Dhruv Sharma
The second episode of Saiki K is mildly disappointing after a surprisingly good start. It brings in ingenious ideas of satirizing other anime genres like the card game genre, Isekai and also tries to create a stark contrast between Saiki and the protagonists of the other typical anime shows. While the episode has a seemingly detailed plot, it completely breaks one’s expectation in context with the comedy. It still is almost as fast-paced as it started out to be, but this time around, but its mildly heavy plotting shifts its focus away from its comedy. It is a watchable episode, but there’s nothing exceptional about it.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: Reawakened Episode 2 Recap
In the opening scene of the second episode, Saiki K ends up damaging the limiter that allows him to control all of his psychic abilities. Following this, he starts unleashing all kinds of weird abilities and his parents become victims of this outrage. While he tries to find a way to fix his limiter, he ends up turning his father’s figurines collection to ash, fires two laser beams through the ceiling of his home and causes a lot more destruction around him. But eventually, he does find a way to solve this dilemma by fixing his limiter.
In the next short, Kaidou and Nendou start bothering him again and he is forced to find a way to get rid of them. He cleverly gets Nendou involved in a card game against Kaidou by placing all the powerful cards in Nendou’s deck. Kaidou, who claims to be the champion of the game, takes up the challenge and tries his best to defeat him. As for Saiki, his plan works out just fine and he just sits back and judges all of them.
In the third short, a game of basketball ensues between the students of Saiki’s class. Saiki never really uses his abilities in school unless it’s absolutely necessary. However, during this game of basketball, when he realizes that his opponent is bribing the players of his team, he makes an invisible protective doom around the basket. In the end, solely because of his help, his team ends up winning.
In the final short, a new character, who seems to be the perfect representation of a typical Isekai, visits Saiki and his friends. He boasts about the success of his own manga series and even calls Saiki a “boring glasses guy”. When he visits their school and calls all of them worthless, Saiki finally loses his shit and summons him to a real dystopian fantasy world of an Isekai, to test his heroic abilities. As expected, as soon as he faces danger in this new world, instead of being all heroic about it, he just flees the scene.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: Reawakened Episode 2 Review
In the past, many other comedy anime shows like ‘Gintama‘ have created their own parodical versions of other popular anime genres. While this approach isn’t all that refreshing, it is quite commendable how even ‘Saiki K’ makes an attempt to catch up on this trope. However, its approach with this feels quite bland; especially the second short in which it tries to ridicule card games and their dynamics. The third short is again more or less of a mockery of sports anime shows that emphasize a bit too much on teamwork. ‘Saiki K’ boldly breaks the stereotype by bringing its own elements of bribery and other forms of foils used in the game.
The last short, though it is not enjoyable as the first one, does a pretty decent job at deriding the widely popular Isekai genre. But then again, solely in this regard, I would say there are other anime shows out there that purely dedicate their entire runtime on making fun of Isekai. So, to put it simply, there is nothing new here. On the upside, the first short of this episode is the perfect representation of what one would expect from ‘Saiki K’. It is pretty basic in terms of its storyline and solely revolves around the Saiki’s diverse yet unnecessary abilities and the hilarious gimmicks of his family. Overall, episode 2 does not make you laugh your guts out but is still not that bad of an episode.
