English Dub Season Review: 7 SEEDS “Part 2”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The second part of 7 SEEDS opens up pretty much right where the first season left off – Hana has seemingly perished by drowning due to the non-action (or action) of Ango and Ryo. With this mishap and accusations of attempted rape laid out against Ango, the two of them are banished by their group and strike out on their own.

After wandering through the terrain all by their lonesomes, they eventually make contact with another team called Summer B. Ango and Ryo begin to make themselves a part of this new group, and slowly they become a team.

Later on, they come upon a strange ship. They become trapped inside it without an easy exit, and that’s not the worst part – the ship is set to launch missiles that may exterminate themselves and the other groups. Team Summer B works to disarm the missles. And they do succeed at the end, although maybe not in the way they’d hoped. Ango, Ryo, and the other members have learned that humanity is worth saving, and their teammates are worth fighting for.

Our Take:

7 SEEDS is a series that’s set in our world, but not a recognizable version of it. No, as the first season introduced, this is a strange land with newly-evolved creatures and no humans except for a select few who were cryogenically preserved for just such an occasion. The world was destroyed by a meteor and has been reborn now. It’s a harsh, challenging time and there are multiple teams of 7 people each who now set about to explore, conquer, and just generally survive this new era.

If all that sounds interesting to you, don’t get your hopes too high yet. While the world of 7 SEEDS has the potential to be visually and conceptually stimulating, it doesn’t exactly deliver on those promises all of the time. Throughout this season, I found myself wishing for more development and exploration of the world itself. For a world that’s supposed to be so alien, it all looks bland and familiar. Even the creatures of 7 SEEDS just look like two different animals smushed together – like cheap ripoffs of The Legend of Korra or something.

To be completely fair, the show doesn’t really have much of an opportunity to show off the world itself because this season traps our main group inside of a boat for a large part of the season. It’s not exactly the most compelling situation, and it drags on for a long time, but the show is based on an award-winning manga, so I can’t exactly fault the series for being obligated to hit the same story beats. Sometimes things that flowed well in print just don’t work as successfully on screen.

The saving grace of the show is the characters. Usually shows set in post-apocalyptic wastelands have a band of very different people coming together to form a newfound family, and 7 SEEDS is no different in that respect. But while it breaks no new ground in the setup, each character is fleshed out fairly well and rises beyond mere stereotypes. I even found myself liking Ango and Ryo a bit more as the season went on, which is not something I saw happening after viewing the first episode. Their slow journey to joining team Summer B is satisfying to watch. They’re wary at first, but then slowly begin to form connections with their new team. Summer B is a place for the outcasts to go, and though they may not be the greatest survivors or explorers, they work together and do what needs to be done.

The Netflix dub of the show isn’t the greatest I’ve heard. The writing itself is solid. One of the things I appreciate about watching anime on Netflix is that you can view the original Japanese subtitles translated into English while listening to how the English dub ended up sounding. And the dub stays very faithful to the original intent while also sounding natural in English for the most part. There’s the occasional weirdly phrased sentence of course, but nothing dealbreaking. The casting is a mixed bag. Ango is one of the more important characters to the show, and his actor just sounds bored and stilted for much of the season. However, there were other casting choices like Hana’s VA who sounded just right for the parts.

Overall, the second part of 7 SEEDS doesn’t do much to attract new viewers or welcome any new audience groups to the show. If you watched the first season and thought it was okay, ask yourself if you want to go through that again. This season doesn’t really come with any new answers or definitive endings for anybody. Though the final episode does a good job resolving the story arc’s conflict, it definitely leaves room for more to come. If enough people like 7 SEEDS Part 2 and watch it, Netflix could potentially greenlight another season, but I wouldn’t count on it. If you want to see the seeds continue growing, you’ll probably have to pick up the manga.