“The one where we actually integrate the main character into the setting” is an important plot beat for a lot of shows, particularly ones in the Urban Fantasy spectrum where there’s a whole world that the character needs to get used to. It’s not restricted to that genre – any scenario where you have a relative unknowing newbie as your lead could involve the plot beat – but it is fairly ubiquitous here since the element that requires the beat is close to universal.
It’s also typically one of the more tedious plot beats, because milking it for drama very rarely works. We know that the main character can’t actually refuse to become part of the story, or we wouldn’t be following them. It can be important to have the character choose for themselves to get involved rather than being dragged in, but all the same we know how the “drama” ends. Some shows will dodge this beat by shortcutting it at the start of episode 1 while others will put it off a little by forcing the character into the deep end and then making them choose after they’ve already had a larger-than-average taste of the action. For instance, Shinji’s first attempted retirement in Evangelion is basically the same beat. However, no matter how the beat is navigated, it’s so early and so basic that, again, there’s not much opportunity to do anything different with it, making most attempts to drag it out fall flat. Madoka Magica is just about the only property I can think of that actually manages to subvert or play with the expectations for this beat and it should go pretty much without saying that just because Madoka pulled it off doesn’t mean anything else can.
I bring this up, because episode 2 of Shikizakura is all about that beat. From the end of last episode, we knew that the main power suit gang was going to reject our main character. Rather than being won over with any kind of haste, they go ahead and stick to their guns, reducing the possessed suit (Ibara) to a controllable bracelet from and dropping our would-be hero back off at home without listening to any of his pleas to join up. It seems right there like the main character’s journey is over, except for the part where we absolutely know that can’t be true.
Sure enough, the main team gets into some trouble later while pursuing an Oni that hunts the local subway and attacks women. Glasses-wearing green sourpuss Ryou in particular ends up in over his head pursuing the boss in a way that cuts him off from the rest of the group. The shrine maiden tries to convince Ibara to show her the way through, but Ibara is an Oni himself and quite disinclined to help. Our main character, meanwhile, is lounging at home trying to come to terms with what he’s been through, only to telepathically be party to the conversation and ultimately decide that if he’s resolved to be a hero, he’s going to have to get out there and save the day.
This leads to MC Kakeru arriving in the subway’s alternate dimension and taking charge of Ibara. Both shrine maiden and Ibara himself warn Kakeru that he’ll be consumed, but Kakeru gives Ibara a choice: work together or be stuck forever as a useless helpless bracelet. Ibara is quite amused by the guts shown to browbeat an otherworldly being possessing a power suit and agrees to lend his power, leading to a timely rescue and, as he’s proven able to control Ibara, Kakeru’s acceptance into the group.
And it’s… standard. This is a kind of tedious episode in an objective sense, but the writing does at least keep it moving forward passably, so for an episode dedicated to this tedious yet somewhat necessary plot beat it could be a lot worse. The animation can be a little stilted from time to time, especially in terms of the facial expressions (something that you notice when a minor character in this episode is hand-drawn and has much better and smoother movements than the leads) but the action is at least competent, and it’s by no means Ex-Arm tier bad at any point.
That said, the show does need to shape up in a few ways, particularly when it comes to conflict. The Oni are said to prey upon the sadness and dark emotions in mankind (somewhat similar to Witches in Madoka) but in our first two episodes they’ve pretty much just been uncreatively-designed chompy monsters that wouldn’t make it as half-baked Grimm. They look like the generic enemies in an early 3D era game – maybe not polygonal enough for an N64 entry, but about as inventive – and they act like them too, with no real creative intelligence. It’s not reasonable to sustain a story when the main conflict is with bad guys on a level not dissimilar to Mario’s Goombas. You can use them, but there has to be something more. Depending on the show, that might not have to be something you fight, it could be the environment that the characters have to exist in or the competing human interests of individuals or factions that technically have to struggle together in order to survive (especially when the “Goombas” are stronger and more threatening), but that turns the enemy into more of a complicating factor than the primary source of interest.
However, Shikizakura isn’t set up as the kind of show that can really survive using massed generic enemies, it’s a sort of power-suit-fighting-show that directly appeals to genre tropes and thus needs compelling foes to punch out. They don’t have to be tactical if they play more on the emotional aspect and the stories of those afflicted by Oni whose sadness is drawn out and in turn draws the monster, and they don’t so much have to be emotionally powerful if they can be unique tactical challenges that require wit and generate interest in the fighting itself, but ideally they’d be a little bit of both and they absolutely need to be one or the other at minimum.
We also need some degree of interpersonal chemistry for our heroes. We kind of get what our main character is like, how he’s hung up on the “lone survivor” thing and what he saw in the starting flashback, and we have the start of a handle on Ryou since we’re told he may be hunting for a particular Oni. Oka isn’t the worst but for all that she’s nice and has Kakeru’s interest, her characterization is currently fairly thin and based heavily on how she’s kind of awkward – not really weird or awkward, but kind of awkward. The other two girls in their power suits are just there, with no personality to speak of yet.
And it’s episode 2. That’s early. There are plenty of good shows that haven’t established all their characters as of the second episode. Hell, there are good shows that haven’t introduced all their major characters by the second episode and that don’t even get full development for latecomers by that character’s second episode. However, Shikizakura is kind of weak when it comes to establishing “voices” for these characters (not talking about the actual audio work, but the character that comes off in their writing and mannerisms, incorporating elements of their literal voice but also their lines, opinions, animations, and even base design).
A character having a distinctive “voice” is the quickest and most immediate way to communicate who they are as a baseline. Ryou’s voice is prideful, standoffish, cold, and harsh. Nobody else has anything anywhere near as strong. Contrast Kakeru’s kind of overweight kind of otaku roommate with Daru, from Steins;Gate. Our friend here has a somewhat weak voice. He does have interests, and in that he’s one of the better Shikizakura characters, but Daru, despite having a similar design and role, has a significantly stronger voice while being part of a cast that all has distinctive voices, so you understand more of him and his nuance. It only takes seeing a couple interactions that don’t necessarily directly involve his interests to understand how Daru will probably react to something. Kakeru’s friend here needs to be somewhat more directly told and I still don’t get him as well. And the characters very much go down from there for now.
However, the failure to establish immediate strong voices is one that can be overlooked if the explicit development is good. It would be better to have both strong voices and strong development, and if you have to choose one there’s a degree to which voices might be the better choice, but if they do the development that’s still good.
Episode 3 is going to be something of a “make or break” point for Shikizakura. It’s done the required tedious starting plot beats. Now it needs to do something that really utilizes the characters and conflict, presenting us with people (not game pieces) who engage in a battle that is both an interesting combat challenge and that makes an emotional connections so we care about what’s at stake beyond the generic care of not wanting nebulous “innocent people” to suffer. The honeymoon period is over; if the show doesn’t shape up and do its genre justice things will start looking down, and fast.