Anime 38046

This special has better animation overall than the series, and all of the qualities that could be found in the main series, especially the music and the richness of details in everything depicted, which is always as impressive to see how the anime was so rigorously faithful to the novel descriptions in every little things from technologies to landscape.

Now, this 12mn special is NOT a direct sequel of the second season. This special is a mix of scenes happening in the second to last story arc and the last story arc (mostly the last story arc) including a scene pretty much at the end ... of the last volume. To be clear, there is a gap of more than TWENTY THOUSAND PAGES between the last scene of season 2 and the earliest scene of this special. So if you've never read the novels and only seen the two anime seasons, while you'll definitely be able to recognise many of the characters shown ( the studio probably intentionally picked scenes with plenty of the characters already here in the first 2 series) you'll also see many unknown characters, and more importantly, none of the scenes, situations or dialogues will make sense, for obvious reasons.

So this special, while it's nice to see the Musashi crew being animated again, cannot be understood unless you've read the novels. It's purely here as fan service for the LN readers. And as a short special here for servicing the fans presenting important scenes near the end of the story, while it takes heavy liberties on some scenes (like the whole battle scene with Mitotsudaira, among others), it certainly delivers. It's just not to be taken as anything more than that.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon light novel ended finally after 10 years and 29 volumes, and Sunrise decided to re-re-release their unfinished anime adaptation covering the prologue to the overall story (which the first 2 anime seasons cover) on Bluray with this special episode just so people would buy it for the 4th time... to tribute the series AKA earn some easy money. S03 is still unconfirmed.

This special offers highly familiar feel. The glorious OST is here, same with the original style. All characters stay loyal to canon, etc. But the story is lacking, the entire special is completely pointless. Just a bad teaser for 3rd ... season which may never come. Essentially this is just a lacklustery extra thing you receive on top of the real deal. "Buy a car and receive a lollipop worth of 5 cents completely free of charge!"

Well, I guess it did kind of make me want to rewatch the series for the 3rd time using the blurays I already own. No way I am giving scammers at Sunrise any shekels for creating this shit.