Aharen-san wa Hakarenai Season 2

As someone who was once a former big fan of both Slice of Life and rom-coms in anime, either together or separately, I've been pretty jaded with the style most have been going for over the last decade. However, Aharen-san wa Hakarenai Season 1 somehow came out of nowhere and became the Slice of Life and rom-com combo I'd wanted for so long. It had the perfect mix of quirky, unique comedy while still being wholesome and having relatable Slice of Life, romance, and friendship moments, and most importantly, led to a couple actually getting together by the end of Season 1—something that, forsome reason, is still really rare in anime. This led me to read the original manga, and even though I knew just about everything that was going to happen when Season 2 was announced, I was incredibly hyped regardless, since this didn't seem like the type of show that would get a Season 2 based on its popularity relative to other Slice of Life shows that I thought would have gotten a Season 2 much earlier (where's the Bocchi the Rock Season 2?). With all that said, how does Season 2 of Aharen-san wa Hakarenai turn out? In my opinion, it executed the things I loved about Season 1 but generally did them better and removed a few of the flaws I had. Right from the beginning, the show makes it clear that it's going to be more or less the same as Season 1, with a focus on quirky comedy centered on both the main couple and the many, many side characters who appear, and I would say, for the most part, this is one of my favorite Slice of Life character casts. None of them are necessarily among my top favorites (except Reina Aharen, who's now my favorite anime and manga girl), but I think they all have good variety in terms of personalities and jokes. They contribute to the show while maintaining the fairly wholesome, quirky vibe. Naturally, the main stars are Raido and Reina Aharen. Every episode has them interacting in a wholesome and/or hilariously weird way. I think this is a couple that works great, whether as best friends or as a romantic couple, but to me, they are essentially my personal idea of "relationship goals": a couple that knows they're both relatively unique but enjoys each other's company, so they can just talk about whatever they want and are communicative enough to share interests, even if it means doing weird things like making life-sized visual versions of each other. Yet they still do surprisingly normal, cute things like playing games together or sharing an exchange diary. These may not sound like exciting things, even for a romance, but as someone who specifically wants a more relaxed, wholesome Slice of Life with romance, this is exactly what I've wanted in a romance anime forever. Seeing the two naturally and clearly enjoy each other's company, both in friendship and romantic moments, is easily my favorite part of this show, and I'm glad this season gave some of the best development the couple had in terms of getting closer after Season 1, with the last few episodes that even gave Raido much-needed development. And, of course, seeing Reina get easily embarrassed when Raido is nice and wholesome to her is always cute to watch. However, I would say the side cast stepped up here, too. The big one is the addition of Riku, Reina's childhood friend and the focus of Episode 1, which sets the tone greatly for how the rest of the series will play out—or rather, shows the series aims to keep the same tone as Season 1 with similar, if not better, wholesomeness and quirkiness. Riku, despite dressing like a gyaru, is oddly relatable to me since she has social anxiety-related thoughts about how she appears in public and wants to experience a normal high school youth, which I think some people can relate to, though, obviously, she can be a bit over-the-top about it, as expected of a comedy show. There is a bigger focus on the immediate friend group, like Ooshiro, Ishikawa, and Satou, with all the friend groups showing how much they clearly like being around each other. While there's no shortage of friend groups in anime and manga, I would say this is one of my favorite friend groups of at least five people or more. They feel like they got together through shared interests—or rather, through shared friends—and they just jive really well together. We still have many memorable side casts, like the teachers who get really into shipping the main couple or the main characters' little sisters and how they contrast the main couple, and I think they all contribute to a really fun time in the show, leading to consistent laughs and, ultimately, a surprisingly wholesome ending. Now, as much as I love this show and wish I could just gush about it all day, this adaptation isn't perfect. Season 2 skips a lot of content to get to the end of the manga, making it feel like a "best of" compilation of scenes from the end of Season 1 to the manga's ending. If you don't read the manga, I think, for the most part, you'll be fine as long as you mostly care about watching the quirky main duo. However, the anime adaptation either glossed over or outright skipped some development or quirks of other characters. This includes things like Ren's crush on Riku, more development for the kids Atsushi and Futaba, more development for Ishikawa and Satou, an arc teasing something more romantic between the little sisters of Raido and Aharen, and, of course, more wholesome and funny interactions between the main couple. I think Season 2 still works without these subplots, but a Season 3 including these would have been fine if things were stretched out enough, even considering the handful of anime-original scenes in Season 2, like references to Yakuza and Animal Crossing. The only other issue is that humor is subjective. While I think the humor in this show is generally pretty funny, it reuses certain jokes a lot, whether it's Raido's unrealistic imaginations of Reina (though thankfully toned down from Season 1), the teachers getting mentally attacked by “esteem” whenever they see Raido and Reina physically close to each other, or Riku's internal anxiety attacks. I thought all of these were funny, but if seeing a bunch of these types of jokes, in addition to Slice of Life stuff, sounds too repetitive, you probably shouldn't watch past Season 1 because things don't change much. Speaking of things not changing much, while I like the wholesome interactions between the main couple, I thought one thing that would have been developed better, even in the manga, was why Raido liked Aharen to begin with. While I'm glad he's really nice to her despite how stoic he is, he never really changes in that regard, and while I can easily see why Reina fell in love with him, I sometimes wonder why he fell in love with her beyond her being the first person he made friends with. I mean, I'm glad he's far from the typical lame simp type of protagonist who just openly lusts for the most popular girl in school, but I just wish Raido had more character development in general, besides just being thrown in at the end, since Reina had plenty of excellent development in both seasons. But honestly, anything I critiqued is just me nitpicking so I don't give this a literal perfect score, because, honestly, this is now my favorite Slice of Life. It does everything I want in a wholesome romance, wholesome friendship, and unique, quirky humor that fits my sense of humor perfectly, and it's an overall comfy anime to watch if I just want to feel good and laugh. This style of anime probably isn't for everyone and, sadly, doesn't seem to be very popular. But I will always appreciate series like this existing for my personal tastes, and I'm glad this season was able to adapt to the end of the manga—something many manga and light novels fail to do these days.