Tonikaku Kawaii: Joshikou-hen

Honestly peak Tonikawa here.

Enjoyable and well done OVA. Provides more wholesome romance and comedy that the series is known, while setting up for a more supernatural and mystery focus in the coming chapters. The new characters introduced fit in very well with the series, especially the mysterious Kaguya. We have yet to see all of Tsukasa's backstory, yet this OVA teases more about her in 4 episodes than most of Season 2 did. The All girls high school setting is a comedically good foil to Nasa and Tsukasa, making for some very funny moments and situations. Highly recommended for fans of the series.

After a wholly disappointing second season, I questioned whether to give Tonikaku another shot. Does TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You - High School Days help it get back on its feet? I'll assume you've seen the first and second season for the purposes of this review.

Story & Characters: TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You - High School Days is a short, four episode OVA, where Nasa has been asked by his old teacher, Ms. Yanagi, who now teaches in a girls' high school, to teach them the basics of coding, something Nasa's quite adept at. Confidently, he says to this request, ... and most of the OVA focuses on this new setting, and a few characters from the class he ends up teaching.

Adding more characters to our roster is something I welcomed because the series kind of needed it. While most of the second season focused on our main couple, possibly too much, this season eases that back a little. When Nasa starts at this high school, he is welcomed by some interesting characters. Hotaru might be my favourite because she comes off as the most mature of all of the students, while having real goals and wanting to make friends along the way. Kaguya is extremely mysterious, and while we weren't given a ton on her this season, I expect more from her in future seasons, should they be confirmed, as they left her off with some nuggets that she is more than she seems. Haru, Yaiba and Jessie make short appearances, but nothing too noteworthy. Kaname and Aya return, and I loved what they did with the latter. She was nosy, but honestly, she was hilarious.

Nasa and Tsukasa's love for each other remains obviously through this season, even if they are still incredibly shy about their status as husband and wife. You'd think they'd move past that at some point because it could get annoying at some point. Still, the jokes about them in this season were fine.

Even with the limited content in this OVA, the ending leaves more questions than I would have liked, especially because it's not even confirmed to have another season yet. We obviously know at this point that something's up with Tsukasa, but what that is, remains a mystery. (Story: 7/10, Characters: 8/10)

Art: This season still looks solid, with no real problems. The "aw" moments between our main couple are definitely limited, but it's not a big deal yet. (7/10)

Sound: Like the animation, sound was fine here. I do like that they added new OPs and EDs, even if it's for a four episode cour. VOs from the previous seasons all return, with Erika Harlacher-Stone (Aya) predictably being the best of the bunch. Dani Chambers (Hotaru) was my favourite addition to the cast, though I couldn't find hard details about other new VOs for this season. (7/10)

Overall: TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You - High School Days is a fine distraction until we get another season confirmed and while it wasn't nearly as magical as the first season, it sure beats out the second season which mostly saw the same thing over and over again. At least I know now that this series is capable of some okay-storytelling. We'll see if it holds up. (7/10)

Listen, I tried reeeaaal hard not to knock my head on a wall out of boredom while watching this. I’d already endured the rest of season two by that point, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. Thump… thump… went my head as I repetitively knocked it against a wall. As repetitively as how this anime is written.

Enervating, I believe, is the correct term for describing how mindlessly written Tonikaku Kawaii: Joshikou-hen or TONIKAWA: Over the Moon for You – High School Days is. The series gaslights you into thinking it’s good with the first season, smacks you in the face with a boulder of ... boredom with the second, and then produces this ONA, a copy of the second season, only much weaker in delivery. Dry comedy, characters that’d perform better in a puppet show, and agonizing repetition. Oh, man, is it frustrating to be fed the same shit ad nauseam.

For those who don’t already understand why this thing is a waste of time, I’ll provide a short synopsis:
Yuzaki Nasa starts teaching at an all-girl’s school and gets along pretty well with the students, meanwhile one particular student(?) at the school whom the others refer to as “Princess” is supposedly as smart as Nasa. Besides that, you’ve got a replica of season two, with an even more terribly-written mystery. How much can they milk out of this series??

I’m 90% sure the main reason people stayed till this point of the series is because “OoOHh lOoK! A GenUiNE mArRiED CoUpLE, Oh mY FUCkINg GoD!!” as if that single quality makes everything ten times better. No. No, it doesn’t. What’s so different about a romcom with a married couple? That they live together? That they get more intimate? Really, so this passes as good romance anime now?

Besides the whole married couple craze, this is basically your everyday slice-of-life romcom, just with terrible comedy. The thing is, slice-of-life anime like this heavily relies on its characters and how they’re written, designed, what their personalities are, etc. Unfortunately, Nasa and Tsukasa here are less than amusing or interesting and the side characters are comically… bad.

They tried to make this ONA somewhat interesting with the character Gekkou Kaguya, the student who is referred to as “Princess” by others. The thing that’s funny about her is that she’s presented in a way that suggests she’s some mysterious antagonist or something. She’s got dark clothing with a mask concealing her lower face, like some cyberpunk-ninja or whatever. Why??? If the writer intended Kaguya to be some sort of mysterious enemy, they could’ve designed and written her a lot better; she’s waaayyy too overexaggerated. She’s like that anyway, probably as a last-ditch effort to pull this whole thing out of the depths of the Boredom River.

Now, I might be really wrong about Kaguya. What if she turns out to be the final boss that Nasa and Tsukasa must fight against using their love? That could totally happen in a later season. For all I care, though, this is the last piece of Tonikaku Kawaii media I’ll be consuming, so I won’t really know what happens with her.

The romantic dilemmas were another failed attempt at making this less generic. Except the dilemmas are overused tropes, ultimately resulting in the ONA becoming more generic and your brain beginning to short-circuit. Man, don’t you love it when anime tries to make itself unique by not making itself unique? I know I don’t.

It's time for more insult to injury!!!! This time the ONA had a good setting to work with, unlike with season two. Nasa teaches at an all-girls school and Gekkou Kaguya is the mysterious character! This should be interesting, right? …No. There was an opportunity for an actual good comedy anime, and maybe there could’ve been a good bit of mystery in there, too! There was such a unique setting to work with, yet it’s as if nothing changed from season two. There was no improvement on the characters, no improvement on the story, nothing. It’s probably because there’s no character development left for Nasa and Tsukasa, which is an example of why romance anime like this just doesn’t work. When is it ever fun to just look at a married couple do mundane married couple things with no such aim or development? Exactly, it isn’t.

If everything was executed well like in season one and was written with much more creativity and less feeling like the writer asked the Google Bard AI to create a script for a romcom with some weird mysterious character, maybe this wouldn’t feel so irritatingly dry. Nasa and Tsukasa’s love in the first season seems much more natural and less awkward, and there were moments that kept you engaged and wanting more. There was room for character development which meant things wouldn’t get so boring. Unfortunately, after season one, room for character development vanished and the writer was so out of ideas that they couldn’t get their head out of the clouds trying to think of something good.

For better romcom anime, I’d recommend these shows:
Komi-san wa, Komyushou desu. (Komi Can’t Communicate)
Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san (Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie)
Or for if you’re feeling wacky, Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan (Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan)
Sorry if you’ve seen all of ‘em. I’m not a seasoned romcom-er.

I don’t really have much else to say without this becoming a review of the second season as well, so I’ll end it around here.

If you want to waste time watching more of the unfunny married couple, the soulless side characters that surround them and a failure of an interesting “mysterious character” and story, check this ONA out. It’s better to put it on in the background rather than pay attention to anything, since there’s nothing worth watching. Unless you want a quick way to fall asleep. If you’re looking for something that’s worth your time, though, you’ve stopped at the wrong entry on MyAnimeList.

Thank you for reading my review.