Haikara-san ga Tooru Movie 2: Hana no Tokyo Dai Roman

I'd like to put in word for this film, despite the low score.
Is it predictable? Yes.
Is it less exciting than the first one? Of course, the beginning is always the best part.
Are its characters' actions frustrating? Frustrating as hell.
But you know what? That's just how it should be.
I believe that most of the low scores are due to an incorrect point of view: these questions make this movie sound like crap, but only if taken out of context.
Here, we are talking about a super romantic love story, one of the most scrambled ones, with lots of love, pain, regrets and guilt.
Everything in this film ... follows the classical love story, but it's still a good content, that's why it is possible to accept all the issues above.
If you are able to predict what is going to happen during the film, it isn't necessarily a bad thing, you should just keep enjoying it for what it is.
It's obvious that the plot can't be as fresh as the first part, we already know the story, so we can't expect extraordinary changes.
Plus, you'll need to bear all the "exhausting" parts (which anyway, are led by excellent characters), to finally see the happy ending we were all hoping for.
So, I agree, it's predicable and all, but it's still worth to watch. :)

The story started off great, with Benio in high spirits while looking for Shinobu. She was as proactive and headstrong as always. Very entertaining to watch her opening adventure. Unfortunately, her pro-activeness ended quickly.

As the truth behind Shinobu's disappearance was revealed, the plot became extremely predictable and got tiring quickly. The pacing was way too slow in the middle portion of this film. Every prediction I made ended up happening, even the ones I was really hoping wouldn't.

Benio isn't the only one who loses her agency. Things just happen to Shinobu and he's constantly tied up in worry. He's only spurned into action ... by the words of others. The only two characters that actively caused things to happen in the plot were destined to fail by the laws of shoujo. Obstacles were written out too conveniently. The ending did not feel earned.

As I've stated on the review of the first movie, I will start with the same thought about why I've checked the spoiler warning here. I might add some spoiler-ish things about the story and characters in this review, but there are minor ones, not something that I think will destroy the enjoyment of the ones reading this before watching the movie.
I will start on a sad note because this is how I felt after finishing this movie, even if the ending was on the good side.
Truthfully speaking there are a lot of bad parts in this sequel, they outweigh the good ones ... that is for certain.
Starting with the part that didn't make any sense whatsoever, the part where the FMC is in love with the MC, but they have to split up for a certain reason and the reason is that we needed more drama, of course that is not the why they split up, but if a normal person would think for about 5 minutes and not go to the ultimately bad decision as the first choice, this movie could've been saved. It felt like the characters were controlled by aliens or by an unknown virus, because such mistakes were impossible to make by the same characters in the first movie.
They used all kind of cliché reasoning to justify why they butchered the story to this degree, from memory loss to simply ' I will break up with you, so you could be happy' , but at the same time thinking that they still love each other kind of talk, let's not forget the long lost brother trope, even so if this type of reasons were used in other situations maybe it could've worked, but not here, not like they imagined it.
The whole movie was a drag to finish, except the first twenty minutes where all was well, the story was continued from where the last movie left us, Benio searches for Shinobu( lieutenant ), but to no avail, but keeps on hoping that he is alive and he will return to her someday.
After this part all hell breaks lose in the shoujo universe and overly dramatic scenes one after another came, bad, no, bad is nice word to describe the middle part, horrible decisions were made, like the writers had a bet on how bad they can make this part. Of course let's not forget the ending, as I've said in the beginning it's on the good side of things with an and they lived happily ever after type of ending, but before we get to that part we have to swim in the swamp of poorly made decisions yet again, with more grotesque and fake drama just so we could maybe understand why we got here, but it fell flat on its face just like the middle part.
Ok, enough with this and let's move on with the characters.
The good part is that the secondary characters shined here, from the kabuki actor ( Ranmaru ) to Onijima Sergeant and let's not forget Benio's best friend Tamaki, they made a nice impression and clearly were thinking with their head, not their rear part as the MC's.
Yes you've read it right, the mc's where that bad, I've said the same thing twice, just a little different and this is the third time, but I can't stress it enough, that's how bad they were here. Decisions like they were made by kindergarten children is the main reason I disliked them, not a hint of intelligent behavior, nothing like an adult should think in those situations. The writer's changed their personalities at 180 degrees because they need more drama.
Changing the subject. Let's move to the art/ animation section, the sequel ( this ) is just as good as the first part. The animation flows, it's not like a power point presentation like we are used to in the newer anime series we get season by season, the backgrounds are drawn with care and the colors are simply beautiful.
The OST drops a little from the first movie, maybe I couldn't pay attention to it because of how the story was evolving, but it felt a little bland in comparison.
As for a verdict, I am disappointed, maybe I wished for to much from an almost 50 years old story, but it could've been better, to bad it left a bad aftertaste to this story, for better or for worse I can't recommend this further, but you the one reading this want to see how their story ends go for it.
Thank you for reading, I hope that all of you that have read until this point will have a good day.