Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest released new key visuals for main characters Nagumo Hajime and Yue impending the premiere of its second season.
Arifureta Season 2 revealed the new character art on social media. While Hajime and Yue's designs from the key visuals remain largely unchanged from their first season looks, the art itself is brand new. Hajime dons his signature black high-collared coat with crimson embellishments, Yue on the other hand has a more calming aura about her, looking contemplative.
Arifureta tells the story of Nagumo Hajime, a normal Japanese high school student, who is thrust into a fantasy world along with his classmates. Much to his disappointment, however, Hajime is saddled with the average and commonplace magical power to transmute solid materials, while his peers are bestowed powerful, more unique abilities.
As if being isekai-ed into a new universe was not enough, Hajime is betrayed by one of his classmates during a dungeon raid, causing him to fall down an abyss. While he ultimately survives the drop, this sets Hajime down a path of darkness as his desire to become the strongest starts to consume him. During his journey, he runs into Yue, whom he frees from her imprisonment using his power to transmute. He is also later joined by other characters such as rabbit-girl Shea Haulia and half-dragon Tio Klarus.
Based on the web novel of the same name, the first season of the Arifureta anime ran for 13 episodes between July 9 and Oct. 7, 2019. Although the isekai genre seems to be a staple of anime these days, Arifureta received overwhelmingly negative feedback from critics due to its divergence from the source material and poor animation quality.
The series has since seen a change in creatives behind the scenes. Akira Iwanaga (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai) has taken over as director from Kinji Yoshimoto (Queen's Blade series) following the latter's passing in Nov., 2021 and Studio Mother has taken White Fox's (Steins; Gate) role as the secondary studio. The rest of the cast and crew from Season 1 returned for Season 2.
The first episode of Arifureta's second season will air on Jan. 13 on AT-X, Tokyo MX and BS11 in Japan. A trailer for Season 2 was recently released by Funimation.
Source: Twitter