which is okay, bold move I guess. Art style is definitely something you need to get used to, some might like it some might absolutely despise it, it gives the vibe of " we ran out of budget halfway through the character ... designs". Animation quality is the same as before, it's not impressive but it does the job, like it's not embarrassing itself at least so there's that I suppose. But hey the OP / ED are pretty good so plus points for that! Eir Aoi really said let me cook sumn up and honestly she did. Storywise the second year stuff is interesting enough to keep me watching, Ayanokoji being his usual self so nothing new there really. So yeah rough around the edges but I'm sticking with it... probably. We'll see I guess! For now I recommend it.

The show continues to hold intrigue for me in its content but it’s declining from the last few seasons because the production team decided to over blur every shot. It’s a lazy way to feign depth, it coddles the viewer and messes with our eyesight long term so I really don’t appreciate the visual direction this franchise has taken. Go back to season 1 and take in the thought through backgrounds that carried real sense of space, that’s part of what made the school seem like a particular space in which these events are occurring. This endless blurring of backgrounds and characters is genuinely making ... the show hard to watch and the drama looses much of its effect when it’s taking place in a generic but blurred high school. Is this a unique place and set of circumstances or is this just characters expo dumping at each other somewhere in limbo?

If you want a show about half-baked "romance", social positioning of the lowest order, and angsty teens being dramatically pensive over minutiae then have we got the monotonous word salad FOR YOU.

Seriously, four episodes in and only one thing of note has happened. See, the writer seems to think that people yapping at each other for hours on end, only to say something modestly interesting for 1/2 of a second and then move on like we all just accepted that (when it was the ONLY important thing), is what PEAK WRITING is.
They are wrong.
Drama only works if there's something at stake, and here sure ... there is I guess, OH NO I'M GOING TO BE EXPELLED. Just go to another high school I really don't care. I mean, the friendships and trust that were built previously, just come off as hollow now. I just don't feel the resonance, like beating a drum, but the drum is filled to the brim with sand.

Seriously though, they light speed travel through the "rules" with the wave of a hand, but spend an entire episode on some angsty kid and his love interest which apparently only matters because each one of these psycopaths only exist to be used by other psychopaths. On some levels in writing this could work. It does NOT work when it's literally all you do.

That's it. That's literally it. This show has no diversity in plot or approach. It's just YAPYAPYAPYAP - quick rules - YAPYAPYAP. And none of it matters.

It's like that one slime isekai everyone knows about, except instead of everyone being upbeat about stuff it's all edgelord and the most boring parts you've ever seen cut straight from MTV's The Real World. There's a reason I hate "reality" television, and this show is all of it.

3/10 and the only reason it gets that high is because it once had promise. And no, I don't care about the animation at all in this score.