This is the season where the questions stop being teases and start being answers, and it costs the show something to give them to you. The animation slides off a cliff from the first run, and honest fans admit it, but the lore finally opens up: what the ARMS actually are, where the Alice in Wonderland codenames come from, and why Egrigori wants Ryo Takatsuki's arm badly enough to burn everything down. Hayato, Takeshi and Kei stop being the guys standing near Ryo and get real interiority here, and the new faces arrive with backgrounds instead of just gimmicks. The sound work keeps its nerve throughout, which matters when a transformation is more implied than drawn. Manga readers will grumble about what got compressed. Everyone else gets Katsumi and a body horror premise played completely straight.

Ryo Takatsuki and his companions each possess the mysterious A.R.M.S., and they are still searching for the secret behind them and for what their future holds. They have now learned where the answers can be found. Reaching them means a desperate fight for survival against a powerful military corporation that wants their secrets at any cost. This second chapter mixes action, science fiction and mystery with a thriller's sense of danger.