So good to see my favorite LN series back with Season 2 so quickly. So many things I can say, but I will keep it to the highlights.

• I think it was a good choice to do a tiny bit of recap to make it clear that Claire won the Bushin Festival. I remember a lot of people not really picking up on that at the end of last season. Though, I am sad to see they pretty much cut the scene of Cid treating Claire to dinner, it was a pretty funny one. It was nice of Cid to yadda-yadda his way through most of the recap so as to keep things moving.
• The "I smell it" gag and that whole Shadow Garden meeting was an anime original scene and worked pretty well. The anime keeps finding ways to incorporate members of the Seven Shadows that haven't even really had an impact in the LNs yet.
• They handled the early ghoul stuff a bit differently, but I actually like they way they did it a lot. In the LN, Cid didn't really meet Mary in that way, so he was spouting off lines that he made up to sound cool. In the anime, I really like that he copied Mary's lines with everybody that he met as Shadow. I am pretty sure they literally just reused the animation of him saying them multiple times, adding to the gag.
• Skel and Po showing up was nice to see. They don't appear in this arc at all, but this totally fits their characters.
• Claire is just casually decapitating ghouls with a kick. If you remember, we saw Rose do this to a cult member in Season 1 when she gets her magic back during the school attack arc.
• Mary using a blood sword is a nice touch that I don't remember being in the LNs. However, it totally fits with the lore and I really like it.
• The last five minutes of the episode felt like a whirlwind as they rapidly introduced all the new characters for this arc.
• I like the new OP. I was never a huge fan of Season 1's OP, so I am happy with the change. I guess we will see what they have done with the ED next episode.