Dagashi Kashi 2

Let's be clear - I never thought that this series could get a 2nd season. No one thought, I believe. First season of Dagashi Kashi has been portrayed in the minds of people as "12 episode sweet commercial", but the second is something a bit different. I'm going to only compare it to the first season.

The story remains the same, there is Kokonotsu, whose dad wants him to take over the dagashi shop, there is Hotaru, who spends most of her time with him while telling him the story of sweets, and there are also Saya and To, who spend a lot of time with ... them too and, of course, there are japanese sweets (and sometimes toys). The main difference between the story in the first one and the second is that... There is drama in this one. Drama in Dagashi Kashi, yeah.
Kokonotsu fell in love with Hotaru and even forgot that he DIDN'T want to become a shop owner. After Hotaru lefts the town, he gets really depressed and that's when Kotoyama finally opens the door for the new characters, who are Hajime and Beniyutaka. While the second one doesn't really have much screen time, Hajime really shines. She is the one character who made this season as funny as it could be. Every scene with her is hilarious and she blends in with other people really well.

The biggest changes in this season are the new art style and shorter episode duration.
At first, I didn't like the art, but after watching one episode it was proved that I was wrong. All characters (Except for Hotaru, I guess, she was gorgeous in the 1st season) look AMAZINGLY good. Background art is on point too. The art shouldn't be something that can make this series bad.
As for the episode duration, it... also made the series better. The main point of Dagashi Kashi is promoting sweets while telling you it's history as you watch characters interact with each other, and some episodes in the first season were boring because this anime does not need to be 20 minutes long to do it's job.
My only complaint for this series would be TOO much fanservice in the first episodes. I mean, you're 2 episodes in and you already see Hotaru and Saya in one bath.

As for now, I think that second season is even better than the first one. It is more enjoyable and fun, while also remaining "educative" for those who want to know more about sweets.

Dagashi Kashi is that show that just doesn't stop being sweet. Take that literally or not I mean it both ways. This season in particular was much better than the last especially since we got an excellent new character (Owari Hajime) along with Beniyutaka and the hilarious shenanigans just went on.

I was quite skeptical of the studio change since the previous studio did a fine job and I was with the thought that Tezuka Productions couldn't manage such a show and couldn't bring it to greater heights. Let's just say I couldn't be more wrong. This season was a positive step up from the last ... in that we got more jokes, more characters, less focus on the sweets jargon and a reinforced and improved cast that was just as brilliant as they were weird. I just couldn't stop laughing in this season at everyone compared to the last where I was seen Google searching the sweets for a bit of context or relying on translation notes so I consider this a plus point. Then we had the sudden disappearance of an important character but to be honest I found that disappearance better since that departure led to further introductions of new characters like Owari Hajime and Beniyutaka who were vibrant, cheerful, unique and as mentioned hilarious. Did I mention they were also weird like everyone else?

Owari Hajime's Character was that of a klutz I had perceived but she too had her amazing moments such as with the 8 candy and the website madness. Although I felt she was slightly more used for fanservice than I expected from last season but thankfully it wasn't overused to the point that it would deter us from the main point of view, literally. As for Beniyutaka, he was voiced by none other than Sugita Tomokazu and I think I only need to tell you his other roles and you'll know just how talented this fellow is, he played Gintoki (Gintama) and Kyon (Haruhi Suzumiya). Two very popular and fantastic roles. Apart from Sugita, the other voice actors did brilliant and I enjoyed the exaggerated expressions used in some of the scenes.

Scenes reminds me of the art. Now since this is a studio change as I mentioned before, the art changed as well, although not too drastically on the backgrounds the character designs looked clearly different from last season like for example the way the eyes looked this time. The eyes were more stretched than last time and I don't think this is a plus or minus since the characters' eyes were stretched last time as well, although not as much as this season. Apart from that the OP and ED used was unsurprisingly Dagashi themed. They were as playful as before and to be honest I was already addicted to the OP like 3-4 episodes in. As for the ED, well brilliant as always. Thankfully the Background music for the show didn't change from last time so it wasn't something that would need to get used to.

Since there's little to no plot relation from last time I can easily advise others who haven't watched the previous season to view this first since they won't lose any context by watching this first. If they find this interesting then I'm sure they'll like season 1 as well, albeit some may find the Dagashi jargon a bit on the difficult to understand side. Regardless, both seasons were amazing, but personally I find this superior for the aforementioned reason as it's easy to understand and yet still such a beloved joy to watch.

This season was pretty interesting for me, since we had a different set of anime and I had maybe 2-3 sequels only out of which Saiki Kusuo and Dagashi were included and frankly the sequels this season didn't disappoint me one bit. Maybe because with sequels you know what is going to happen and if you're not a masochist you'll usually watch sequels if you liked the previous one (talking about people planning to watch that Isekai Smartphone sequel because it won't be good I tell you now).

Do you want a show that makes you laugh and give you a little but of cultural knowledge? How about watch an anime all about sweets? Funny Characters and no plot to worry about? If that's the case then I give you a guarantee that Dagashi Kashi 2 won't disappoint you. Sometimes some shows don't handle endings well since Japanese sources generally are bad at endings from what I've experienced and heard (not trying to be racist here but it's what I've seen, it's like saying the Ancient Greeks loved happy endings or the Romans loved watching people fight in the Colosseum). Point is, if you're wanting to watch a funny slice of life anime, look no further than Dagashi Kashi because there's lots to laugh about at Shikada Dagashi!

Radically different from the first season of this anime, the second season of Dagashi Kashi seems to abandon what made the first season shine - the information about dagashi. They do provide some small nuggets in most episodes, but they take a secondary place behind an ill-made attempt at turning this anime into a slice of life story when there's really nothing interesting going on.

More importantly, with only five characters in the first season, they really couldn't afford to lose two of them for this second season. Nonetheless,that's exactly what they did, and while they brought in two new supporting characters to take ... their place, the absence of the familiar missing characters hangs over this season like a shroud.

The final episode is pure chaos - whereas the first season's finale seemed clearly designed with a second season in mind, this season's finale looks like they were planning a third season, realized at the last minute they weren't going to get one, and tried to cram together a bunch of unrelated story lines into the final episode. It works about as well as you might expect.