1.) Kimi ni Todoke season 2 resets a lot of season 1's progress.
The red flags start flying immediately from episode 1, where the show starts throwing excuses why a lot of the character development--namely the relationship between Sawako and Shouta--is reset. Spoiler alert: none of the reasons are good. They're just excuses for why this show had to have a whole other cour to finish the story, when it could've been finished in season 1. The show even goes out of its way to point out how stupid and pointless the lack of progress is, but that doesn't excuse it. Especially considering how much screen time is wasted on talking about the lack of progress, instead of, you know... making progress. It's kind of meta in the worst kind of way.
Sawako regresses just to pretend that her new "development" was needed. This is perhaps the worst objective flaw with S2, since Sawako's character developed immensely in S1. The show made her go through some pretty rough shit, too, and I hate it for making me watch that happen. [SPOILERS] The case in point was when, after some kinda contrived nonsense, Sawako and Shouta end up confessing to each other at the midpoint of the series, but due to miscommunicating by thinking one another didn't mean they liked them the same way (i.e. romantically), both of them think they got rejected. And if that sounds fucking retarded to you, that's because it is. [/SPOILERS]
Which brings me to my next point.
2.) Cliches ahoy!
Remember how I said in my S1 review that it turned a lot of shoujo cliches on their heads? Well, unlike S1, S2 plays some of the worst shoujo cliches completely straight. The most cancerous offenders are times where Sawako just totally loses her ability to talk to Kazehaya like a normal person, which we established in S1 wasn't a problem despite her strong feelings, but is hand waived rather horribly. Also, some (bad) shoujo take simple miscommunications and failures to communicate and turn them into frustrating nonsensical farces, and season 2 falls into that very trap. I don't know why, when season 1 did such a good job NOT doing that.
The entirety of the "plot" of this season is driven by miscommunication. I don't know why, when the first season did a good job NOT having that happen, but here we are, and it's just as aneurysm-inducing as it always is in shoujo anime. Granted, there was some of this present in S1, but it was actually believable. Realistic. Not like S2. How many fucking times do the two leads need to yell "I love you!" at each other before it fucking sinks in?
3.) There's a new, pointless rival.
Kento Miura is another dumb shoujo cliche, and is forced in every way conceivable: from his sudden injection into the story, to his interest in Sawako, to his apparent omniscience about her thoughts and feelings, all the way to him being propped up as a serious rival against Shouta. He exists to sow dissent. The writers outright copied and pasted aspects of Kazehaya's character onto him to justify his interest in Sawako, but made him worse. Kento pushes Sawako out of her comfort zone in a similar way, but not even half as thoughtfully or tactfully as Kazehaya did. His presence is a blight on the anime. Nobody in their right mind would ever ship him with Sawako over Shouta, yet here he is to waste most of a season pretending he matters. He's just there to cock block Kazehaya, and thus, blue-ball the audience a little longer.
Part of what made Miura's interference possible was that Kazehaya's ability to take charge and act impulsively was removed. Remember in season 1 where Kurumi is trying to make him think Sawako and Ryu are together? How instead of believing her and sulking, he instead runs to Sawako and takes her hand and runs off with her? He doesn't do anything nearly that admirable and ballsy here. Let's face it: Kazehaya would've never allowed Miura to be a problem. Miura would've been shut down instantly. He only isn't because the writers decided they had no idea what they were doing this season.
4.) The show is carried by voice acting.
The voice acting is as fantastic as ever, with Mamiko Noto basically carrying this crippled corpse across the finish line. Even though her monologues make far less sense than the ones in S1, she delivers them with such conviction here that it almost made me forget how bad the monologue itself was. The music is solid, though mostly same old from the last season. The opening and ending themes are both inferior from the last season. The visuals are even lazier than last season because Production I.G. reused so much footage from S1. The facial expressions are still the highlight of the animation, but that's the biggest praise I can give the visuals.
5.) KnT season 2 isn't enjoyable (until the end of episode 8).
I don't know if I've made this obvious or not, but this season was fucking FRUSTRATING to trudge through. While I never once felt frustrated by what was happening on screen and was totally enthralled during season 1, the times I was invested and happy during season 2 were few and far between until the last several episodes. It's amazing how much screen time was wasted on stupid-ass horseshit. Episodes 1-8 have a few good moments sprinkled around, but they are few and far between, and certainly don't outweigh the frustration and anger they induce.
To top it all off, they don't even kiss by the end. Yeah. Blue balls abound.
When all is said and done, if you start watching this show at the last 4 minutes of episode 8, it's much closer to on par with season 1. But sadly, I can't just chop out everything else, hence my scores.
Here is my viewing guide for Kimi ni Todoke:
Season 1: Episodes 1-15, 17-25. (Episode 16 is a recap.)
Season 2: Last 4 minutes of episode 8, 9-12.
This show has no excuse to pretend the end of season 1 didn't happen. It's insulting that it does this when it flashes back to season 1 so much. And I'm salty. The good stuff from this season could've been squished into the end of season 1, or better yet, start this season directly following the end of season 1 (with S2 episodes 9-12, sans the dumb stuff), and allow the rest of the episodes to develop Sawako and Kazehaya's relationship further. AND MAKE THEM KISS.
