WARNING: The entirety of this review is mainly one big spoiler, so read at your own risk. Almost entirely similar to the last one, except it has no moments that any casual newcomer can read.
Right off the bat, this website NOW puts this anime into Comedy. But, it is NOT at all; for the most part. And, it's delivery of comedy was really stale in comparison to the first. But, let me get segregate this review into two sections. Firstly, the characters. Oh man, I wanted this to be saved for last, but I can not hold it off, as it does effect those who watched the first season. And, know the word "cliché"? Get used to it for now.
Remember Junichi, that guy with the hazel hair? That guy that had the soft personality, was really funny and had a generally different atmosphere from most male protagonists? Well, say goodbye to that, because he was retooled to match the hair color of his comedic friend, Suginami, and was given a cliché male protagonist personality where he can literally not explain a misunderstanding like his life depends on it, is constantly smacked around and only is respected in the serious moments. However, he had his moments in this one, but they were far from often like his hazel haired counterpart. He was also given a light facelift that ruined the soft nature of his look that he had before. Despite all this, he had the funniest parts in the anime, for the very little comedy it had; and his character didn't dilute nearly as much as the next one I'm about to bring up.
This time, not Sakura; oh no. We are talking about NEMU. Now, this cuts right into my next section altogether, due to how much I hate this girl. Nemu single-handedly hogged Junichi for herself through the entire anime...and no, I don't mean they just hungout a lot.
If you remembered from my last review, she is Junichi's "sister" which means she grew up with him and, well, hogged him. I am not going to lie, I hate this more than most hate (...) because, well (...), they didn't meet until much later in their lives. So, they did not have the bond that normal siblings have. Don't really want to list the anime name or any references to it, due to its controversial nature. It does unfortunately make my review look a big lop-sided here, but it is just too significant to bring up.
However, to regress back to the prior topic, Junichi and Nemu pretty much WERE siblings, even if they weren't by blood. I know they said that cheesy line where they were "hiding their love by being siblings" but, can't any pair of siblings say that? No, they were siblings; I don't care how they phrase it. Sibling love is still too different from normal love. It is true that sibling love is actually one step away from normal love, given it is all of the benefits (in a good relationship) without the sex. So, just stepping up one more pretty much qualifies as lovers.
However, Nemu's ill behavior towards Junichi really stirred some anger in my heart and reminded me they felt like siblings trying to have a family of their own. If you couldn't tell already, this season gave us THREE new female leads to, once again, fall in love with Junichi; seemingly out of nowhere as it seems, and pretty much turned it into a generic harem. But, tried to balance it with at least one new male, though he is significantly less important than Suginami in the end. He is definitely filler at best, since he has no altercations to the story; of which, Suginami hogs that spotlight himself in a few major points. Speaking of, I like how his character is nearly untouched from his season one counterpart.
Anyway, to further bag on Nemu, you can tell both her and Junichi have a sibling relationship. I know in some anime the lovers have a hate period, but Nemu hates him the ENTIRE time. Their kind moments are only in the serious ones, but Nemu effectively treats him badly for the most part. Take into consideration how any other girl would do the same, for now I will list Kotori as she seemed to be the most competitive to Junichi's affection, and Nemu is not hot stuff anymore.
In my opinion, that OVA was the TRUE ending to this anime. Kotori deserved to be with Junichi and it shows. She treats him nicely, is not a total bitch to him like Nemu and is more deserving of his love. Nemu is the kind of nice person that assumes her nice deeds should always be re-payed. And, well that isn't necessarily bad, if you think someone has to pay you for EVERY nice deed you do for them, then that is just you being selfish and not nice at all.
But, to not put all this pressure on Nemu, I will say this much about Junichi himself. He is a lazy slob, had to have the help of his friends to get to school on time EVERY day and forgets things a lot. However, he is a very innocent male lead that, if given less pressure to explain things, does so very well. And, well, he usually never lies about it. He has been shown to be much more perverted in this anime, to add yet another cliché to the mix; but they only did the one time for some comedy with Aisia. I would dedicate a portion here to Aisia herself, but I don't want to write about this anime for long.
But, I should probably bring up Sakura, shouldn't I? Well, the reason I didn't is because, well, the anime does something similar. She doesn't show up until the anime is almost over and her significance to the story is to just add another wizard to the mix to give Aisia some guilt about her magic. But, she is left unchanged, which plays a MAJOR role in the story if you are a very in-depth listener.
I'm just going to come clean and say it, though. I will dedicate just a LITTLE bit of this review to Aisia, but only towards her main goal. Halfway through the anime, she notices that Kotori liked Junichi, but was baffled that Nemu had him all to herself; similar to me. So, she wished as hard as she could to the withered cherry tree that Junichi and Nemu would remain in a sibling relationship. In the end, this was the ending I wanted and so I was cheering Aisia on the ENTIRE time and was happy that this anime might have a good ending. Sakura tried to stop her, but failed (and I was just living it up right there) miserably.
Why? Well, you remember how Sakura was not a grown women? Tick, tick, tick, DING! That's right, the magic in that cherry tree is STILL there because Sakura is not a grown women as she should have became after the tree withered; hinting it still had a breadth of life left within. She even references this herself to Junichi because she thought "he would like her better that way" or something, which means that she never let go of it entirely herself. I picked up on it right away, which horrified me because the story did get to me in a way. I didn't think I would have caught onto a reference that wasn't even brought up until one of the last episodes. In fact, I don't think it was ever brought up, hinting that you really just had to be listening to the anime to know for sure. I did, and was right, as the tree was saved.
To summarize everything, though, I have no good merits for this anime as it was Cliché City the ENTIRE time. The guy ends up with the main girl, whom is the bitchiest of all the girls; the plan of the opposing protagonist failed and so forth. I can only recommend this to first time anime viewers, as you wouldn't catch onto its nature. But, if you are an anime veteran and have been watching many for years, this one won't be good at all. It also forces down a lot of "sad" moments at you that don't do it justice as well as the first season did.
Well I already said this review would be all spoilers, there is one in particular that I do not wish to reveal for season one fans that want to finish up the anime. So, I will mask it with a warning, as I enjoyed it a lot; one of the few things I actually DID like about the anime.
(SPOILER BEGIN)
If I had to pick the one thing I enjoyed most about this anime, Misaki was it. It was the perfect reference to season one and only those that watched it will know who this girl is right away. I loved it so much because this girl was so subtle in her dialogue, but she was so discrete with who she was that it was hard for me to pick up the pieces. But, when I did, I realized she had the SAME last name as Yoriko.
So, yes, Misaki is the girl that Yoriko explored the world for. You know, that girl in the window from the VERY first episode of Da Capo. It was truly heartwarming to see her again, and that she remembered everything about Junichi. I never knew why she didn't greet him again, but perhaps it might have been because that would require, you know, GOOD writing to achieve. I wish she did, but it was very nice to see her again either way. It warmed my heart.
(SPOILER END)
So, I would stay away from this one at all costs. It's not even worth it to watch this season, as it will end the way you expect it to. You know, where Junichi and Nemu get MARRIED. Oh, and apparently, a little baby boy grew up to be a little girl. I never understood that at all, but it made me laugh. One of the few moments of this anime that was funny WASN'T during an intended comedy scene, how quaint.
