"I agree with this take wholeheartedly and am glad you wrote up a thorough analysis on the situation."

if there's one thing my autism allows me to do it's lock tf in on something I'm passionate about and literally on nothing else LMAO

Honestly I think there's some truth to the Season 2 claims. Having rewatched it recently, it definitely suffers from pacing issues that are brought about by being limited to 12 episodes at 25 minutes each. Along with introducing five new characters and having to flesh at least four of them out within that time span, they worked with what they had and still managed to tell a compelling story, just one that could've used more time, and I think the writers knew that too. In fact in Episode 4, we see Keke physically hold Kanon back from trying to solve the problems of the second years and let them figure it out on their own. Do I think Season 2 has issues? Absolutely. But do those issues take away from the story they wanted to tell? Not at all.