This has definitely been a season to remember, and not for all the best reasons. We’ve been away from loved ones, we’ve had to be careful and alert whenever we leave home…oh, and we’ve had to think about what to do with all these delayed and postponed shows that were meant to be in both this Spring season and in the upcoming Summer season. I’ll get started with this season review first before I get all meaningful and philosophical, though.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2 Episode 12
Season 2 of Kaguya-sama started a little later than the other shows, hence why we’ve had to wait so long for its final episode. At least this show has gone out with a bang.
Instead of what we all thought would be the endstory (of either Kaguya or Miyuki finally confessing), the emphasis of this final episode is more on memories, in particular the memories that Kaguya made with the Student Council. She has had her old-fashioned flip phone ever since she was 5, and has only really used it to make emergency calls. However, when she started high school, she began taking more pictures of random things around school: classmates casually walking by, the school building, as well as Miyuki and the others. But when tragedy strikes one day, she is forced to look on the bright side, despite the circumstances. Thankfully she does, and with the help of the others, she is able to look forward…and take even more memorable photos.
This has been something I’ve noticed with this second season, where some cases, the emphasis of the story has been more on something else that’s just as detailed and heartwarming aside from the ongoing war between Kaguya and Miyuki. Firstly, Miko’s election campaign going horribly wrong, then Ishigami reliving his bad memories of middle school where he was made an outcast by someone he had discovered to be a con man. There isn’t a definitive ending in this second season, and so we’ll be seeing this war continue, which is great news as I’m sure that we, as fans of the franchise, all want more of Kaguya, Miyuki, Chika, Ishigami, Miko and co. But the question is: will a third season be better than this one? Hard to tell, considering how much this second season had.
Season Review
Well, even with these current affairs, this season has gone by surprisingly quickly for me. The 3 shows I ended up picking were all ones that, by the time they all ended, I had varying opinions on.
I had read about Tamayomi long before this season began and was looking forward to it. I wasn’t expecting it to be some outstanding yuribait show; just something to relax to…and that’s precisely what I got, only with less yuribait than I expected. The main pairing being the two lead character Yomi and Tamaki (pitcher and catcher for the team) while the only other one ended up being Yoshiko and Nozomi (coach/analyst and star batter). It really did feel like every other girl in the team ended up on the bench here. I mean, I would have really loved to hear more about the two senpais in the team, and what kind of backstory they have when it comes to playing baseball, or more about how much of a demon the kindly club advisor turned out to be…or even anything more substantial in anyone else. But for me, that wasn’t a complete letdown.
Heck, I’m not even going to complain about the animation hiccups we saw here and there, or the fact that you really needed to know the ins and outs of baseball to get some of what’s going on, because they weren’t really something that put this show down either. These were all likable characters, and we got a nice story about the formation of a team that’s trying to escape the shadow of its predecessors. I even liked the fact that we got a little into some of their opponents too, like the tier 1 team they faced off at the end of the show, as well as that other team who were pretty good, but didn’t really take baseball too seriously and only treated it as a club to have fun after school.
As for the yuribait we were all hoping for, the main pairing of Yomi and Tamaki felt more like a close friendship than what some of us would construe as a relationship. The pairing we all saw with Yoshiko and Nozomi felt more ‘genuine’, and personally, the little story the two of them had was just as much a highlight. Yoshiko felt, at some points, personally responsible for each bad play the team made, while we noticed Nozomi was very pessimistic at the beginning, only for someone like Yoshiko to help her warm to this school team more.
I’ll tell you this: while I didn’t get the yuribait I expected, what I didn’t see coming were the endless amount of thigh and butt shots. It ended up turning into a bit of a drinking game: every time you see a thigh/butt in the show, take a shot…oh wait, that might not be a good idea. You know, perhaps if Tamayomi got more exposure, there might be the slight possibility that we’ll see these girls again in a sequel season, but I highly doubt it. This was still a great show to chill out too, though. That’s what I was looking for in the first place, and I’m happy knowing that’s exactly what I got. It’s just a shame that I didn’t get anything like this when it came to watching Wave, Listen to Me!
This show was such a massive disappointment to me. It started off great, when we got to see our main protagonist for the first time – a disaster woman who hates her job and is a bit of a screw loose, eager to get revenge on the guy who wronged her. Minare could have been the kind of character we all could have warmed to and related with, so how did it all go wrong? Well I think reasons would differ for those who watched this in its entirety, but for me it was that the story kept going off in different tangents, and didn’t stick to its main one (or at least, what I thought was the main one) of Minare getting her revenge. Even then, when she finally got it, we were all left with a ‘what now?’ feeling, and ended up just getting a couple of meh episodes until the finale, with the earthquake.
I think that, to keep us interested in the show, Wave, Listen to Me! should have paid far more attention to its main story, as well as its character design. The secondary characters themselves were okay, but there was just something not quite right as I watched. And I haven’t even touched on how I think this is a bit of a niche show; not everyone will understand every joke in the show, or every Japanese/Hokkaido/Sapporo reference made…and there were a lot of them. Oh well. I won’t be missing this show one bit, and I think that for the future, I’ll think twice about picking comedy shows that lean towards a more mature tone. I shouldn’t have this mentality that every mature comedy anime show is going to turn out great.
I looked back at some of the big anime social networks like MyAnimeList and the main anime Reddit page, and noticed that the show wasn’t even that popular there either. They all saw a lot of flaws the show had, despite some of them warming to some of the characters like Minare and Mizuho. Some thought that Makie was a waste of time, and that the story she had about her psychotic and over-protective older brother didn’t need to be in the show, and that’s not to mention the ‘non-ending’ we all got in the final episode. We didn’t really know if Minare would return to being the disaster woman we all saw her to be, or to begin a new career in the half-hour radio show she had, broadcast in the middle of the night. Well, guess it doesn’t matter now; like I said, I’m glad to see the back of this.
I won’t lie; I had some reservations as I started season 2 of Kaguya-sama: Love is War. I’d seen a lot of sequel shows make the franchise vanish into obscurity, and so I was really happy to see it not happen here. In fact, I was pretty overjoyed, considering how much they upped the production for season 2.
That’s not to say that season 1 wasn’t good, though; in fact, it was an excellent show to watch last year. It’s just that, somehow, A-1 Pictures have made season 2 even better. The addition of former SHAFT staff made a real difference, along with more emphasis on a linear story, the addition of a new main character, and side-stories that made us really feel for Kaguya, Miyuki, Chika and Ishigami…as well as some of the secondaries. The show began in the way we all knew and loved, with regular gags coming one after the other, and then it got more serious when the election day arc came.
It was at this point where we got to see what the animation and production team were really capable of. One would normally make the assumption that Miyuki’s election rival, first-year Miko Iino, would be some kind of antagonist in the show, but the election day episode ended up being told from her perspective, thereby making her someone we can really feel for, want to protect, and give a big hug when we learn she didn’t win.
The show then moved onto the sports festival, which ended up splitting up into side-stories, like Kaguya panicking when she and Miyuki end up getting locked in the sports equipment shed, or Ishigami signing up for the cheer team, and ending up having to relive his terrible and heartbreaking past at middle school. What I especially like is how the show first portrayed Ishigami’s cheer club members as faceless individuals, then when he accepts that ‘normies’ can be decent people too, their faces suddenly become real to him.
I had always thought that last season’s Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! would keep the top spot on my list of best 2020 shows, but having seen this season, I’m really starting to think twice. Just like Eizouken, season 2 of Kaguya-sama has so much detail that we can like and absorb; heck, I still remember all of those bizarre and ridiculous clubs that that school had. Here in Kaguya-sama, the fact that production is that much better has made a real difference. Even though season 1 was great in its own right, this sequel season ended up being even better.
Makes me think about those movie franchises that had better sequels, like X-Men and the Batman movies (the 1990’s ones, not the Dark Knight trilogy). They all had great original movies, and even better second movies…but ended up going off the rails when it came to number 3 (X-Men: The Last Stand and Batman Forever, respectively). I’m worried that this could happen here in the Kaguya-sama franchise if, say, they decide to make a movie or something, but I doubt it. This franchise is just too good for the production team to let that happen…
So what am I up to in the next few months? Well, the first thing I might do is catch up on two shows I missed this season: My Next Life as a Villainess and Sing Yesterday For Me. I also want to take a look at Trigger’s new show BNA – Brand New Animal, which is available now on Netflix. But I’m going to be taking a step back from Otaku Theater for the summer season. Instead I have a little project for OASG that’ll be starting in a week or two, where I’ve picked one particular show of my youth, and am revisiting it. Don’t worry, the column will be back in October for the Fall season, with a heap of new seasonal shows for me to watch. Heck, I’ve already picked my Fall shows…providing that they’ll still be going ahead, and not be delayed or something.
Now it’s over, how has this Spring season been for you? It wasn’t like we all expected it to be, that’s for sure…and so how did you get around all the delays and cancellations? Feel free to hit that like button and air your opinions in the comments below! And remember to wash your hands and keep good hygiene!