Cruel: The animation wasn't bad...but you did say it was half-assed, so I won't criticize it unless you'd like it, I don't want to criticize anything the author denies as their current skill/best work.

Kaizen:
+ Had a background
+ Had custom voice acting, which was something I wasn't expecting, was a nice thing to have.
+ Overall better combat.
+ Effects were much better, which as this point, I see as your speciality.
- The beginning flickering text was offsetting, wasn't very great to look at, reduce the flickering of the text, when it's haywire, it looks pretty ugly.
- The walk cycles were very off, and seemed out of sync for the most part, it seemed much attention wasn't put into these scenes.
- Voices were VERY unclear, and very quiet, I had to watch the animation twice to make sure I didn't miss anything, speak louder next time, or at least use a higher quality microphone.

My vote goes to Kaizen