Kizuna no Allele Season 2 Spoiler-Filled Review

Kizuna no Allele is an idolish music series directed by Kenichiro Komaya. Wit Studio and Signal.MD produce the series. Deko Akao wrote the show’s scripts. The first season/cour aired from April to June 2023.

The twelve-episode second season/cour begins with a lively opening. It continues to center around five individuals: Miracle (voiced by Ayumi Hinohara), Noelle (voiced by Yuka Nukui), Riz (voiced by Arisa Hanawa), Chris (voiced by Hikari Codama), and Quan (voiced by Rina Kawaguchi). All five go to Artist Garden (Aden) Academy. They team up as PathTLive, planning to beat their fellow students so they can enter the Virtual Grid Awards (VGA), representing the academy. However, they encounter bumps along the way.

This crops up in the first episode of this season. Miracle is impressed by another group, BRT5. At the same time, Quan’s issues with self-confidence come to the surface. For one, she falsely believes that Miracle was only “being nice” to her and that she is weak, which is bringing down the group as a whole. To make matters worse, a dark-skinned character, Sofia (voiced by Yūna Kitahara), tries to recruit Chris, who growls with her, and believes Sofia is dangerous. More specifically, she sees Sofia as taking Miracle away from her, and is clearly jealous. It’s one manifestation of the yuri subtext in this series. PathTLive’s competitors include Zoe, Ximena, Halle, Jessie, Sarah, Ellie, and Niska, each in their own groups. This episode concludes, after Miracle’s strategy is shot down and everyone wants to collaborate with artists other than Miracle, with Quan being recruited by BRT5.

There are VTuberesque post-credits scenes, intended to make the characters more personable, and a new ending sequence. Even so, Kizuna no Allele is still not my favorite by a long shot. Despite that, it has some good parts. The series excelled in depicting Quan’s struggles, insecurities, and self-doubt. She goes from not wanting to hold back the group to singing along with fellow BRT5 bandmates. She resolves to stay so she can surpass them.

At the same time, she remains friendly with Miracle in real-life. The reason for this is simple: she wants to walk by Miracle’s side. She doesn’t want others shining the light on her. She wants to shine the light on herself. Instead, she wants to be a “shine post” of sorts akin to characters in the Shine Post anime. Possibly, Quan is written as a positive portrayal of a trans or non binary person. This is clear, in some ways, to the viewer.

Miracle is deeply impacted by Quan’s revelation of her real intentions and that the person in the atrium is herself in the real world. Miracle is upset, confused, and unsure what is going on. She meets Niska (voiced by Yūri Matsuoka), a woman who was part of BRT5, in a secluded cabin. Niska tells her that she should come back anytime she feels lost. Quan’s suffering and struggling is somewhat equivalent to those having issues coming-out as queer. Quan grows a lot in the series. She goes from a shy and nervous person to a more self-confident woman fighting for a light that is hers alone. In a later episode, Halle reveals that she is pushing Quan to have more self-confidence, so she doesn’t feel down about herself.

The romantic friendship between Chris and Miracle involves secret lessons and a visit to the aforementioned secret cabin. In the fifteenth episode of Kizuna no Allele, they talk with Niska about why she left BRT5. She recalls that her fellow comrades told her to focus on the group rather than being a designer. As a result, she quit the group. Her goal was to be a designer and virtual artist at the same time. In the same conversation, she argued that people don’t understand each other or get along. In her view, this is because people look at how other people are different, rather than the same. Her words encourage Chris to ask Miracle to collaborate with her. However, this is a bit awkward. Noelle and Riz, good characters in their own right, are sidelined. In the end, Miracle and Chris do a music video collab.

Niska is an interesting character. She thanks Chris and Miracle after their collab, just like Jua (voiced by Nozomi Nagumo). Then she boldly declares she has “reserved” Miracle for herself, in the end of the fifteenth episode, before anyone else, including Jua, can collab with her. This confuses Miracle, who she describes as a person with potential and attractive qualities. Niska points out the latter in the sixteenth episode, saying Miracle needs someone to look out for her. Her sense of loneliness results in a scene, set on a boat in a lake (reminding me of the well-known scene in Tangled). It looks like a confession, with Miracle blushing after Niska holds her hand. Perhaps, a fan fic writer could pen a work about this.

The strong friendship between Riz and Noelle is key to the development of both characters in this season/cour. Both relax in a simulation resembling the Japanese-style inn run by her parents. It even comes with a virtual foot bath. This is perfect for Noelle, who is feeling down after seeing Quan playing with BRT5. One message from these interactions is that anxiety shouldn’t be ignored. All the while, more about Noelle’s backstory is explained. She believes her family see her as a “failure.” She wants her family to see her true self so she can love herself. Themes such as self-empowerment are central in Kizuna no Allele.

Riz provides the right encouragement and confidence for Noelle. She pushes Noelle to make a song for her family. Noelle says that she shouldn’t seek validation in numbers and argues that she cares about her family. Her mom, dad, and sister are glad. They praise her and say she is an amazing artist. This impresses Quan. She wants to practice more, until she watches the Niska-Miracle collab song, which blows her away. Later, Noelle and Riz do a collab video and train to improve their dancing. Their friendship is strong, despite some tensions.

While there might be romantic vibes between Riz and Noelle, they are more pronounced between Jua and Thea, two members of the virtual band VICONIC. In a post-credit video after the fifteenth episode, Jua says she knows Thea from the past and is friends with her in the real world. She even starts to talk about how Thea likes cute stuff. This is further emphasized in the twenty-first episode. Thea defends Jua to people who are trash talking her. She praises Jua for inspiring her dream to become a performer and calls Jua her light. Ultimately, Thea makes outfits for her and Jua. She says she wants to stand with Jua on stage as a partner rather than rival. Both say they like each other.

Other Kizuna no Allele episodes show the BRT5 members being jerks during a strange game of banana tag. In the same episode, the seventeenth in the series, Sarah’s tsundere feelings toward Zoe are apparent. Again, there are some romantic vibes between them. On the other hand, none of these characters are officially in relationships. So any romance manifests in subtext and romantic friendship instead. Overall, the crisper animation, especially in non-VR dance scenes (better than season one, but still wonky), lend to a “cute girl” vibe.

By the eighteenth episode, tempers are flying between some characters. Riz is annoyed with Sofia for being too pushy after winning, and possibly cheating, in a card game. Noelle shows that she cares about Riz is going through, after Riz says she was frustrated and felt pathetic. In a manner that hints at possible romantic feelings between them, she touches Riz’s chest, saying there might be some hidden data she didn’t know about. Noelle says it is terrible to be frustrated. She adds that frustration gives you a chance to think about yourself and improve your skills. They bond together even more. Later, Riz teases Noelle about being a “pro.”

Kizuna no Allele goes further in the nineteenth episode. There’s a unit battle, Ximena crushing on Jessie, and a mysterious person in the shadows. Loneliness, lack of self-confidence, and friendship are key themes. However, this series tends to raise the stakes, but not give viewers the pay off, making such story development weak. While saying this, some elements are executed well. I liked how wishes were represented as butterflies in the twentieth episode. The series connects this with the idea that people decide their own forms and break through their shells (of sorts). This is especially the case for Miracle. She can’t choose one wish out of her many wishes. On the other hand, this idea is less effective than Nanami’s statement in Revolutionary Girl Utena: “if we don’t crack the world’s shell, we will die without ever truly being born.”

Undoubtedly there were some fun recommended videos. For instance, in one video, Jua is disappointed at lack of similarities with Quan, with both loving heavy metal, rad and smashing music videos, and drama. Even so, these elements are mostly subpar. This is coupled with episodes of inconsistent length and bizarre “hip” songs. I did like the camaraderie between Zoey, Ximena, and Sofia. The latter weirdly wants to put an A.I. in her head. She echoes Tao in Carole & Tuesday. He makes the “perfect” songs with A.I., hoping they will become chart-toppers. The curiosity of Ximena towards Chris was strange (she even put a tracker on her!). This mixes with a mysterious school principal and Chris praising Miracle. She says Miracle helped her understand herself and her connections to others.

The last two episodes of Kizuna no Allele are some of the best. PathTLive gets trapped in a virtual world. They can’t escape thanks to Ada’s efforts. She is rewriting all the network systems and has unclear motivations. This poses a dilemma for Miracle. The code of their current linkverse needs to be deleted so they can escape. Miracle says she doesn’t want to do that because they have so many memories there. In presumed series finale, Miracle finally agrees, after Quan offers to delete marumaru (her other avatar). She says that you can’t touch or see memories, but that they don’t disappear or hold you back. Instead, these memories encourage you to go forward. This optimism, however, would be negated by repressed memories.

In a strange twist, they don’t get to Sofia’s linkverse. They find themselves in a nether space. All four band members are separated. Each of them feels some level of trauma. After hearing music from other performers, they escape and reach their destination. As Chris puts it, this new linkverse is where they can be or do anything. Magically, and absurdly, they all claim, in a hokey way, the music is “in their hearts.” The band performs a song with Love Live! vibes. Even so, songs in that franchise are better.

The episode ends with Ada worrying about “danger” of their music. The Principal is overjoyed at the possibility. In some ways, the audience gets a payoff. The characters hang out and have fun. PathTLive wins the contest and goes on stage in new outfits for an awards show. Ai watches over them like a guardian angel. Overall, the visuals of this season/cour are better than the show, as is the music and animation. Even so, the show is still mediocre. More could have been done with these characters to make the show more effective.

Critics have panned the series. They’ve called it strange, slop, cynical, corporate-poisoned, a showcase for virtual idols, and better than Alice Gear Aegis Expansion. Others called it a cash-in which doesn’t capture VTuber culture, tiresome, and incoherent. While these criticisms have merit, the second season, more accurately, had an engaging storyline filled with intrigue and depth. Surely it isn’t as strong as My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 or as compelling as Selection Project. But it had some value, especially when it comes to interpersonal relations between characters and yuri subtext.

Kizuna no Allele is streaming on Crunchyroll.