As a neurodivergent ADHD pansexual i would not be good at hockey if i had to solve math problems, but I do think Albert Einstein could have scored more goals than Maurice Richard if he was born Canadian instead of European.

\"But why not do both?\"
This is a follow-up to my last post defending the anime's decision to cut content for the sake of pacing but let me give you the TL;DR so you don't feel the need to have read that one before this as this post covers the same bases (and then some): The anime is first-and foremost the story of Rudeus Greyrat and must therefore prioritize his perspective, even at the cost of other characters' moments, regardless of how beloved those individual scenes are to fans of the Light Novels (myself included).
So let me start by addressing the strongest counter argument made in response to that post: "But the first season, and even Cour 1 of season 2 was able to maintain excellent pacing while having relatively few cuts! Why does the pacing in cour 2 still *FEEL* so rushed in comparison despite cutting so much?" That is an astute observation! And, quite frankly, you are asking the right questions. And for anyone planning to skip straight to the end of this admittedly \daunting* essay, here's a TL;DR for you: Episodes 19 & 20's reduced quality and heightened pace were done deliberately to provide the last 4 episodes of the season the space they need to breathe.* Continue reading if you want to find out how and why this had to be done.
It would be a fool's errand to argue that Cour 2 is NOT cutting less content than prior cours (because it absolutely is, and by quite a lot too), nor will I be arguing that the cour does NOT suffer some level of pacing issues because it absolutely is (see first post), rather I will be arguing in defense of the purpose of limiting the scope of what gets adapted, and why such decisions are necessary in the first place. However, before I delve any further into the specifics of Cour 2's production struggles, first I should elaborate how its production schedule differs from S1.

PART 1: Production Scheduling (aka setting the pace)

In case you were unaware, Season 1 was originally slated to be released in 2020 but was delayed to January of 2021 so it could actually receive all of the extra care and polish it truly deserved. For S2, Studio Bind's production staff, by contrast, had to make due with the time they were initially given. More time (and consequently more budget) usually fixes most production issues, but very few (extraordinarily rare) series ever receive that benefit and doing so twice was likely never even considered a possibility.
Sadly we are not in the alternate timeline where S2 benefitted from the same advantages that gave us gorgeous custom world-building OPs for every episode that freed up even more additional screen time for dialogue and character development (in some cases literally depicting entire chapters such as Paul's POV being shown during Ep 17's STUNNINGLY well executed OP montage). Thanks in part to that decision, S1 had significantly more wiggle room to work with, especially pertaining to the secondary cast, allowing it to more evenly adapt the world building, character development, and main narrative plotline of Mushoku Tensei as a whole utilizing that extra runtime (90 seconds per episode adds up to a LOT over the course of an entire season, plus the 5 EDs, that were integrated as needed on a per-episode basis, for an additional 7 1/2 minutes which adds up to a WHOPPING 43 1/2 MINUTES over the course of that 24 episode run and I should point out that S2 Cour 1 ALSO benefitted from this for the first 5 episodes including the OVA, giving that cour an added 9 minutes to utilize with Cour 2 receiving a paltry 3 minutes as only the 1st episode integrates the OP/ED runtime).
It's simply the reality that polish and quality was prioritized for S1 while scheduling and budget were prioritized for S2. If you want to be especially harsh, one could say S1 was treated as art, while S2 was treated as a commercial product, which is why I've set my expectations accordingly and hope this post helps others do the same. This becomes more apparent when you take into consideration that Studio Bind were also working on Onimai at the same time as S2 given their air dates were only 6 months apart. So not only was S2 not being given the same scheduling priority, it was COMPETING for resources. Given the BD sales numbers for every project they've released, at a minimum we can be assured that Studio Bind has been financially successful at least but the double edged nature of that success also means that certain priorities may have shifted away from MT and towards the new cash-cow. There's a reason I phrased my previous post so specifically: These episodes are a fine adaptation of Rudy's story.... and not much else because it simply doesn't have the screen time or resources to focus on anything besides Rudy's share of the narrative and character development.
Which ties directly into the second reason as to why cour 2 FEELS so rushed, even in comparison to cour 1. The contents of Volumes 10, 11, and 12 are significantly more *LINEAR\* with more individual events being depicted compared to Volumes 1-9. This translates to more content vying for screen time. But how much content are we talking about here? Well, I don't want to go too deeply into raw numbers as that's not really the point but let's set a baseline with some quick-n-dirty math to illustrate:
S1c1 covers 1326 pg / 3 = 442 pg/vol (11 episodes) = 40.2 pg / ep S1c2 covers 1280 pg / 3 = 427 pg/vol (12 episodes + OVA) = 32.8 pg / ep S2c1 covers 1268 pg / 3 = 423 pg/vol (12 episodes + OVA) = 32.5 pg / ep S2c2 covers 1381 pg / 3 = 460 pg/vol (12 episodes) = 38.3 pg / ep
Obviously these are EXTREMELY rough numbers that don't take into account any of the cut content, non-chapter related pages, nor the difference in available runtime afforded to S1 that I previously mentioned, but just by raw page count, that's technically LESS content than what the first 11 episodes of Season 1 had to adapt! Surely they could just tweak a few things to make everything fit! Unfortunately, it's not that simple. You see, there's a distinct lack of a certain type of content that made the lives of the production staff significantly easier by providing plenty of opportunities to pick and choose what made it into the final cut of an episode's runtime to keep the mainline story of Rudeus chugging along at the leisurely clip we're accustomed to.

PART 2: Narrative Fluff (aka work smarter, not longer)

Spoiler: It's the sheer density of secondary character POVs. The very ones we often grieved being cut as the episodes were coming out during S1. They add depth and complexity to the characters (and are, imho, singularly the most *profoundly insightful* pieces of writing Rifujin-sensei has ever produced) but 90% of the time are simply repeating the same events from a new perspective. HOWEVER, when adapted to an audio-visual medium, you can SHOW both perspectives simultaneously and let the audience infer what's going on in a secondary character's mind through the use of voice acting, animation, staging, lighting, OST, and sound design thereby allowing the anime-only audience to receive 90% of the same information that was conveyed during those same events in the novels.
The "missing" Eris POV is the primary example of this disconnect between how little LN readers think Anime-onlys are inferring and how much is being successfully communicated to them even if they themselves can't properly articulate what it was they took away from any particular scene. I highly recommend paying close attention to Eris' face in the 3 following episodes after the events of Turning Point 2 RATHER THAN READING THE SUBTITLES (dub watchers have an advantage here but BOTH performances do an incredible job) and you'll see (and hear) what I'm talking about. Sure we don't get every beat of her thought process spelled out for us in quite the same level of detail as in her POV chapter, but you can sense her inner conflict while watching Rudeus practice Disturb Magic as they ride into the outskirts of Fittoa and her heartache at seeing him standing forlornly in the ruins of his destroyed childhood home. The idea that she doesn't feel "worthy" of him is already being communicated by her facial expressions and her body language. Her letter stating how they aren't "well-balanced" in combination with that visual information is already providing context clues to the viewer as to what's going on in her head. In her final scene you can hear the sheer depth of her love give way to a deeply instilled sense of self-loathing, just by the tone of her voice, as she hoists Rudeus up onto that pedestal. Yet as she nears the end of her melancholic monologue more of that brash, passionate nature of hers seeps back into her delivery as pours her heart out.
To quote Harry Plinkett: "It's so subtle, you might not have even noticed... but your brain did."
The only emotion you could argue was nerfed by the adaptation is the depths of her self-loathing for having "taken advantage of him" after their night together but they still get a line in about their age and size difference, which when heard in her self-flagellating tone describing how "awful" she's been to him, you can easily make that inference. But you might also say "AHA even in those 3 episodes they left out how devastated she was when Rudy beat her using the demon eye after she finally gained some confidence in her strength" to which I say: Watch Ep 13: Missed Connections and, again, pay attention to Eris. Every part off the Buffalo was used.
They also never deliberately spell out her ardent belief that Rudeus is so strong and smart and amazing and brave and perfect that regardless of whatever she wrote as she struggled to find the words to leave in her letter, he would just clairvoyantly understand her intentions.... but you don't really NEED that spelled out for you when her final appearance is her shouting to the high heavens about how in love she is directly juxtaposed with Rudeus reverting to his former self-image shut away in his bedroom after very specifically misunderstanding the meaning of her words and actions! "I LOVE THIS MAN she screams as the man she loves thinks to himself "I can't believe she doesn't love me anymore." Seeing that, anyone could conclude "Were you expecting him to just KNOW what you meant??" Yes. Yes she was.
The Eris' POV wasn't "skipped content"... it was integrated. It's broken up and repurposed in bits and pieces over the course of 4, count 'em, FOUR separate episodes but 99% of it is there if you know what to look for (which for anime onlys is considered rewatch value).
By going through this in such agonizing detail I hope I'm properly communicating one of the greatest hang ups LN readers seem to have (or adaptational purists in general) relative to their expectations: You are putting entirely too much value into dialogue, monologue, and the text of a script relative to every other element the medium has to offer. The absence of TEXT does not diminish the SUBTEXT. An individual viewer might not know WHY they believe a character motivation exists as it does, but by and large most will pick up on those details whether it be deliberate (in the case of a certain psychologist youtuber who keeps nailing plot predictions over and over BECAUSE ALL OF THE INFORMATION YOU NEED IS RIGHT, THE F**K, THERE) or subconsciously (in the case of most passive audience members).

PART 1 (COUR 2): THE RESCHEDULENING (aka MATH)

Now, having detailed how a POV chapter can actually be efficiently absorbed into the runtime of the show without disrupting or sidetracking the main narrative, let's re-examine the topic of how (as well as why) this affects the production schedule. As I previously stated, overall Volume 1-9 have quite a number of POV chapters to work around as buffers to the rest of the content. Don't believe me? Let me break it down a bit more then:
Vol 1 contains ~ 2 1/2 POV chapters out of 10 = 25% Vol 2 contains ~ 2 3/4 POV chapters out of 11 = 25% Vol 3 contains ~ 1 POV chapters out of 15 = 6.5% (one of the longer action heavy volumes, yet only 3 eps) On average ~19% of content is POV. Vol 4 contains ~ 2 1/4 POV chapters out of 12 = 19% Vol 5 contains ~ 4 POV chapters out of 11 = 36% Vol 6 contains ~ 2 1/4 POV chapters out of 15 = 15% On average ~23% of content is POV. Vol 7 contains ~ 1 1/4 POV chapters out of 8 (technically 9, short prologue + epilogue combined) = 15.5% Vol 8 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 12 = 17% Vol 9 contains ~ 3.75 POV chapters out of 12.5 (several very short POVs, adjusted for fairness) = 30% On average ~21% of content is POV. Vol 10 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 14 = 14% Vol 11 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 16 = 12.5% Vol 12 contains ~ 1 1/2 POV chapters out of 16 = 9% On average ~12% of content is POV. ^\Note* Several chapters are not purely dedicated to secondary character POVs but rather "cut aways" between Rudy's own perspective and are occasionally EXTREMELY short (I assigned 1/4 amounts for especially short POVs to give them weight, but to prevent over-representing them. Additionally while chapters vary in length they generally represent individual events which I feel is a more apt form of measurement to relate to the anime adaptation in place of page counts (you're not gonna find the table of contents, copyrights, or the author's afterward being adapted after all). These are VERY rough estimations and should not be taken as "objective" measurements.))
Look at that proportional difference for Volume 10-12 relative to the other cours. While production had the advantage of consistently folding a little more than 1/5 of the content into the current runtime the current cour has almost 10% more content competing for the same amount of screen time as the cour before it. In fact, it's significantly LESS screen time as only the 1st episode bypassed the OP/ED compared to Cour 1's 4 episodes (and if you include the OVA, cour 1 already had a 24 minute head start in addition to the extra 3 per ep for a whopping total of 36 extra minutes of runtime over cour 2), Even if we're exceedingly generous and assume the next 4 episodes skip the OP/ED each, that would still leave it at a 24 minute disadvantage just in comparison to cour 1, not to mention the additional screen time afforded to S1 as I've already covered.

Part 3: Screen Time as a Resource (aka Content / Time = Stress)

In a novel characters can engage in chapter length diatribes or strategic planning in their own heads, engage in "talking is a free action" whilst in a fight to the death, and all sorts of ridiculous temporal bending contrivances that simply do not translate to the screen where time is the single most precious commodity (unless you're a shonen protagonist charging up your kamehameha). So let's view this from the scriptwriters' perspective to understand why they are forced to make some very difficult choices. As you are starting work on your assigned episode(s), the show's production committee makes the call that while previously you were afforded as much as ~300 minutes (5 hours) to convey ~1K pages of material, this time you only get ~255 minutes (4 1/4 hours) to convey ~1200 pages of the same density of material. Much more information to convey in much less time and you only JUST BARELY scrapped by to include as much as you could the last 3 times. That's means that at a MINIMUM, 200 of those pages are destined for the cutting room floor.
Though speaking of shounen protagonists, action set pieces are extraordinarily useful for either expanding OR condensing a scene's runtime by exactly as much as you need to fit within an episode's runtime. Need to add time? Go balls-to-the-wall, high-octane, budget-melting sakuga insanity that outshines even the source material (Turning Point 2/Eris vs Assassins) or you can condense high page counts into surprisingly short runtimes while still conveying the impact and information stored in those several pages worth of text. High impact, malleable screen time, same information conveyed. More time to dedicate to world building and secondary character development. As such, S1 (cour 2 especially) had a TREMENDOUS amount of leeway in how much they wished to expand OR condense action scenes at their discretion compared to the (comparatively) action-lite S2 (for Cour 1 at least).
So then you might ask with Cour 2 revving up the action again, why is it instead CUTTING tons of those action scenes rather than merely truncating them to make space for dialogue scenes like the prior cours? The short answer is there's already no time to spare. The longer, more complex answer is action scenes can't exist in a vacuum. In the same way you have to accelerate and decelerate in your car evenly to get from point A to point B safely, you can't simply hit 0-60 mph in under 2 seconds and you certainly can't go from 60 to 0 in a fraction of a second unless you want an episodes' pacing to liquify like your internal organs. Before, during, and sometimes after a fight scene is initiated, several questions need to be answered for the audience like "Who/what is fighting?" "Where are they positioned?" "What is the level of threat?" "What are the stakes?" "What are the win conditions?" with greater or fewer questions depending on the complexity of the scene or it's meaning to the character(s). Failing to provide the audience adequate answers to these questions can easily result in a nonsensical farce.... unless that's literally your intention. Thankfully, the requirement for winding down action is much simpler. After a beat of heightened tension, your protagonist simply lowers their guard/weapon and the message communicated to the audience is "the threat is over" and within seconds you can move to the next scene.
Most major encounters follow this rhythm throughout the series, with individual chapters dedicated solely to these fights, spanning page counts that are generally (but not always) on the higher end. In general, there are only 1-2 major battles per volume. Vol 11 and 12, by contrast, have several chapters that contain a half dozen individual skirmishes apiece that make adapting the material a total NIGHTMARE to pick and choose what makes the cut. So as an example, a weirdly high amount of time is seemingly spent establishing the succubus encounter in ep 19. Why you may ask? So they could ride those same rules of engagement straight into the following montage to inform the audience "these fights possess the same rules of engagement we just established" without having to spend the additional time winding up each one individually (another, more humorous example, is Ruijerd "dueling" the 3 North God students in a row). The montage also pulls double duty by conveying both the passage of time and distance. You'd think truncating roughly 1/5 of the entire volume into a scant 60 seconds would give them plenty of extra time to work with, but sadly, the ability to condense content is still only enough to break even with the established pace.
Another major element that placed Season 2 at a massive disadvantage is that Season 2 had to use it's precious 25th episode OVA to *catch up* on content that was deferred from Season 1 as Sylphy's POV chapters starting all the way back in Vol 4 did not make the cut. So rather than getting a jump start, the OVA was actually just catching up on deferred content that could not be included DESPITE all of the tremendous advantages I've previously discussed. And even then, it still needed to skip all but a few scant details from the intervening chapters that bridge the gap between Sylphy becoming Silent Fitz and Ariel's entire entourage fleeing to Ranoa's University of Magic resulting in all but 5 of them being slaughtered by assassins in hideously gruesome fashion. In a nutshell, Season 2 actually only has 24 episodes to dedicate to itself, and most of the benefits of scheduling seems to have heavily favored Cour 1 over Cour 2.
At this point, assuming like everyone else who joined up with Studio Bind, you are yourself a massive fan of the series and absolutely love these novels, you are effectively being asked to CHOOSE your favorite children chapters to sacrifice in the name of ending the season at a satisfying arc conclusion. Sure you could just adapt at the same rate of chapters-to-screen time as before and conclude the final 12th episode with THAT THING THAT HAPPENS but somehow I feel like doing so would result in death threats being strapped to a brick and hurled through your office windows. You've certainly maintained the integrity of the show's original pacing, but telling fans to sit tight until the next production cycle is ready in another 2-3 years feels like a recipe for disaster.
And frankly, Vol 12 has some INTENSELY heavy dialogue/monologue scenes filing out the back half of the volume that are going to need significantly more screen time to convey the necessary information relative to the first half as it is ENTIRELY Rudy-centric. So the only way to get there with enough time to allow the season to reach a natural and satisfying conclusion and still hit all of the vitally necessary plot threads is to put those proverbial chapter babies containing some of your favorite character interactions and world building on the alter as a ritual sacrifice for more time on the clock. And what did those sacrifices get you? 5 episodes. A range of 105-117 minutes (depending on OP/ED usage) of screen time to cover the single densest volume since vol 3 (see above). Barely one episode ahead of pace (but in terms of available screen time still barely ahead) of prior cours. And if you think it's unfortunate that ACTION was being cut, oh lordy I have some *bad news for you.\*

Part 4: Screenwriting as an Artform (aka how write story gud)

"But why are they STILL so stretched for time if they have access to and are utilizing all of these time-saving techniques?" Well I'm hoping the previous 3 parts of this gargantuan multi-tiered super essay have helped establish the constraints Studio Bind are working under compared to the prior cours. Cour 2 is working with significantly LESS screen time, with MORE events to manage and they're already so stretched for time that even multi-chapter spanning story events like the Merchant caravan are being cut entirely, rather than merely abridged, to make up that difference.
The requirement for "essential viewing" grows ever higher as mundane scenes like coming in and out of the teleporter still HAVE to be given priority over fan-beloved moments of character development because as uninteresting as those kinds of expository, utilitarian scenes are, they serve a far more vital purpose in a screenplay for communicating to the audience the "BUT, THEREFORE, BECAUSE" flow of script writing (watch the video it's extremely short and a great explainer, but essentially "But = Complication", "Therefore = Next logical action", "Because = Character motivation for performing said action"). You literally cannot skip these unremarkable, bog standard scenes because doing so would commit one of the deadliest sins of storytelling that I was alluding to when discussing how to establish action scenes: The Discontinuity of the dreaded "AND THEN" statement. If you're watching a movie and it's a series of "and then this happened and then that happened and then this person showed up" it ceases to be less a story so much as watching someone's attention span annihilating slideshow of vacation photographs.
As an example, scenes like the ones that establish how, where, and why Rudy and Elinalise use the teleporter to get from Ranoa to Begaritt are slow, mundane, and heavily time consuming and yet are so absolutely necessary as a scriptwriter to take the time to make sure the audience can follow along the logical thru-line for how these scenes connect to one another. If you skip such seemingly trifling, yet necessary information, the audience is not going to react by saying "oh THAT SCENE I LOVE is coming up" but rather "wait, why are we in a desert?"
As an example I'll use the last 2 episodes to demonstrate. The logical flow of episode 19 into 20 proceeds as follows (some parts are truncated for *relative* brevity):
"Rudy needs to leave for Rapan. THEREFORE he tells everyone goodbye, BUT Nanahoshi knows how to teleport there. THEREFORE he changes his route with Elinalise. THEREFORE they get prepared BECAUSE they want to save Zenith, BUT Cliff proposes to Elinalise BECAUSE he feels his lack of commitment was making her nervous. THEREFORE Elinalise is caught off guard BECAUSE she originally intended to leave without telling him to break off their relationship. THEREFORE she accepts his proposal. THEREFORE they travel to the teleporter, BUT teleporters are considered a source of danger to adventurers. THEREFORE they study it first as a safety precaution. THEREFORE they verify it's safe operation and use it. THEREFORE they arrive in Begaritt, BUT they are attacked by a Succubus. THEREFORE Rudy needs to detox himself BECAUSE they want to keep their promise to Cliff and Sylphy. THEREFORE they continue their sexless journey, BUT they are attacked several more times. THEREFORE they kill the monsters and proceed with caution. THEREFORE they arrive in Rapan in ~6 weeks. THEREFORE Geese is surprised to see them when they arrive, BECAUSE he only sent the letter so recently. THEREFORE he takes them to see Paul. THEREFORE they reunite with Paul, BUT Paul has fallen back into depression BECAUSE they lost Roxy while failing to find Zenith. THEREFORE Rudy tells Paul about his marriage and pregnancy with Sylphy. THEREFORE Paul recovers BECAUSE of the joy and pride he feels for his son BUT still feels worthless BECAUSE of his failures. THEREFORE Paul finally notices Elinalise. THEREFORE he apologizes BECAUSE ....uh y'know that thing that happened. THEREFORE Paul and Elinalise reconcile BUT Paul is confused that she didn't sleep with Rudy BECAUSE of her curse. THEREFORE she explains her husband Cliff's magic tool BUT Paul can't believe she has a husband. THEREFORE they get into another spat BUT the rest of the party returns during their argument THEREFORE Rudy learns that Roxy is lost in the labyrinth. THEREFORE Rudy starts to panic as the party begins to squabble. THEREFORE Elinalise takes Rudy's shoulder to draw his attention BECAUSE she realized he was panicking. THEREFORE Rudy asks to be caught up on the situation. THEREFORE Paul describes the difficulty of the Teleportation Labyrinth. THEREFORE Rudy gives Geese the book detailing it's depths which he borrowed BECAUSE he would be using a teleporter to get to Begaritt, BUT it will take Geese time to read it. THEREFORE Paul calls the meeting to a close to allow Geese to adjust their strategy using the book. THEREFORE Rudy, Paul, and Lilia start talking, BUT Paul is still a crude dude. THEREFORE the topic turns to sex BUT Lilia is in denial about being a total sex freak. THEREFORE Paul teases her BECAUSE he knowns how much she likes it rough. THEREFORE they retire for the night after some locker room talk. THEREFORE they depart for the labyrinth the following day. THEREFORE they reach the labyrinth and begin their descent, BUT Paul is breaking formation to show off in front of Rudeus. THEREFORE Elinalise scolds him, BECAUSE she wants to keep her family safe. THEREFORE Paul flippantly dismisses her claims of thinking of him like a son, BUT he is unaware of their connection through Sylphy. THEREFORE they continue further into the Labyrinth maintaining their formation, BUT they encounter new monsters. THEREFORE Rudy starts to cast a spell, BUT Talhand advises him not to use fire BECAUSE it fills a room with poison BECAUSE the concept of carbon monoxide poisoning exists but isn't fully understood in this universe BUT he also advices not attacking the ceiling BECAUSE it could cause a cave-in. THEREFORE Rudy uses ice magic to kill the remaining monsters. THEREFORE they advance to the second stratum in proper formation. THEREFORE they breeze through the second formation and take a break before entering the third. THEREFORE Geese uses the opportunity to inform Rudy that the next section is where Roxy went missing and may still be near that area BECAUSE teleporter traps only warp victims within the same stratum. THEREFORE as they approach where they lost Roxy, Geese asks Rudy where he'd look for Roxy based on his intuition. AND THEN Using his intuition, Rudy notices condensation on a wall and uses his Roxy Odor Snoof Sense to detect Roxy's location through a damn wall despite being a contrivance BUT it's the same contrivance used in the source material THEREFORE shut up. THEREFORE we cut to Roxy BUT she's being surrounded by monsters. THEREFORE she casts numerous spells to hold them at bay, BUT she runs out of mana. THEREFORE she believes she's about to die BUT Rudy saves her just in the nick of time. THEREFORE Roxy is shaken to her core at the sight of the man who saved her despite not recognizing Rudy, BUT then her POV didn't play out the way it did in the novels THEREFORE LN purists got upset BECAUSE they assumed her POV had been cut BUT they forgot that Roxy's POV has always been shown tremendous favoritism by Studio Bind THEREFORE they jumped to conclusions unaware it would happen the following episode.

THEREFORE Calm down and let Studio Bind cook

Effectively the point I hope I have demonstrated is that there IS a logical and consistent thru-line from scene to scene to scene that an audience can follow (and if you want to improve as a screenwriter, this is a GREAT exercise to figure out what makes your favorite shows tick. It's basically the screenwriter's equivalent to tracing someone else' art as practice). Even these unfairly maligned episodes have a viewing experience that provides a consistent sense of pacing. But if you want to know WHAT precisely feels different about them? Well if I had chosen to break down episodes from any of the prior 3 cours (or the best episodes of this cour), you'd be seeing the word BECAUSE significantly more to fill out every action, reaction, and complication along the way. If "THEREFORE" and "BUT" are the easel and canvas, which are necessary to even begin the process of creating art, then "BECAUSE" is the screenwriter's paintbrush that allows them to breathe life and detail into the characters on screen. The prior 3 cours were awash with "BECAUSE" statements detailing why characters are behaving the way they are in every individual scene so if there's one crime that can legitimately be pinned against several episodes in the latest cour, it's "JUST 'CUZ."

PART FINAL: The TL;DR (aka the... tl;dr)

So having laid all this out in such verbose, granular detail, what exactly does all of this mean?
To put it bluntly, Season 1 being such a near-perfect masterwork of adaptation spoiled the ever loving hell out of us. Having gorged ourselves on that expectation, we've ruined our appetites because now such perks are simply anticipated as standard with a vocal minority now irked by the use of a standard OP simply because it follows the conventions of the medium or (stay with me here) committing the sin of appealing to shonen fans. I know, truly a crime worthy of sudoku because of 14 seconds depicting one of the single most important events in the series. I truly don't understand (seriously, explain it to me please).
The current cour is merely receiving the same treatment most adaptations are given while still outperforming its peers if weekly rankings are anything to go by. Episodes range from pretty good to excellent (Norn and Nanahoshi's spotlight eps being the highlights thus far despite some grumbling) with even the extremely barebones Ep 19 squeezing in what sparse worldbuilding nuggets it can despite the plot literally necessitating that Rudy book it from one side of the planet to the other within a 21 minute period (a production level pacing decision you are still free to criticize). As I said earlier (but it bears repeating) these episodes are a good adaptation of Rudy's story rather than the whole that makes up MT because it simply doesn't have the screen time to focus on anything that falls outside the scope of his perspective given the sheer breadth of competing narrative essential content. As a show, these episodes are still delivering a cohesive and engaging thru-line by being glued to Rudy's perspective. So as long as Rudy remains interesting to watch the audience will be more than satisfied.
Expecting the same anomalous level of dedication AND leniency from the production committee to happen for every season was unfortunately nothing but a pipe dream. Cour 2 is now being forced to make due with what it has and while they are doing a commendable job given the heavy restrictions, it is completely unreasonable to expect them to fit so much into such tight confines. It is the adaptation equivalent of being asked to fit everything into one grocery bag, but not wanting the bag to be heavy.
Could this cour have been scheduled better? Absolutely. Was it possible certain changes to the script or episode direction could have provided more opportunities to explore the cut content? Of course. Is it still a total bummer that the realities of production that have compromised the artistic integrity of our beloved peak fiction? Without a doubt.
We are simply going to have to get used to the fact that S1 may never be topped with our only hope being the return of the waifu-wars for S3 rekindles the beefs between animators vying for shot assignments (which may hopefully still be in the cards god willing).
Of course, I'm not a future seer, so maybe, just maybe, Studio Bind bursts into flames and all of the footage is lost resulting in the quality of the last 3 episodes to be the worst drop off of a television show since the final season of Game of Thrones. If that is the case then I'll be eating more crow than I ever have in my life. But if Studio Bind sticks the landing and delivers on the emotional climax to one of the most beloved arcs among the fanbase that we've anticipated for years, then please calm it down with these exaggerated "cutting content is ruining the show" claims.
Thank you from coming to my Ted Talk and enjoy the rest of the season everyone.

\"But why not do both?\"
This is a follow-up to my last post defending the anime's decision to cut content for the sake of pacing but let me give you the TL;DR so you don't feel the need to have read that one before this as this post covers the same bases (and then some): The anime is first-and foremost the story of Rudeus Greyrat and must therefore prioritize his perspective, even at the cost of other characters' moments, regardless of how beloved those individual scenes are to fans of the Light Novels (myself included).
So let me start by addressing the strongest counter argument made in response to that post: "But the first season, and even Cour 1 of season 2 was able to maintain excellent pacing while having relatively few cuts! Why does the pacing in cour 2 still *FEEL* so rushed in comparison despite cutting so much?" That is an astute observation! And, quite frankly, you are asking the right questions. And for anyone planning to skip straight to the end of this admittedly \daunting* essay, here's a TL;DR for you: Episodes 19 & 20's reduced quality and heightened pace were done deliberately to provide the last 4 episodes of the season the space they need to breathe.* Continue reading if you want to find out how and why this had to be done.
It would be a fool's errand to argue that Cour 2 is NOT cutting less content than prior cours (because it absolutely is, and by quite a lot too), nor will I be arguing that the cour does NOT suffer some level of pacing issues because it absolutely is (see first post), rather I will be arguing in defense of the purpose of limiting the scope of what gets adapted, and why such decisions are necessary in the first place. However, before I delve any further into the specifics of Cour 2's production struggles, first I should elaborate how its production schedule differs from S1.

PART 1: Production Scheduling (aka setting the pace)

In case you were unaware, Season 1 was originally slated to be released in 2020 but was delayed to January of 2021 so it could actually receive all of the extra care and polish it truly deserved. For S2, Studio Bind's production staff, by contrast, had to make due with the time they were initially given. More time (and consequently more budget) usually fixes most production issues, but very few (extraordinarily rare) series ever receive that benefit and doing so twice was likely never even considered a possibility.
Sadly we are not in the alternate timeline where S2 benefitted from the same advantages that gave us gorgeous custom world-building OPs for every episode that freed up even more additional screen time for dialogue and character development (in some cases literally depicting entire chapters such as Paul's POV being shown during Ep 17's STUNNINGLY well executed OP montage). Thanks in part to that decision, S1 had significantly more wiggle room to work with, especially pertaining to the secondary cast, allowing it to more evenly adapt the world building, character development, and main narrative plotline of Mushoku Tensei as a whole utilizing that extra runtime (90 seconds per episode adds up to a LOT over the course of an entire season, plus the 5 EDs, that were integrated as needed on a per-episode basis, for an additional 7 1/2 minutes which adds up to a WHOPPING 43 1/2 MINUTES over the course of that 24 episode run and I should point out that S2 Cour 1 ALSO benefitted from this for the first 5 episodes including the OVA, giving that cour an added 9 minutes to utilize with Cour 2 receiving a paltry 3 minutes as only the 1st episode integrates the OP/ED runtime).
It's simply the reality that polish and quality was prioritized for S1 while scheduling and budget were prioritized for S2. If you want to be especially harsh, one could say S1 was treated as art, while S2 was treated as a commercial product, which is why I've set my expectations accordingly and hope this post helps others do the same. This becomes more apparent when you take into consideration that Studio Bind were also working on Onimai at the same time as S2 given their air dates were only 6 months apart. So not only was S2 not being given the same scheduling priority, it was COMPETING for resources. Given the BD sales numbers for every project they've released, at a minimum we can be assured that Studio Bind has been financially successful at least but the double edged nature of that success also means that certain priorities may have shifted away from MT and towards the new cash-cow. There's a reason I phrased my previous post so specifically: These episodes are a fine adaptation of Rudy's story.... and not much else because it simply doesn't have the screen time or resources to focus on anything besides Rudy's share of the narrative and character development.
Which ties directly into the second reason as to why cour 2 FEELS so rushed, even in comparison to cour 1. The contents of Volumes 10, 11, and 12 are significantly more *LINEAR\* with more individual events being depicted compared to Volumes 1-9. This translates to more content vying for screen time. But how much content are we talking about here? Well, I don't want to go too deeply into raw numbers as that's not really the point but let's set a baseline with some quick-n-dirty math to illustrate:
S1c1 covers 1326 pg / 3 = 442 pg/vol (11 episodes) = 40.2 pg / ep S1c2 covers 1280 pg / 3 = 427 pg/vol (12 episodes + OVA) = 32.8 pg / ep S2c1 covers 1268 pg / 3 = 423 pg/vol (12 episodes + OVA) = 32.5 pg / ep S2c2 covers 1381 pg / 3 = 460 pg/vol (12 episodes) = 38.3 pg / ep
Obviously these are EXTREMELY rough numbers that don't take into account any of the cut content, non-chapter related pages, nor the difference in available runtime afforded to S1 that I previously mentioned, but just by raw page count, that's technically LESS content than what the first 11 episodes of Season 1 had to adapt! Surely they could just tweak a few things to make everything fit! Unfortunately, it's not that simple. You see, there's a distinct lack of a certain type of content that made the lives of the production staff significantly easier by providing plenty of opportunities to pick and choose what made it into the final cut of an episode's runtime to keep the mainline story of Rudeus chugging along at the leisurely clip we're accustomed to.

PART 2: Narrative Fluff (aka work smarter, not longer)

Spoiler: It's the sheer density of secondary character POVs. The very ones we often grieved being cut as the episodes were coming out during S1. They add depth and complexity to the characters (and are, imho, singularly the most *profoundly insightful* pieces of writing Rifujin-sensei has ever produced) but 90% of the time are simply repeating the same events from a new perspective. HOWEVER, when adapted to an audio-visual medium, you can SHOW both perspectives simultaneously and let the audience infer what's going on in a secondary character's mind through the use of voice acting, animation, staging, lighting, OST, and sound design thereby allowing the anime-only audience to receive 90% of the same information that was conveyed during those same events in the novels.
The "missing" Eris POV is the primary example of this disconnect between how little LN readers think Anime-onlys are inferring and how much is being successfully communicated to them even if they themselves can't properly articulate what it was they took away from any particular scene. I highly recommend paying close attention to Eris' face in the 3 following episodes after the events of Turning Point 2 RATHER THAN READING THE SUBTITLES (dub watchers have an advantage here but BOTH performances do an incredible job) and you'll see (and hear) what I'm talking about. Sure we don't get every beat of her thought process spelled out for us in quite the same level of detail as in her POV chapter, but you can sense her inner conflict while watching Rudeus practice Disturb Magic as they ride into the outskirts of Fittoa and her heartache at seeing him standing forlornly in the ruins of his destroyed childhood home. The idea that she doesn't feel "worthy" of him is already being communicated by her facial expressions and her body language. Her letter stating how they aren't "well-balanced" in combination with that visual information is already providing context clues to the viewer as to what's going on in her head. In her final scene you can hear the sheer depth of her love give way to a deeply instilled sense of self-loathing, just by the tone of her voice, as she hoists Rudeus up onto that pedestal. Yet as she nears the end of her melancholic monologue more of that brash, passionate nature of hers seeps back into her delivery as pours her heart out.
To quote Harry Plinkett: "It's so subtle, you might not have even noticed... but your brain did."
The only emotion you could argue was nerfed by the adaptation is the depths of her self-loathing for having "taken advantage of him" after their night together but they still get a line in about their age and size difference, which when heard in her self-flagellating tone describing how "awful" she's been to him, you can easily make that inference. But you might also say "AHA even in those 3 episodes they left out how devastated she was when Rudy beat her using the demon eye after she finally gained some confidence in her strength" to which I say: Watch Ep 13: Missed Connections and, again, pay attention to Eris. Every part off the Buffalo was used.
They also never deliberately spell out her ardent belief that Rudeus is so strong and smart and amazing and brave and perfect that regardless of whatever she wrote as she struggled to find the words to leave in her letter, he would just clairvoyantly understand her intentions.... but you don't really NEED that spelled out for you when her final appearance is her shouting to the high heavens about how in love she is directly juxtaposed with Rudeus reverting to his former self-image shut away in his bedroom after very specifically misunderstanding the meaning of her words and actions! "I LOVE THIS MAN she screams as the man she loves thinks to himself "I can't believe she doesn't love me anymore." Seeing that, anyone could conclude "Were you expecting him to just KNOW what you meant??" Yes. Yes she was.
The Eris' POV wasn't "skipped content"... it was integrated. It's broken up and repurposed in bits and pieces over the course of 4, count 'em, FOUR separate episodes but 99% of it is there if you know what to look for (which for anime onlys is considered rewatch value).
By going through this in such agonizing detail I hope I'm properly communicating one of the greatest hang ups LN readers seem to have (or adaptational purists in general) relative to their expectations: You are putting entirely too much value into dialogue, monologue, and the text of a script relative to every other element the medium has to offer. The absence of TEXT does not diminish the SUBTEXT. An individual viewer might not know WHY they believe a character motivation exists as it does, but by and large most will pick up on those details whether it be deliberate (in the case of a certain psychologist youtuber who keeps nailing plot predictions over and over BECAUSE ALL OF THE INFORMATION YOU NEED IS RIGHT, THE F**K, THERE) or subconsciously (in the case of most passive audience members).

PART 1 (COUR 2): THE RESCHEDULENING (aka MATH)

Now, having detailed how a POV chapter can actually be efficiently absorbed into the runtime of the show without disrupting or sidetracking the main narrative, let's re-examine the topic of how (as well as why) this affects the production schedule. As I previously stated, overall Volume 1-9 have quite a number of POV chapters to work around as buffers to the rest of the content. Don't believe me? Let me break it down a bit more then:
Vol 1 contains ~ 2 1/2 POV chapters out of 10 = 25% Vol 2 contains ~ 2 3/4 POV chapters out of 11 = 25% Vol 3 contains ~ 1 POV chapters out of 15 = 6.5% (one of the longer action heavy volumes, yet only 3 eps) On average ~19% of content is POV. Vol 4 contains ~ 2 1/4 POV chapters out of 12 = 19% Vol 5 contains ~ 4 POV chapters out of 11 = 36% Vol 6 contains ~ 2 1/4 POV chapters out of 15 = 15% On average ~23% of content is POV. Vol 7 contains ~ 1 1/4 POV chapters out of 8 (technically 9, short prologue + epilogue combined) = 15.5% Vol 8 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 12 = 17% Vol 9 contains ~ 3.75 POV chapters out of 12.5 (several very short POVs, adjusted for fairness) = 30% On average ~21% of content is POV. Vol 10 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 14 = 14% Vol 11 contains ~ 2 POV chapters out of 16 = 12.5% Vol 12 contains ~ 1 1/2 POV chapters out of 16 = 9% On average ~12% of content is POV. ^\Note* Several chapters are not purely dedicated to secondary character POVs but rather "cut aways" between Rudy's own perspective and are occasionally EXTREMELY short (I assigned 1/4 amounts for especially short POVs to give them weight, but to prevent over-representing them. Additionally while chapters vary in length they generally represent individual events which I feel is a more apt form of measurement to relate to the anime adaptation in place of page counts (you're not gonna find the table of contents, copyrights, or the author's afterward being adapted after all). These are VERY rough estimations and should not be taken as "objective" measurements.))
Look at that proportional difference for Volume 10-12 relative to the other cours. While production had the advantage of consistently folding a little more than 1/5 of the content into the current runtime the current cour has almost 10% more content competing for the same amount of screen time as the cour before it. In fact, it's significantly LESS screen time as only the 1st episode bypassed the OP/ED compared to Cour 1's 4 episodes (and if you include the OVA, cour 1 already had a 24 minute head start in addition to the extra 3 per ep for a whopping total of 36 extra minutes of runtime over cour 2), Even if we're exceedingly generous and assume the next 4 episodes skip the OP/ED each, that would still leave it at a 24 minute disadvantage just in comparison to cour 1, not to mention the additional screen time afforded to S1 as I've already covered.

Part 3: Screen Time as a Resource (aka Content / Time = Stress)

In a novel characters can engage in chapter length diatribes or strategic planning in their own heads, engage in "talking is a free action" whilst in a fight to the death, and all sorts of ridiculous temporal bending contrivances that simply do not translate to the screen where time is the single most precious commodity (unless you're a shonen protagonist charging up your kamehameha). So let's view this from the scriptwriters' perspective to understand why they are forced to make some very difficult choices. As you are starting work on your assigned episode(s), the show's production committee makes the call that while previously you were afforded as much as ~300 minutes (5 hours) to convey ~1K pages of material, this time you only get ~255 minutes (4 1/4 hours) to convey ~1200 pages of the same density of material. Much more information to convey in much less time and you only JUST BARELY scrapped by to include as much as you could the last 3 times. That's means that at a MINIMUM, 200 of those pages are destined for the cutting room floor.
Though speaking of shounen protagonists, action set pieces are extraordinarily useful for either expanding OR condensing a scene's runtime by exactly as much as you need to fit within an episode's runtime. Need to add time? Go balls-to-the-wall, high-octane, budget-melting sakuga insanity that outshines even the source material (Turning Point 2/Eris vs Assassins) or you can condense high page counts into surprisingly short runtimes while still conveying the impact and information stored in those several pages worth of text. High impact, malleable screen time, same information conveyed. More time to dedicate to world building and secondary character development. As such, S1 (cour 2 especially) had a TREMENDOUS amount of leeway in how much they wished to expand OR condense action scenes at their discretion compared to the (comparatively) action-lite S2 (for Cour 1 at least).
So then you might ask with Cour 2 revving up the action again, why is it instead CUTTING tons of those action scenes rather than merely truncating them to make space for dialogue scenes like the prior cours? The short answer is there's already no time to spare. The longer, more complex answer is action scenes can't exist in a vacuum. In the same way you have to accelerate and decelerate in your car evenly to get from point A to point B safely, you can't simply hit 0-60 mph in under 2 seconds and you certainly can't go from 60 to 0 in a fraction of a second unless you want an episodes' pacing to liquify like your internal organs. Before, during, and sometimes after a fight scene is initiated, several questions need to be answered for the audience like "Who/what is fighting?" "Where are they positioned?" "What is the level of threat?" "What are the stakes?" "What are the win conditions?" with greater or fewer questions depending on the complexity of the scene or it's meaning to the character(s). Failing to provide the audience adequate answers to these questions can easily result in a nonsensical farce.... unless that's literally your intention. Thankfully, the requirement for winding down action is much simpler. After a beat of heightened tension, your protagonist simply lowers their guard/weapon and the message communicated to the audience is "the threat is over" and within seconds you can move to the next scene.
Most major encounters follow this rhythm throughout the series, with individual chapters dedicated solely to these fights, spanning page counts that are generally (but not always) on the higher end. In general, there are only 1-2 major battles per volume. Vol 11 and 12, by contrast, have several chapters that contain a half dozen individual skirmishes apiece that make adapting the material a total NIGHTMARE to pick and choose what makes the cut. So as an example, a weirdly high amount of time is seemingly spent establishing the succubus encounter in ep 19. Why you may ask? So they could ride those same rules of engagement straight into the following montage to inform the audience "these fights possess the same rules of engagement we just established" without having to spend the additional time winding up each one individually (another, more humorous example, is Ruijerd "dueling" the 3 North God students in a row). The montage also pulls double duty by conveying both the passage of time and distance. You'd think truncating roughly 1/5 of the entire volume into a scant 60 seconds would give them plenty of extra time to work with, but sadly, the ability to condense content is still only enough to break even with the established pace.
Another major element that placed Season 2 at a massive disadvantage is that Season 2 had to use it's precious 25th episode OVA to *catch up* on content that was deferred from Season 1 as Sylphy's POV chapters starting all the way back in Vol 4 did not make the cut. So rather than getting a jump start, the OVA was actually just catching up on deferred content that could not be included DESPITE all of the tremendous advantages I've previously discussed. And even then, it still needed to skip all but a few scant details from the intervening chapters that bridge the gap between Sylphy becoming Silent Fitz and Ariel's entire entourage fleeing to Ranoa's University of Magic resulting in all but 5 of them being slaughtered by assassins in hideously gruesome fashion. In a nutshell, Season 2 actually only has 24 episodes to dedicate to itself, and most of the benefits of scheduling seems to have heavily favored Cour 1 over Cour 2.
At this point, assuming like everyone else who joined up with Studio Bind, you are yourself a massive fan of the series and absolutely love these novels, you are effectively being asked to CHOOSE your favorite children chapters to sacrifice in the name of ending the season at a satisfying arc conclusion. Sure you could just adapt at the same rate of chapters-to-screen time as before and conclude the final 12th episode with THAT THING THAT HAPPENS but somehow I feel like doing so would result in death threats being strapped to a brick and hurled through your office windows. You've certainly maintained the integrity of the show's original pacing, but telling fans to sit tight until the next production cycle is ready in another 2-3 years feels like a recipe for disaster.
And frankly, Vol 12 has some INTENSELY heavy dialogue/monologue scenes filing out the back half of the volume that are going to need significantly more screen time to convey the necessary information relative to the first half as it is ENTIRELY Rudy-centric. So the only way to get there with enough time to allow the season to reach a natural and satisfying conclusion and still hit all of the vitally necessary plot threads is to put those proverbial chapter babies containing some of your favorite character interactions and world building on the alter as a ritual sacrifice for more time on the clock. And what did those sacrifices get you? 5 episodes. A range of 105-117 minutes (depending on OP/ED usage) of screen time to cover the single densest volume since vol 3 (see above). Barely one episode ahead of pace (but in terms of available screen time still barely ahead) of prior cours. And if you think it's unfortunate that ACTION was being cut, oh lordy I have some *bad news for you.\*

Part 4: Screenwriting as an Artform (aka how write story gud)

"But why are they STILL so stretched for time if they have access to and are utilizing all of these time-saving techniques?" Well I'm hoping the previous 3 parts of this gargantuan multi-tiered super essay have helped establish the constraints Studio Bind are working under compared to the prior cours. Cour 2 is working with significantly LESS screen time, with MORE events to manage and they're already so stretched for time that even multi-chapter spanning story events like the Merchant caravan are being cut entirely, rather than merely abridged, to make up that difference.
The requirement for "essential viewing" grows ever higher as mundane scenes like coming in and out of the teleporter still HAVE to be given priority over fan-beloved moments of character development because as uninteresting as those kinds of expository, utilitarian scenes are, they serve a far more vital purpose in a screenplay for communicating to the audience the "BUT, THEREFORE, BECAUSE" flow of script writing (watch the video it's extremely short and a great explainer, but essentially "But = Complication", "Therefore = Next logical action", "Because = Character motivation for performing said action"). You literally cannot skip these unremarkable, bog standard scenes because doing so would commit one of the deadliest sins of storytelling that I was alluding to when discussing how to establish action scenes: The Discontinuity of the dreaded "AND THEN" statement. If you're watching a movie and it's a series of "and then this happened and then that happened and then this person showed up" it ceases to be less a story so much as watching someone's attention span annihilating slideshow of vacation photographs.
As an example, scenes like the ones that establish how, where, and why Rudy and Elinalise use the teleporter to get from Ranoa to Begaritt are slow, mundane, and heavily time consuming and yet are so absolutely necessary as a scriptwriter to take the time to make sure the audience can follow along the logical thru-line for how these scenes connect to one another. If you skip such seemingly trifling, yet necessary information, the audience is not going to react by saying "oh THAT SCENE I LOVE is coming up" but rather "wait, why are we in a desert?"
As an example I'll use the last 2 episodes to demonstrate. The logical flow of episode 19 into 20 proceeds as follows (some parts are truncated for *relative* brevity):
"Rudy needs to leave for Rapan. THEREFORE he tells everyone goodbye, BUT Nanahoshi knows how to teleport there. THEREFORE he changes his route with Elinalise. THEREFORE they get prepared BECAUSE they want to save Zenith, BUT Cliff proposes to Elinalise BECAUSE he feels his lack of commitment was making her nervous. THEREFORE Elinalise is caught off guard BECAUSE she originally intended to leave without telling him to break off their relationship. THEREFORE she accepts his proposal. THEREFORE they travel to the teleporter, BUT teleporters are considered a source of danger to adventurers. THEREFORE they study it first as a safety precaution. THEREFORE they verify it's safe operation and use it. THEREFORE they arrive in Begaritt, BUT they are attacked by a Succubus. THEREFORE Rudy needs to detox himself BECAUSE they want to keep their promise to Cliff and Sylphy. THEREFORE they continue their sexless journey, BUT they are attacked several more times. THEREFORE they kill the monsters and proceed with caution. THEREFORE they arrive in Rapan in ~6 weeks. THEREFORE Geese is surprised to see them when they arrive, BECAUSE he only sent the letter so recently. THEREFORE he takes them to see Paul. THEREFORE they reunite with Paul, BUT Paul has fallen back into depression BECAUSE they lost Roxy while failing to find Zenith. THEREFORE Rudy tells Paul about his marriage and pregnancy with Sylphy. THEREFORE Paul recovers BECAUSE of the joy and pride he feels for his son BUT still feels worthless BECAUSE of his failures. THEREFORE Paul finally notices Elinalise. THEREFORE he apologizes BECAUSE ....uh y'know that thing that happened. THEREFORE Paul and Elinalise reconcile BUT Paul is confused that she didn't sleep with Rudy BECAUSE of her curse. THEREFORE she explains her husband Cliff's magic tool BUT Paul can't believe she has a husband. THEREFORE they get into another spat BUT the rest of the party returns during their argument THEREFORE Rudy learns that Roxy is lost in the labyrinth. THEREFORE Rudy starts to panic as the party begins to squabble. THEREFORE Elinalise takes Rudy's shoulder to draw his attention BECAUSE she realized he was panicking. THEREFORE Rudy asks to be caught up on the situation. THEREFORE Paul describes the difficulty of the Teleportation Labyrinth. THEREFORE Rudy gives Geese the book detailing it's depths which he borrowed BECAUSE he would be using a teleporter to get to Begaritt, BUT it will take Geese time to read it. THEREFORE Paul calls the meeting to a close to allow Geese to adjust their strategy using the book. THEREFORE Rudy, Paul, and Lilia start talking, BUT Paul is still a crude dude. THEREFORE the topic turns to sex BUT Lilia is in denial about being a total sex freak. THEREFORE Paul teases her BECAUSE he knowns how much she likes it rough. THEREFORE they retire for the night after some locker room talk. THEREFORE they depart for the labyrinth the following day. THEREFORE they reach the labyrinth and begin their descent, BUT Paul is breaking formation to show off in front of Rudeus. THEREFORE Elinalise scolds him, BECAUSE she wants to keep her family safe. THEREFORE Paul flippantly dismisses her claims of thinking of him like a son, BUT he is unaware of their connection through Sylphy. THEREFORE they continue further into the Labyrinth maintaining their formation, BUT they encounter new monsters. THEREFORE Rudy starts to cast a spell, BUT Talhand advises him not to use fire BECAUSE it fills a room with poison BECAUSE the concept of carbon monoxide poisoning exists but isn't fully understood in this universe BUT he also advices not attacking the ceiling BECAUSE it could cause a cave-in. THEREFORE Rudy uses ice magic to kill the remaining monsters. THEREFORE they advance to the second stratum in proper formation. THEREFORE they breeze through the second formation and take a break before entering the third. THEREFORE Geese uses the opportunity to inform Rudy that the next section is where Roxy went missing and may still be near that area BECAUSE teleporter traps only warp victims within the same stratum. THEREFORE as they approach where they lost Roxy, Geese asks Rudy where he'd look for Roxy based on his intuition. AND THEN Using his intuition, Rudy notices condensation on a wall and uses his Roxy Odor Snoof Sense to detect Roxy's location through a damn wall despite being a contrivance BUT it's the same contrivance used in the source material THEREFORE shut up. THEREFORE we cut to Roxy BUT she's being surrounded by monsters. THEREFORE she casts numerous spells to hold them at bay, BUT she runs out of mana. THEREFORE she believes she's about to die BUT Rudy saves her just in the nick of time. THEREFORE Roxy is shaken to her core at the sight of the man who saved her despite not recognizing Rudy, BUT then her POV didn't play out the way it did in the novels THEREFORE LN purists got upset BECAUSE they assumed her POV had been cut BUT they forgot that Roxy's POV has always been shown tremendous favoritism by Studio Bind THEREFORE they jumped to conclusions unaware it would happen the following episode.

THEREFORE Calm down and let Studio Bind cook

Effectively the point I hope I have demonstrated is that there IS a logical and consistent thru-line from scene to scene to scene that an audience can follow (and if you want to improve as a screenwriter, this is a GREAT exercise to figure out what makes your favorite shows tick. It's basically the screenwriter's equivalent to tracing someone else' art as practice). Even these unfairly maligned episodes have a viewing experience that provides a consistent sense of pacing. But if you want to know WHAT precisely feels different about them? Well if I had chosen to break down episodes from any of the prior 3 cours (or the best episodes of this cour), you'd be seeing the word BECAUSE significantly more to fill out every action, reaction, and complication along the way. If "THEREFORE" and "BUT" are the easel and canvas, which are necessary to even begin the process of creating art, then "BECAUSE" is the screenwriter's paintbrush that allows them to breathe life and detail into the characters on screen. The prior 3 cours were awash with "BECAUSE" statements detailing why characters are behaving the way they are in every individual scene so if there's one crime that can legitimately be pinned against several episodes in the latest cour, it's "JUST 'CUZ."

PART FINAL: The TL;DR (aka the... tl;dr)

So having laid all this out in such verbose, granular detail, what exactly does all of this mean?
To put it bluntly, Season 1 being such a near-perfect masterwork of adaptation spoiled the ever loving hell out of us. Having gorged ourselves on that expectation, we've ruined our appetites because now such perks are simply anticipated as standard with a vocal minority now irked by the use of a standard OP simply because it follows the conventions of the medium or (stay with me here) committing the sin of appealing to shonen fans. I know, truly a crime worthy of sudoku because of 14 seconds depicting one of the single most important events in the series. I truly don't understand (seriously, explain it to me please).
The current cour is merely receiving the same treatment most adaptations are given while still outperforming its peers if weekly rankings are anything to go by. Episodes range from pretty good to excellent (Norn and Nanahoshi's spotlight eps being the highlights thus far despite some grumbling) with even the extremely barebones Ep 19 squeezing in what sparse worldbuilding nuggets it can despite the plot literally necessitating that Rudy book it from one side of the planet to the other within a 21 minute period (a production level pacing decision you are still free to criticize). As I said earlier (but it bears repeating) these episodes are a good adaptation of Rudy's story rather than the whole that makes up MT because it simply doesn't have the screen time to focus on anything that falls outside the scope of his perspective given the sheer breadth of competing narrative essential content. As a show, these episodes are still delivering a cohesive and engaging thru-line by being glued to Rudy's perspective. So as long as Rudy remains interesting to watch the audience will be more than satisfied.
Expecting the same anomalous level of dedication AND leniency from the production committee to happen for every season was unfortunately nothing but a pipe dream. Cour 2 is now being forced to make due with what it has and while they are doing a commendable job given the heavy restrictions, it is completely unreasonable to expect them to fit so much into such tight confines. It is the adaptation equivalent of being asked to fit everything into one grocery bag, but not wanting the bag to be heavy.
Could this cour have been scheduled better? Absolutely. Was it possible certain changes to the script or episode direction could have provided more opportunities to explore the cut content? Of course. Is it still a total bummer that the realities of production that have compromised the artistic integrity of our beloved peak fiction? Without a doubt.
We are simply going to have to get used to the fact that S1 may never be topped with our only hope being the return of the waifu-wars for S3 rekindles the beefs between animators vying for shot assignments (which may hopefully still be in the cards god willing).
Of course, I'm not a future seer, so maybe, just maybe, Studio Bind bursts into flames and all of the footage is lost resulting in the quality of the last 3 episodes to be the worst drop off of a television show since the final season of Game of Thrones. If that is the case then I'll be eating more crow than I ever have in my life. But if Studio Bind sticks the landing and delivers on the emotional climax to one of the most beloved arcs among the fanbase that we've anticipated for years, then please calm it down with these exaggerated "cutting content is ruining the show" claims.
Thank you from coming to my Ted Talk and enjoy the rest of the season everyone.

Hey Everyone, Uber here!
Today, with our #7th Dragon Dev Diary, we are jumping straight back into the mechanical side of our update, one which everyone has been wondering about since the reveal of our trailer months back. I am joined once again by Sililex, who has done wonders in bringing the warfare side of the update to life; a major part of the update concept that would have held back both an announcement, most of it's development and even its release,
Hey Again! As previously told, I am Sililex and today; I am pleased to be coming to you with what is likely the most anticipated of our dev diaries:

Warfare

Warfare and its troubles are well documented; this was the hardest of our features to program and stumped us for several months. CK3 code severely limits our ability to interact with the warfare system, so much so that the Modding Co-op server we have has a command to dispel hopes and dreams:
https://preview.redd.it/bn4ujaowml5d1.png?width=575&format=png&auto=webp&s=b715c9728b41ddc42869650f0ccaea5854973720
Warfare’s issues, especially the prompt above, remain true and accurate. To wit, I want to add a disclaimer before we get deep into what will be a very nitty-gritty mechanics dev diary. We have implemented circumventions of these systems within what was possible in CK3. Sacrifices on gameplay had to be made because of the above restrictions and for performance reasons. While this circumstance is not the ideal implementation, it is what we have been able to do with the available tools.
Nevertheless, the team has been testing and refining the systems for several months now, and while it may not be mathematically perfect, I think that the system provides a smooth, engaging, and appropriate impact on the warfare system. So, without further ado, let's get into the details!

What didn’t work

Two popular methods were designed while we’ve been working on this problem, and I want to discuss why we did not pursue them.
The first of these are dragons such as Men-At-Arms, used in the AGOT-Bookmarked submod developed by our very own Team-member Troof. While this has some great benefits - the simplicity of interacting with a battle- they had several drawbacks. While obviously, they were not characters, we could, in theory, make a new MAA whenever a dragon is born as if they were ‘paired’. The problem, however, is that we would have no way to destroy them then when the dragon died—in addition to the difficulty of MAA’s stack, made this method unfeasible.
The second method would have been dragons as artifacts, as like the AGOT - Dragons of Valyria mod. While this has some intriguing benefits, such as character-specific buffs, it always felt very ‘finicky’ to us. It used up an artifact slot, which doesn’t make sense, and had no real ‘character’. These artifacts were, in essence, placeholders for all the same benefits the character could provide if it existed, and the mapping could be done comprehensively.
That issue truly ties to our core design philosophy. As Uber has repeatedly spoken on, this team's core vision for dragons was always having dragons be real characters in the world. As such, we needed to look at the ways that characters can interact with armies and which of those we could interface with.
Fundamentally, these exist in two ways — as knights and as commanders. The question was then, where does a dragon sit? Trivally, they should not be commanders, but perhaps they could be powerful knights? Unfortunately, the game caps prowess at 100, no matter how high you put it. While 100 is undoubtedly high, it’s only about 2.5 Arthur Daynes. While he was a terrific swordsman, Balerion was definitely worth more than 3 of him. (This is also why we separated dragon Combat Effectiveness as its own stat)
https://preview.redd.it/5eofe5oful5d1.png?width=1418&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb6fa36d88cd00e10d4261260a9f6e5aaedccbd4
The next thought, and what we ended up using, was character modifiers. If you had a dragon, your character could get a modifier. However, the ones we were trying applied to all of your armies. That meant that if you had two armies in separate areas, your dragon would buff both. In addition, not all dragonriders actually rode with their armies, such as Rhaenyra in the Dance. Further, how would we reflect dragonrider courtiers helping? Or worse, all of these at the same time?
We faced these problems, and now I’ll finally get on with it and start telling you about our solution.

The Dragon Warfare Engine

After much trial and error, the one thing we could interact with that allowed for an army-specific, character-specific buff was a battle advantage. For those who don’t know, battle advantage confers a +5% damage bonus to your army for every point above your opponents.
https://preview.redd.it/qngwo705vl5d1.png?width=568&format=png&auto=webp&s=02affd56812775ddeac461fbc506b2691ab124bc
It’s the big number in the centre of a battle screen, with the net difference being the number of +5% buffs one side is getting. Here is an example of how an equal advantage is calculated to illustrate.
https://preview.redd.it/2fco90a8vl5d1.png?width=1371&format=png&auto=webp&s=ac6d828e63d9a976d25fd1900fef7a95a500dd62
During each battle phase, commanders roll to determine an additional battle advantage. Our solution was, therefore, to apply a seriously large battle roll floor and ceiling increase to give a flat bonus to a commander throughout the battle.
https://preview.redd.it/ekmkdd3gvl5d1.png?width=1201&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f6ab41b609e8cfeff3e4b8086397cea49e065a5
This can lead to smaller armies with dragons acting as if they are forces well beyond their size. For illustration, here is an example with Caraxes.
https://preview.redd.it/glrfdecjvl5d1.png?width=550&format=png&auto=webp&s=a7dd3e51eb6f89a0d281ae41d2f6821aa411f878
To make this as seamless as possible, I created what I called the Dragon Warfare Engine - essentially a running check over a dragon to see who it should give this modifier to at any given time. Dragons can be knights in our system, and their riders can be commanders or knights themselves. Thus, the dragon will continually check where it and its rider are and apply the buff to their commander or its rider’s commander. This way, you can still use your dragon as that extremely powerful knight while enabling it to buff the army's strength. Of course, a dragon cannot act without its rider, so any dragon acting as a ‘knight’ will pull their rider into one of the several combat events.
Dragon in Battle Camera Still Under Work.
Further, these obviously cannot be in two places simultaneously. As such, a rider trying to act as a commander in an army separate from their dragon will be pulled away from their independent army.
https://preview.redd.it/sgtvzi7awl5d1.png?width=847&format=png&auto=webp&s=be303d38900aed46b1e3d4d82bd8e2000f8ba716
I cannot tell you what a nightmare all of these different cases, scopes, and their interactions were to code, but the result is an intelligent application of buffs to the commander of a dragon / its rider reflecting the different Combat Effectiveness of dragons. By way of example, here is the buff that Seasmoke gives:
https://preview.redd.it/ror2liaewl5d1.png?width=549&format=png&auto=webp&s=e303a65bb71fa302f1d2f1b25a0b39530670ab6f
While here is the buff that Vhaegar gives:
https://preview.redd.it/istn03hhwl5d1.png?width=576&format=png&auto=webp&s=7863d2e8ff529c8ba431dd51e8977843d32d16f3
The eagle-eyed among you will notice another dragon buff present there — this is because, of course, multiple dragons can be in the same army. One benefit of this approach is that these modifiers can natively stack. There is nothing stopping you from getting a +2000 battle advantage with 10 Godly dragons. Another useful fact of this system is that because the advantage is relative if the other side also has a dragon, their relative impacts are already calculated for us.
Now, I want to be upfront that this system has three deficiencies.

1. These buff and debuff application calculations have minor delays for performance reasons. You may see them out of sync for a few ticks if you change commanders frequently or if your commander dies. This is only relevant in fringe cases — it is in sync 99% of the time, and one or two ticks should right it if it is not.
   
2. Dragon ‘damage’ is really a combination of their ultra-knight damage (where present) and the buff to the damage the army itself has. That means that a massive dragon in a tiny army may actually do less than a small dragon in a massive army. As we cannot directly damage an army, this is, unfortunately, the best we can do.
   
3. Armies without a commander cannot be buffed even when a dragon is present.
   

As I said at the outset, these are the sacrifices we make working within our limited system. Personally, I find a helpful headcanon in that the dragons are not just damaging willy-nilly, but their effectiveness also boosts the effectiveness of the army as a whole through strategic positioning and hitting enemy weak points. Moving away from the nitty-gritty math, though, it still feels very smooth to play, and we’ve had our QA folk enjoying it for quite a while now. While ideally, we’d like to get it more perfect on the math end; this is the best we can do with the current system while balancing performance and smoothness to gameplay.
Of course, warfare consists of more than just battles…but I’ve already used up my word limit, so like Ned Stark’s corpse to Catelyn, this is coming to you in two parts. Tune in next week for our dev diary on all the other aspects of warfare, as well as details on a system in how you might stand against these great creatures!
Thank you for reading!
Join our Discord if you haven't already! https://discord.gg/ckagot And stay tuned for more and more dev diaries! Previous Dragon Dev Diaries:
Dragon Development Diary #1: The Vision
Dragon Development Diary #2: The Anatomy of the Dragon Portrait
Dragon Development Diary #3: A Dragon's Character
Dragon Development Diary #4: Hatching and Cradling
Dragon Development Diary #5: Dragonpits & Dragonkeepers
Dragon Development Diary #6: 'A Rogue Tale'

Tl;Dr: The setup for $BYND is very similar to $GME & IV has not pumped yet due to little (but eerily similar to GME) price action on both the long-term & short term time-frames. Many bullish factors are listed below, namely 170% cost to borrow with 96% utilization & a high days-to-cover ratio. A catalyst to come is a new collaboration with McDonald's, yet to hit the press (sauce). On both technical & tinfoil (related to GME) levels, $BYND is looking to make a move.
Greetings, fellow carnivores. Happy 06/09 & I hope you are having an excellent weekend given the recent hype! First off, let me say that I believe in the redemption of some of our great American companies from the depths - namely GameStop.
Needless to say, this is not financial advice & we should all do our own research. I'm here to lay out the (lab-made) bull-case for Beyond Meat, ticker $BYND.

The Tandem Trade

Now, we all know what happened with GameStop in January of 2021, and there were a few basket stocks that squoze a bit in tandem. Namely, AMC, (BB)BY, KOSS, and one that people might not have paid attention to (because it wasn't on the list of stocks shown below)- $BYND.
https://preview.redd.it/0bxh071upl5d1.png?width=458&format=png&auto=webp&s=233b7b353691653d8e43a21664a632cdf14fd940
Strap in because we're in this for the (short?) long haul - the company has a terrible standing. It is struggling to get items off the shelf & although their fake chicken is arguably better tasting and healthier than regular chicken - it's weird as shit. So is their chart in January '21:
Ran during the 2021 \"meme stock rally\" on no news
Google shows a moderate averaged price rise of 51%, but it went from a low of $114.05 on 01/04/2021 (same day as GME's Jan dip before the rip) to a high of $221 on January 27th, that infamous GME day - meaning it had a January run of 94% at the same time as GME's rip. Something something about basket stocks. Not to mention, it has the exact same run into June as GME the same year, going from a low of $99.86 to a short-term high of $160.28.
GME 100% run in May-June 2021, Starting ~May 10th.
BYND 50% run in May-June 2021, Starting ~May 10th.
Now, I hope these past trends can help you understand BYND's recent price action in the basket. Let's compare:
GME 1 Month
BYND 1 Month
Looking awfully similar, even with zero dilution from the $BYND board (not flaming GME for doing it as it is very advantageous for their overall business). Now, I introduce you too the Ortex data.
https://preview.redd.it/ee4pso47xl5d1.png?width=1918&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c4e890db93d81d0ac85da995651784cea5f9677

Some notable stats:

• 170.26% Cost to Borrow
  • 96.13% utilization, meaning 96% of loanable shares are already taken.
• 9.69 Days to Cover
  • This has been ticking up quite a bit. This is the ratio of SI / average volume, meaning that to cover one's shorts, the volume would need to be large.
• 38.83% Short Interest of Free Float
  • It has a "Short Score" of 96.16% according to Ortex, indicating the stock has many characteristics of a setup for a capitulation of shorts.
• Implied Volatility 30 Day: 40%
  • The implied volatility being low (compared to other "meme stocks") means that this is a cheap opportunity to enter into a position compared to the likes of others that have experienced large swings in price, pricing retail out of options on big names like GME.

Bullish Crossover

Additional Macro-factors:

• HPAI (highly-pathogenic avian influenza) is spreading throughout farms in America. For the first time in history - cows & humans have been able to contract it. Lab-meat, albeit weird as shit, is positioned to net in a few hypochondriacs who are worried about food & livestock safety. Sauce
• This is a big "if" - but news was leaked that BYND accidentally leaked their collaboration with McDonalds, even shown on the McDonald's website - Sauce. When this is released to the press & promotion begins, we could see this as a strong catalyst. Better yet, the reception I'm picking up through my tinfoil says McDonald's might even acquire them.
  • An acquisition by McDonald's is some serious tinfoil - please do your own research. BYND has missed their earning's projections early this year, yet continue to claim that 2024 is their "turnaround year". This is why I believe they have something planned. Sauce
• Shifting Consumer Preferences (Ethical treatment of animals), Technological Advancement (continues to get cheaper to produce & taste getting better), Health Considerations (Processed Meat = heart disease & cancers; allergy-friendly), Sustainability (Reduces Carbon Footprint; With population increasing, sustainable protein options are important).

Positions:

-A one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple(circle) hedgie eater.
-06/21/2024 Calls:

• 400 - 7$ calls @ 1.06 each. I bought my largest position in-the-money as to set a strong downside protection; akin to DFV's strategy of $20 GME calls.
• 200 - 8$ calls @ .61 each.
• 224 - 9$ calls @ .35 each.
  • These $8 & $9 calls are to provide support to the downside as positive price action unfolds, building Gamma on the chain as well as ensuring delta is hedged, increasing overall buying pressure.

Feel free to do the math on your own to see how much I've lost.
Disclaimer (for the second time): This is a risky scenario and although I am confident in my investment & am prone to a riskier investment style; I recommend everyone do their own research before making their own investment decisions. With that said, thank you for reading and have a great weekend.
Edit: Cleared up photos that were pasted in a bad format.