I don’t know if it has been these recent current affairs or not, but this Spring season has felt like the most trying one I’ve followed for a good long while. There have been some seasons with shows I really hated that made me think “Oh please, let this season end already!”, and there’s this one with one show I love, one show I like, and the other I’m not enjoying anymore, plus all the stuff IRL…I’m happy it is ending, definitely. I’m sure future seasons I follow will turn out better than this one.
I’ll be doing a full season review post next week, when Kaguya-sama ends, so let’s start with the shows that actually are ending this week.
Tamayomi Episode 12
Tamayomi has been such a fun watch, but…well, here’s how I saw the show, now it’s finally ended. There have been some things I’ve enjoyed whilst watching it, and there have been some things I ended up not liking. I’ll be going into more detail about both of them next week in the season review post, but it’s been this final episode that has, effectively, put the show to bed.
This final episode means we find out who wins this game. It’s a bit of a no-brainer there, though, but these few episodes that have covered this one game against Ryoyukan have been pretty exciting to watch. It has acted as the team’s evolution from a small baseball club trying to escape the poor reputation of its predecessors, to a tier 1 school baseball team. Predictable some might say, but then I didn’t expect anything more or less here.
We’re shown little moments from both teams, like Yoshino breaking down when she feels solely responsible for Ryoyukan’s big plays, and Nakata slowly getting more and more frustrated with a team she greatly underestimated. I know it’s very unlikely to happen, but a part of me wants to see more of Nakata for some reason. Even if it’s some spin-off OVA, or something entirely new. In these final episodes, she has proven to be a very good secondary character, despite both being on an opposing team, and having considerably less lines than everyone else in Shin Koshigaya.
As for how this show ended…it may have been predictable, but I’m still happy with it. Sure, we didn’t get all the yuribait we were promised, but that’s not really something I’m too concerned about. It’s funny how it has taken me this long to realize how many butt and thigh shots we’ve had in these past 12 weeks…so so many…
Wave, Listen to Me! Episode 12
I’ll be glad to see the end of this show. Wave, Listen to Me! just hasn’t resonated with me (that pun wasn’t deliberate, by the way). What I expected was an offbeat comedy with a disaster woman wanting revenge on an ex via a radio show, but what I ended up getting were side-stories that ended up going in all sorts of directions; some alright, and some just plain confusing. I do admire how it’s taken to use real life things such as existing brand names to make the show more realistic. But that’s really it.
The final episode here has Minare with her radio slot, but instead of going ad lib with a crazy story, she ends up reading out suggestions sent in via the radio website. But when something unexpected happens, she and the rest of the radio staff are forced to think on their feet…and end up going ad lib, to keep a good mood for listeners until the cavalry arrives – cavalry being the regular DJ doing her daily morning news slot.
This finale for Wave, Listen to Me! really felt like a non-ending for me, despite what happened this week. I don’t care if this gets a second season, and I don’t care if the show ends now…the show went from 10 to 0 for me in the space of a few episodes, and stayed in low numbers for the rest of the season. This finale may have perked up, but I still feel it was too late. Successful mature comedies shouldn’t have to be this way, and so it sucks that this turned out the way it did, but it is what it is. Even though I don’t really want to talk more about how much this show disappointed me, I’ll still go into some more details about the show as a whole next week.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2 Episode 11
We still have one more episode of Kaguya-sama to come, though it is interesting that it has been this one penultimate episode of the show that has made me think a lot more about the route that the studio (A-1) decided to go down in terms of animation and script-writing. Sure, I’ve dished out plenty of compliments over ex-SHAFT staff, different styles that have made the franchise look that much more appealing, and a story that is more linear than what season 1 offered. But of course not everyone is a SHAFT fan, and not everyone is going to see these changes for the better. More on that another time, but for now let’s just talk about how this penultimate episode went. And oh my god…here was me thinking the election day episode from Miko’s point-of-view was the best of the show…
Just as the election day episode was one story, so is this one, and once again another character is reminded of the person they were in junior high school. Ishigami began junior high school as an average schoolboy. A girl classmate comes over to his desk every now and then to perk him up, but other than that, nothing really happens…until Ishigami discovers her boyfriend, the most popular boy in the school, is cheating on her, and doesn’t even care if everyone knows. I don’t want to spoil the rest of this episode because it really is a amazing story to watch.
Season 1 of Kaguya-sama was in my top 5 shows of 2019, and even though this second season is quite different than the ongoing gags we saw last year, I think it has worked for the better. Like I said earlier, I know that not everyone has really warmed to these massive changes (from slapstick comedy to entire episodes of emotional drama). People will have warmed to the style that they loved in season 1, and be a little taken aback that so much has changed. Sure, we get some great comedy, but to put the emphasis more on a linear story and character development is something that can either expand the franchise’s fanbase or narrow it. Next week, I get to spoil what happened in Ishigami’s emotionally-charged flashback story, as well as give my final opinion of this season as a whole, but I can already say that this show is easily one of the best of this year so far.
Phew, one more week to go. I have some show review posts coming up here on OASG, and as well as that, I have something else in mind to write about here over the summer that’ll keep me busy. Considering that the shows that are left this season (and haven’t been delayed to the fall) are mostly big franchises I haven’t really warmed to, I can’t think what seasonal shows I could watch. But what are you guys going to be watching this Summer? Or will you just be catching up on those shows you missed? Feel free to hit that like button and air your opinions in the comments below!
And remember to keep washing your hands and have good hygiene as well!