What is the biggest season to season improvement of an anime ever?

The jump from db to dbz is pretty significant.

As all agree, Promised Neverland's second season was a vast improvement over the first one

From SAO S2 to SAO S3 is one of the biggest improvements I know.

World Trigger first and foremost and then Kingdom, but only because of drastically improved production value. Their first seasons would have been just as good if they weren't so poorly animated.

I've never seen a sequel that improved so much purely in terms of writing to make me want to rate it more than one point higher than the first season. I forgot I rated AoT s4p1 two points higher because "EMA became terrorists" arc was kinda fun, definitely less boring than the other seasons.

As all agree, Promised Neverland's second season was a vast improvement over the first one

Kingdom probably. It started off rougher but now it gets better each season.

And personally Clannad. Clannad was ok,nothing special. But Clannad:After story is probably one of the best anime I have seen.

The jump from db to dbz is pretty significant.

i'll be honest, i feel like this basically never happens and i disagree with most examples people have already called out in the thread. anime quality usually dwindles, rather than increase and if i like something, having it retain consistency is the best i can realistically hope for, in a sea of diminishing production values, wackier and more convoluted storylines and frustrating character arcs.

don't get me wrong, there are a lot of shows where i like the sequels more, but usually only by a small margin and thanks to reaching the payoff after the buildup or immersion of earlier seasons.

for example, season 3 part 2 of attack on titan is one of the best seasons of anime that i have ever seen, but that is thanks to the work of previous seasons, which i liked quite a bit as well.

another example can be later parts of jojo, but that has a lot to do with getting familiar with the vibe and style of the series and i liked earlier parts as well (though i guess something like part 4 is substantially better than part 1, but the first season is mostly part 2 which is also great and so on).

i actually went through my entire list and basically found nothing other than shows where i increased my rating for the series by one so the biggest improvement for me would be something like what i mentioned above.

Yes, Season 2 of The Quintessential Quintuplets is so much better than the 1st. Not sure why I stuck with it through the first Season, but since I could binge the show I did. Never have regretted it. Only regretted skimming ahead in the Manga & spoiling myself as to the Series ending. ( Me & 1/3 of the Fandom.)

not sure if it counts, but the Haruhi movie is significantly better than all of S1+2.

and I loved S1+2, including Endless Eight.

@betaweeb I do understand your point, but I don't think that is true always. Every show has to do set up for later payoffs, not every show starts slow or boring. Kingdom is never boring or slow, yet the payoffs are basically as high as any AOT season (I'm not saying that Kingdom is better than AOT, I'm just saying that using the setup explanation for boring first seasons is not a completely valid excuse in my eyes and it depends on whether you actuallly think that the payoffs outweigh the setup itself). The most egregious case of this in my opinion is Hunter x Hunter. Yes, HxH has some of the greatest payoffs any anime has ever had, but imo like 60-70% of the show (probably 90-100) is either bad, boring or underwhelming (and a lot of the animes really badly paced). The only constantly good arcs in the entire anime are Yorknew and the 5 episode arc about Killua's family. Every other arc is either ass or deepy inconsistent. There is a 15 episodes run in the Chimera Ant arc where you have 3 10/10 insane episodes, 2 good ones and like 10 incredibly bad episodes. At some point you have to take accountable the show for having really bad setups or first seasons. Of course there are exceptions, but I personally think that sometimes there are undoubtedly differences between arcs or seasons of the same show.

Wow I disagree with literally all of your opinions lol. I like the first season the most out all of the series you'd mentioned, aside from Haikyuu. The second season for Haikyuu is my favorite.

Anyways, Clannad: After Story is an easy answer. The first season was extremely boring, but everything after the time skip in the second season was great.
Also gotta say Scissors Seven. The first and second season had a lot of cringe humor, but the third season was a lot more serious and emotional.
Shout-out to Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S and Golden Kamuy S3. Ignoring the filler, the Sisters arc was amazing. Golden Kamuy S3 amped up the tension and comedy in all kinds of ways.

From SAO S2 to SAO S3 is one of the biggest improvements I know.

Gundam ZZ is a massive improvement over Zeta.

Diamond is Unbreakable and Stone Ocean are also huge improvements over previous Jojo seasons.

Nanoha too, but it never got good. The original was just that bad.

Is the 2nd part of Jojo good or at least better than the first one? Because a friend of mine told me that the first 2 are pretty shit and from the 3rd onwards are better. I managed to watch te first one and a couple of eps of the 2nd part but I stopped because is was still pretty boring to me (I will continue Jojo someday but I feel like I kind of need a push or smth).

Is the 2nd part of Jojo good or at least better than the first one? Because a friend of mine told me that the first 2 are pretty shit and from the 3rd onwards are better. I managed to watch te first one and a couple of eps of the 2nd part but I stopped because is was still pretty boring to me (I will continue Jojo someday but I feel like I kind of need a push or smth).

@DarkFirefly72
Remember that part =/= season.
The first season covers the first two parts (And yes, the second is better than the first).

If you're referring to the second season (Part 3), know that ti is pretty terrible until the start of the Egypt arc.

Everyone says part 2 is better than 1. I felt the same way you did, however, and I didn't think it got any better later on. Part 3 is worse.

@Lucifrost From what I've heard the first 2 parts are considered the worst by everyone and parts 3-6 are pretty divided in opinion and it basically boils down to your taste and opinion (of course part 7 is considered a masterpiece). One day I will continue watching it but it is going to take a lot of willpower. It reminds me of early One Piece when some parts are really rough to get through.