While Year 1 felt like a masterpiece in some ways, Year 2 seems to be considerable weaker. Characters built up in Y1 as major antagonists are suddenly mostly harmless and meek. Characters developed to be important are suddenly nonexistent as if their progress never happened. Talk about gaslighting..
In Y1, there were so many characters being introduced and developed and yet basically none of them felt one dimensional.
Even way more characters were introduced in Y2 but the sad price paid was serious corners cutting. One dimensionality is a thing here, up to the point that even some of old characters feel more like a caricature. "I want to add mooore characters", says mangaka and perhaps it is his dream to break some record in handling so many of them. Unfortunately, he already cannot handle properly this much at this point. Why diluting so much if there are so many interesting personalities waiting (in vain) for more depth?
Oh, and the harem thingy. It was actually pretty decently done in Y1 where it was well understandable why Kiyotaka induced feelings in some girls. He also did not shy using these feeling for his strategies. It was part of the story and not purely a fan service.
Here however, it is like in every boring harem - he looks at a new girl and she gets wet.
It is also visible in short stories that feel like fillers or crude repeatings. Most of it is exactly the same as when it happened from Kiyotaka perspective and the benefit of having other character to interpret the situations is almost unused. What a wasted opportunity. Most of them have a single prupose to add a single sentence: "My heart beats so fast when he looks at me / talks to me / exists". Compared to Y1, it seriously feels boring.
I am probably too harsh (I still liked it as a whole) but I cannot avoid feeling that it is falling from creative uniqueness to bland mediocrity. Also mangaka saying cheerfully that he does not actually care much about girls and their progress and stories is pretty weird.