BLOOD WORK: MONSTERS OF CINEMA: PACIFIC RIM ~ THE BLACK SEASON 2 (2022)

PACIFIC RIM: THE BLACK (SEASON TWO)

Pacific Rim, by all rights, shouldn't have gotten this far. Don't misinterpret that, I LOVE Pacific Rim and feel its quality merits a series of films, comics, and more. But the numbers just don't back it up enough. The first movie, while 100% amazing, didn't do enough at the box office. And the sequel, which left a lot to be desired, performed even worse. So, the fact that we even received a sequel film, a handful of comic books, novels, and figures is a miracle!

Netflix, after axing a ton of shows in their animation portfolio, was merciful with Pacific Rim, deigning to give it one more season (well, a season in Netflix's loose terms) for a total of 14 half-hour episodes across two seasons. Whatever, I'll take it. Any Pacific Rim we get is more than the numbers say we deserve.

I really enjoyed the first season of Pacific Rim: The Black, although it was incredibly short and only really scratched the surface of the story it was trying to tell.

Season Two is, once again, too short, but finishes the basic story (leaving enough loose ends to delve into should another season happen). I felt the story was solid and was overall happy with it. The kaiju action is good and the kaiju designs are pretty cool. The Sisters of the Kaiju made for genuinely scary villains as well. Mei still stands out as the best character in the series and Boy is pretty cool too. But Apex was criminally underused. Apex was the ace up this show's sleeve and I feel like the character was wasted (reminds me a lot of Ultraman Belial).

All in all, this was a fine show and I'd keep watching it if more seasons continued. I do wish the animation was better, traditional anime animation rather than this cel-shaded CGI-animation hybrid that Netflix seems to love (I'm guessing because it's cheaper). But, even so, I thought the storytelling was solid and, ultimately, that's what's important. But why, WHY, don't they make better use of the Pacific Rim music from the films?! C'mon! The soundtrack to the original Pacific Rim is one of the best film scores of the last decade! Use it!

Overall Ranking: 7 out of 10