There's no question,
Nurarihyon has stepped up in weight class from the first season. I hope enough viewers stuck around to see it.
S2 is still heavy in flashback mode, as the entire episode is spent on the story of Nurarihyon and Princess Yo, in early 17th-Century Kyoto (and the next ep too, by the looks of the preview. It's a complicated story, weaving together the origins of Yura's Keikain family, the early days of the Night Parade of the Hundred Demons, and the story of the dreaded Kyoto demon
Hagoromo-Gitsune (
Noto Mamiko) whose unsealing provides the impetus for the modern-day plot development.
Kyoto is in political turmoil, with Hideyoshi Totoyomi dead and son Hideyori apparently an incompetent and fully under the sway of Hagoromo-Gitsune.
Princess You (
Kuwashima Houko) is a beautiful human with magical healing powers which her greedy father sells to the highest bidder. Her liver is coveted by every youkai in Kansai for it's great power, and it's the Keikain family, led by
Hidemoto (
Midorikawa Hikaru), that protects her. Nurarihyon - young and a real smooth operator - wants her too, but not for her liver. He's in love with her, and Keikain's barriers are nothing to him. But when Hagoromo's henchmen kidnap her, it appears Nurarihyon and Keikain will join forces to save her and seal the evil youkai.
This flashback is obviously intended to cast light on the current-day storyline. The plot implications are obvious, given that Yura's brother has come to tell her than Hagoromo-Gitsune has been unsealed and Rikuo has offered to go to Kyoto with Yura. But the personal implications are important, too. You have Yuki-onna's mother
Setsura obviously in love with Nurarihyon, as Tsurara is with Rikuo. And you have the human girl who's captured his eye, much to Yuki-onna's chagrin.
Indeed, when Nurarihyon kidnapped You-hime for a night on the town with his crew, it was impossible not to think of Night Rikuo's evening with Kana, taking her to the youkai hangout and showing her how the other half lives. The relationship flags certainly point to Kana based on that, which is not great news if you (like me) happen to be a big fan of Yuki-onna. Nevertheless, it was a fascinating thing to watch and I love the way these long-ago events cast big shadows on the present day.
My only real concern here is with pacing - ironic, as the pacing feels so much better than the first season. After next week it looks like 60% of the season will have been spent on flashbacks. With the Kyoto Arc reportedly as long and epic as it is, that doesn't leave much time, and given that this show doesn't appear to be a big DVD/BD or ratings success I kind of doubt we'll be getting a third season.
It's looking to me like JC Staff used all their ammunition in the first episode of Kamisama no Memochou. Nothing since then has captured that indefinable something that made the premiere work. At this point I'm going to drop if from the blogging rotation - not because I dislike it, but because there's just too many good shows to blog on the weekend. 
And that, in essence, is the problem and why I'm dropping Kami-Memo. I'll probably watch for a few more weeks and who knows, maybe something of that first episode magic will draw me back into blogging it. I should have known something was wrong when "Colorado Bulldog" was dropped as the ED, but I ignored the warning signs...
Let me start out by explaining that I'm a dilettante when it comes to this series. I've watched every piece of anime that's been produced (and that's a lot) but never touched the game and don't really wade into the whole massive mythos that's sprung up surrounding it - the side projects and doujins and Federica Bernkastel and all that. So I go into this OVA knowing all the characters, but not what to expect.
The quality of the various TV seasons and OVA projects has fluctuated quite a lot, though generally they've been at least decent and occasionally striking a brilliant tone for sheer despair and suspense and shock value. Well, safe to say the first "Kira" OVA is in no danger of doing that - in fact, I'd place it at the bottom of all the anime projects in terms of quality. It's played 100% for comedy, and while that's not the first time a Higurashi anime has done that, it's the first time so much of the humor has flat-out missed.
I'd say this whole 29 minute enterprise was on about the level of an omake. Unfortunately that means they had about three minutes with of material to stretch over the full length of the episode. It consisted almost entirely of Keichi's fantasy sequences, as he suffers through yet another penalty game humiliation at the hands of the girls. Ooichi, Irie and Tomitake show up as the Soul Brothers (appeared in the Hajisarashi-hen story) a kind of Bro's Before Hoes Revenge Squad, dreaming up humiliating punishments for the various girls in the club. That's not a great concept to begin with, but when it descends to the level of Tomitake snapping photos of Rika's (I believe she's 10 years old) exposed butt as she cleans the classroom windows with it, you really wonder what DEEN was thinking here. This has to be anime-original, I assume?
Things don't get much better from there, as the level of imagination that goes into the punishments (even poor Horie Yui isn't immune, as Hanyuu gets sucked into this silliness) is pretty non-existent. It's comedy and it's hentai, which is fine, but it's not especially good at either. While Rika's humiliation was the low point, a close second probably goes to an odd and completely gratuitous scene where Satoshi (at least it's acknowledged that his appearance makes no sense) pops up from nowhere, he and Kei-chan are mysteriously in bunny-girl outfits and Satoshi feeds him yogurt with his mouth. 
S2 is still heavy in flashback mode, as the entire episode is spent on the story of Nurarihyon and Princess Yo, in early 17th-Century Kyoto (and the next ep too, by the looks of the preview. It's a complicated story, weaving together the origins of Yura's Keikain family, the early days of the Night Parade of the Hundred Demons, and the story of the dreaded Kyoto demon Hagoromo-Gitsune (Noto Mamiko) whose unsealing provides the impetus for the modern-day plot development.
Kyoto is in political turmoil, with Hideyoshi Totoyomi dead and son Hideyori apparently an incompetent and fully under the sway of Hagoromo-Gitsune. Princess You (Kuwashima Houko) is a beautiful human with magical healing powers which her greedy father sells to the highest bidder. Her liver is coveted by every youkai in Kansai for it's great power, and it's the Keikain family, led by Hidemoto (Midorikawa Hikaru), that protects her. Nurarihyon - young and a real smooth operator - wants her too, but not for her liver. He's in love with her, and Keikain's barriers are nothing to him. But when Hagoromo's henchmen kidnap her, it appears Nurarihyon and Keikain will join forces to save her and seal the evil youkai.
This flashback is obviously intended to cast light on the current-day storyline. The plot implications are obvious, given that Yura's brother has come to tell her than Hagoromo-Gitsune has been unsealed and Rikuo has offered to go to Kyoto with Yura. But the personal implications are important, too. You have Yuki-onna's mother Setsura obviously in love with Nurarihyon, as Tsurara is with Rikuo. And you have the human girl who's captured his eye, much to Yuki-onna's chagrin.
My sincere hope is that Mari Okada isn't directly involved in the production of the episodes where she's not credited as the writer (none since 11-13) because I'd like to think she's better than that. The last few have really featured lazy writing - weak slapstick, predictable plots, and "push-button" emotional manipulation to try and make the audience react rather than doing the heavy lifting to get there with character development.
