B the Beginning opinions and season 2 rewrite
Recently, I rewatched B the Beginning, since I found out it had a season 2 and was like "heck yeah, I'd like to see more of those characters and that world".
Season 1 was great. 9.5/10. The plot was woven well and it was compact, the characters were adorned with small details and quirks that made them complex people rather than just characters and the animation and direction were full of character. Legendary outro song. The whole show had it's own unique feel. I don't really have any criticisms.
Season 2 was garbage. The plot was all over the place. The characters were reduced to caricatures of their former selves. The snappy dialogue and the neverending and meaningful action (even in the short quiet scenes) were replaced with neverending dialogue and short and meaningless action scenes. The animation and direction were bland and generic. The outro song was also generic. To me, it was a bore even as background noise. I quit during episode 4.
Which is why I made a rewrite of season 2 in my head. I don't claim this rewrite to be a fix, or even good. I'm sure whoever worked on season 1 would be able to write something much better than what I am about to vomit here.
The season starts with Keith and Lily together at a crime scene, eating freshly baked bean buns and sharing clues. They say "yeah, this is definitely a copy-cat" then the shot pans out to reveal the Killer B signature on the wall.
Cue intro, then the scene shifts to Kirisame showing up just like the original, but, instead of his "new world order" thing, his plan would have been to make Koku the king of Cremona. He was shown in season 1 to be the one most loyal to Koku. Koku would refuse, because he just wants to live peacefully with Yuna and his violin repair job, even offering Kirisame his arm back. Kirisame says no and that he'll be back.
Meanwhile, the RIS is super busy, because a big series of murders is happening: the king's heirs are being killed one by one and all of them have the "Killer B" signature on them (the crime scene at the start was also one of those heirs). Also, Keith is nowhere to be found (again). Lily is the one to have to find him (again).
Lily and Keith both know it's not Koku this time, even though the signatures look like his now. All of the crime scenes had golden ampule residue, including inside the bodies and all of the vicious wounds happened after death.
Keith is doing independent investigations and has already figured out Kirisame is involved. Then, late at night, at the heir crime scene from the beginning, Keith finds some golden ampule residue and also meets with Kirisame. The latter is like "Canopus, you have to convince Koku to claim his rightful place" and Keith, in his mind, is like "yeah, this guy is NOT the mastermind" (with a subtle close-up shot of his eyes and no inner thoughts monologue, to let the audience interpret the scene).
Anyways, there is only one heir remaining (it's the bald dude with the ginger beard) and RIS has to protect him, together with all the cops and the royal security. Meanwhile, Lily is revisiting all of the other heir crime scenes and uses her own methods to deduce the mystery. She discovers that all of them were cut with the same sharp weapon that was used to carve the Killer B signs and asks Yuna about it. Koku is also nowhere to be found. Yuna says that it was definitely done with blue steel (because maybe it leaves some kind of residue or something), so Kirisame couldn't have killed them, because he doesn't have any of that, since Koku has it as his arm. So, together they go to the library to do some research on the royal family history, to find some more leads. Lily finds out from Yuna that the royal family branched out some 1000 years ago and that the current king is from that branch, while the original bloodline fell into obscurity. Lily then wonders if Koku might be of the original bloodline, and that is why Kirisame wants him to be king that badly, but Yuna says no, the royal family are heirs of the guy who killed the first Black King (she did lots of research together with Keith).
Suddenly, Lily gets a call from Boris, who called everyone. The last heir disappeared, everyone is dead, including a bunch of armed strangers and Mario is gravely injured and unconscious. On the way to the station, Koku shows up, all beaten and bruised, but he heals while he tells them basically the same thing and that the apparent leader of that attack had a mask on his face, so he couldn't tell who it was. Then, a video transmission is put on tv. Someone is tied to a chair, with a bag on his head, in a castle room, and Kirisame's voice booms out "Let the rightful King take his place! If he doesn't claim his throne in the next 24 hours, then the person on the chair will die and we know you don't want this to happen to this particular person.".
Everyone at RIS is now in full activity. Kaela is tracking down the source of the transmission, Bran is gathering data on all medieval places, Eric is managing everyone and Boris is contacting all of the important and helpful people who are left. Lily realises that she can faintly hear waves while Kirisame is talking, so Kaela and Bran narrow it down and find out that there is a lone tower at sea, that had been around since the first king of Cremona.
Koku gets out his wings and everyone is like "What is this, what is happened, Lily explain". So Lily tells them the truth about Killer B. Everyone is conflicted and Chin-four-eyes says that he should have all three of them arrested, but they'll deal with this after the first heir is saved.
Then, Boris gets a call from the hospital. It's Mario and he tells them that they were attacked by a small army of people (who the audience knows they're all Reggies), and that Koku fought most of them off and that it's thanks to him that he's alive to tell the tale. Lily insists that Koku is a good guy, while Yuna is ready to throw hands with anyone who would touch even just the tip of one of his feathers. Everyone is conflicted, but Eric takes the lead and starts directing everyone to their priorities. Kaela gives them communication devices and sets up a tracking software (for their security, but also just in case they try to flee). Lily, Koku and Yuna get a boat and head to the King's Tower.
It's strangely empty, except for a few other boats. Koku goes bird and flies to the top. Lily and Yuna climb the stairs there (actually, does Yuna also have wings? I remember both skeletons had wings, so Yuna should be able to go bird also). They find the hostage and Lily pulls the bag from his face, but it's not the heir. It's Keith, all bruised up and unconscius. Lily tries to wake him up, but she doesn't get to do much, because Kirisame shows up and holds a monologue about Koku "finally coming to take his place as rightful ruler of this land". Keith wakes up briefly and tells Lily ina muted voice that Kirisame is not the mastermind. Koku jumps to fight Kirisame but, just then, someone comes from behind and stabs Kirisame in the back. Kirisame dies, but not before giving his last words ("Koku,... you are... our true king"). The backstabber comes in to the light and it's... the last heir guy. He manipulated Kirisame to do his bidding, so he could be the last heir and inherit the throne. Now that Kirisame is dead, everything is resolved and they can just take him back to Creona so he can be crowned. It's not like they can do anything to him, since he's crucial to the succesion and it would cause some more war, when Creona had just recovered from the previous one. Koku can't help but notice that the knife in his hand is made of blue steel ("so you were the one impersonating Killer B"). Koku tells Lily to get Keith and get away from here, to somewhere safe, then he proceeds to fight with the last heir guy. Lily gets Keith and moves to the boat, while Yuna protects them from the mini-army of Reggies that was now raiding the place.
During the fight, last heir guy tells Koku about the line of kings and the branching out and that it connects to the Jaula Blanca institute. That one of the big hands there was actually his uncle/grandfather/something, who was also a scion of the first king, therefore making Koku also a rightful heir to the throne (which would make his killing all the more satisfactory).
Finally, on the boat, after Yuna dispatched the last Reggie, Keith fully wakes up and tells them that he know who the real mastermind is. It's not the last heir guy either. Is the king himself. While Keith was imprisoned there, Kirisame told him about the new age of prosperity for the Reggies Koku would bring and that, soon, the Reggies would no longer need golden ampules to live, but that Koku needed to take the throne for that to happen. Kirisame was also dropping hints that he didn't have much left to live/keep his sanity anyway, because he was chugging golden ampules like water. Keith figured the rest out by himself.
Basically, the mastermind was someone who had an interest to have the heirs kill eachother and that the golden ampules had something to do with it. The Reggies would die without those ampules, so they clearly contain something to prolong life. Therefore, the mastermind was someone who was seeking immortality as a human and who was also rich enough to be able to invest in research to make the ampules work on normal humans, not just Reggies. And that someone could only be the king. Lily was like "you crazy, immature, reckless, good for nothing, dumbass", while holding his face in her hands and crying. Right then, Koku, landed on the boat, carrying the unconscius and beaten up last heir guy (Kirisame's body turned to ash). They went back to the mainland.
Back at mainland, Koku, Yuna and Lily instantly get their hands cuffed, as well as last heir guy (still fainted), and they have to explain the Lohengrim prophecy thing, together with the king's conspiracy, with Keith backing them up. Kaela and Mario understand. Bran doesn't really agree with all this. Boris sees Lily as a daughter, so he looks at this with an open mind and tells Eric to do the same. Eric says that they'll see if they can confirm this when they interogate last heir guy later.
They interrogate him and confirm everything. Last heir guy was like "Father never cared about us anyway! He was always absorbed in his research and politics, that he didn't even notice his sons and nephews were dying". They also found out from him that he was the one who poisoned the other heirs with golden ampules. So now the RIS was making a plan the stage an interview with the king and somehow get him to reveal the location of the research facility. Thankfully, a big meating with the press was happening in a few days, related to the last heir's arrest.
Lily and Bran disguise themselves as reporters and go to the press meeting and ask the king about the "miracle cure he's investing in that they heard rumors about". Every other reporter becomes super interested in this and everyone starts pestering the king. That was the plan, because, while all this was happening, Kaela was hacking into the royal computers, while Mario and Boris were doing spy work, in case it was all on paper. They find some stuff about chemical recepies and also a secret schedule with a "special" meeting at one of the historical sights.
That was all the proof they needed. All of the RIS agens come out and arrest the king for crimes against humanity. The king flees to the royal chambers. The agents run after him. In the royal chamber, the king opens a drawer and drinks the golden ampule inside. The shot then pans to Koku, sitting in the window frame all menacingly. The king says, without turning "I was planning to save this for after I framed my own death. Oh, well." The king's body then starts to shift all weirdly and he becomes young again. His hair is dark red and he sprouts wings, just like Koku's. Epic aerial battle ensues. The king is very strong and nearly kills Koku, who was already tired from fighting constantly. Still, Koku wins epicly and kills the king (strikes him doooowwwnnn).
Epilogue happens. After Lily and Yuna bring genetic evidence, it is proved that Koku is a legitimate heir. Koku is crowned as king. He takes Yuna as his queen and invests in golden ampule research to make ampules that have permanent effects to make Reggies healthy and autonomous even after 20 years of age. The kings death is ruled out as a stroke from overdose. Lily and Keith are on a nice date at the newly opened cafe. Keith is blushing aggresively the entire time. The other RIS guys are shown minding their personal lives in still shots (like, Boris with his grandkids, Bran playing a detective video game, Mario with 2 cats, Kaela with a big dog, Eric with his wife and kids, stuff like that), all with a chill anime song on the background. Or the season 1 outro. Or both.
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