I'm watching it now in 2026 and I found it weird how much the animation quality changed compared to the first season. The fights don't have all that detail they used to have, you know? Did they switch studios or was it an actual budget cut?
The problem is that a lot of people compare them directly without taking into account that the second season came out on a really tight timeline. MAPPA didn't change, but the production scheme was different - the first season had way more pre-production and development time, while the second was made in parallel with other big projects from the studio. That directly affects the quality of individual frames and the fluidity of the fights.
There's a detail that usually goes unnoticed: the second season focused more on narrative arcs and less on large-scale battles. The fights in the first one had entire sequences dedicated to details, while in the second they cut the action more with dialogue and light effects. It's not that it got bad, it's that the style changed. If you want to appreciate it better, try watching the episodes with less expectation for choreography and more attention to the story itself - it changes the experience quite a bit.
MAPPA stayed as the studio, so there wasn't a switch or anything. What really happened was more of a scheduling and production issue, because the second season came out way faster than the first one, and that really affected the quality of individual frames. The first season had more pre-production time and the directors were able to detail the fights way more, whereas in the second one the studio got pressured to deliver quick and ended up prioritizing keeping the project on schedule instead of polishing each scene.
Plus, it changes a lot who's directing the episodes and who's doing the storyboard. The first season had really well-known names in the animation industry working on specific scenes, and that makes all the difference. In the second one, there's more variation in quality because there are more people involved and not everyone's at the same level. It's not exactly a budget cut in the sense of "there wasn't money," but more like not having enough time to redo scenes, fix details, and keep everything as clean as before.
This is pretty common with popular anime, you know. The pressure to release early kind of kills the perfection you see in the first season, especially when the anime gets that unexpected audience boom.
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