It's MANDATORY you watch the first season (Rozen Maiden) before even reading this review. This is a direct follow-up to the first season

Preview

Soon after the end of the first season, Shinku is morning the loss of Suigin-tou, and have constant nightmares with her sister. Although everything seams peaceful among the sisters, enters Bara-suishou, the 7th Rozen Maiden, the younger and most unknown sister as she is rarely awaken when the others are. The only interest of Bara-suishou is to win the Alice Game.

Pacing

Rozen Maiden ~ traumend ~ follows the same tone from the original series, and can easily be regarded as a second direct part and not a separate season. The focus is still on Shinku and her relationships and problems, but less focused on Jun since most of his dramas were 'solved' at the first season. This time, we have more time with the Rozens, specifically Shinku and Suisei-seki. We also have the new Rozens Bara-suishou and Kanaria, both anxious to win the Alice Game.

The development is subtle and gentle and each character has their important part on the series. As a bonus, both Hina-ichigou and Suisei-seki are more likable and actually Suisei-seki is at certain point the main character of this series, some times more important than Shinku.

Conclusion

Rozen Maiden ~ traumend ~ is an excellent follow up to Rozen Maiden, with a lot of emotion and more development and depth. We have an excellent development of all the characters and their relationships, as well lots of surprises. The ending is quite open and somewhat surprising.

This series have both good and bad events that will surprise the fans, but probably this will be rendered high in all fan concepts. We also have some philosophy inserted into the series with the 'rabbit' Laplace Ma, who seams to be a reference to Laplace'a Demon. According to Marquis Pierre Simon de Laplace, a French philosopher and scientist: 'We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.'

Rozen Maiden Overture is a series prologue, and focus on Shinku, the Seki siblings and Suigin-tou and how they met during the Alice Game, focusing strongly on Suigin tou and her past, as well why she developed her personality. This OVA is strongly indicated to all fans, specially those who watched both series.