It’s ass o’clock in the morning, I can’t sleep, and I really want to talk about this. Putting it beneath a Keep Reading for some spoilery stuff because there are somehow some people out there who might not have seen the beauty of an anime that is Kekkai Sensen. Please, if you haven’t seen it yet then go watch it. I genuinely cannot recommend it enough. This isn’t gonna be some extensive thing, it’s literally almost 5:30 in the morning and I’m tired but can’t sleep, but I need to at least air my basic thoughts. And now, to get down to what brass tacks I can reach at this hour.

I’ve seen people say that the Kekkai Sensen anime has no plot. That’s actually not correct from what I’ve seen. It’s all episodic plot points that, when you step back and think about them, link together in some way leading up to the finale. And it’s the same with the second season, as well. You have to step back and THINK to pick up on what’s going on, because it’s not outright stated what the plot is and what the point of the series as a whole is. And, frankly, that’s one of the things I love most about it. It looks like disorganized, disjointed chaos from the basic perspective and that’s what makes it such a fun watch even if you never pick up on the plot behind it all.  And more than that, the characters aren’t flat and underdeveloped. Y’all are just so focused on the “missing plot” that you haven’t been paying attention to the subtle character developments that come with each plot point. Case in point, Zapp is made out to be an absolute piece of garbage of a human being from the get-go. And yet in episode two he DELIBERATELY puts himself on the line to make sure they can track Leo down when he gets into trouble, even though he’ll deny it to Hell and back. He may be crass and, frankly, a bit of a bastard, but that one episode proved he’s not always as bad as he acts. Even if 99.9% of the time he’s someone you’d want to hit with a sledgehammer repeatedly. And then there’s Leo! He starts out a completely, easily frightened young guy who’s just gotten caught up in a shitstorm he never planned on. But by the end of season one he’s literally HIT Zapp for being an inconsiderate assbag at least once! He may take a lot of shit, but he’s come to the point where he’ll throw down when he feels he needs to or he’s just DoneTM. That? That’s growth. He has a heart of gold, but he does learn when to drop the nice attitude when need be - even if he still has trouble doing actual harm. And in season two, it becomes even more apparent. In the season two finale, he LITERALLY PROTECTS HIS SISTER AT THE COST OF GETTING REALLY FUCKING HURT. At the start of the series, he’d freeze up a lot when Big Shit was happening. But this time he was like “Nah, not happening my guy” and held it down as long as he needed to even though he was getting stabbed by needle arm...leg...things (look, idk what to call them even now). It takes stepping back and piecing the context of each episode together to see both the plot and the character development. Edit: One of my friends actually put it into better phrasing and perspective. “I mean, wasn't the whole aspect of being dropped right into the action and having to catch up as you go along an intentional feature that sort of reflects the chaotic vibe of HL? Somewhere that's so overrun with weird shit happening all the time isn't going to pause to take a minute and give you the 411 on the current socio economic status lmao.” The point being that the seeming disjointed chaos is reflective of the very setting they’re in. Something to be expected of someplace as wild and weird as HL! So even if you don’t agree that Kekkai Sensen has a plot, the absolute chaos that is the series was probably the point from the very start.