The second season of Uzaki-chan is a lot like the first. It’s still primarily about Uzaki teasing Shinichi for being a loner and the two being combative despite clearly liking each other. And the focus is very much comedy. However, there are quite a few differences, and not all for the better. I had two big issues this season.
The first is that there’s a lot more of Uzaki getting genuinely angry at Shinichi, in which case he becomes a complete pushover and apologizes incessantly regardless of how unreasonable Uzaki is being. A lot of people haven’t liked the dynamic between Uzaki and Shinichi in regards to her teasing him, but I thought it was fine because it was all in good fun and Shinichi was always at least trying to respond in kind. Seeing Shinichi being a doormat somewhat sours things.
The other issue is the emphasis on the relationship moving slowly. I absolutely do not mind slow moving relationships as long as there’s other things to compensate. In this case there’s a lot of good comedy so I’m perfectly fine with their relationship development moving at a snails pace. What I don’t like is how much time is spent on characters lamenting how slow their relationship is moving. It would be fine if this was solely for the humor, but its done completely seriously and feels like actual drama. But that really doesn’t fit at all and just makes things feel like they’re dragging on tediously. And of course, as expected, in the end things don’t really progress all that much regardless.
Both of these end up taking away from the good points of the first season. But on the other hand, there were some great additions this season as well. Mainly that we spend much more time seeing both Uzaki and Shinichi’s families. Uzaki’s family have a pretty fun dynamic. Shinichi’s family is wild. Both of them add some good variety to the comedy. And the stuff with Shinichi and Uzaki’s father is probably the funniest content in the show, in either season. So while some of the character and plot related stuff is getting somewhat annoying, the comedy is still pretty great, and that’s enough to hold up this season pretty well, though I’d still consider it weaker than the first.
The art and animation are solid. Though the pool episode is kind of strange in that it seems to be an ad for an actual place (Yunessun) and is using actual photos of the place as backgrounds in a way that looks kind of cheap. The new character designs are fine. The OP and ED are pretty good in terms of the visuals and song. The soundtrack is also works well enough but is nothing too special. Though there is a track that reminded me of TWTNW in KH2 that I found pretty memorable.
