Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san 2

Like the last season of Skilled Teaser Takagi San, this is one is also predominantly focused on the antics of 2 middle school students, a girl who seems to be borderline telepathic, bullying a dense middle school boy. The jokes are very similar, the way the challenges play out are very similar, and the quality of the show is overall much similar. However, a few things set this season apart from the prior season which led me to increase my rating for the show this specific season, I will expand on these things in this review. The first thing I would like to mention happens tobe the characterization between the 2 main characters. In the previous season Takagi always enjoyed making fun of Nishikata and winning their games to frustrate him, she finds it hilarious to dismantle the plans he spends hours coming up with and always being one step ahead. This season is different, although the bullying Takagi did in the last season seemed some what mean spirited to Nishkata, this season Takagi was generally a lot more kind and made it pretty clear she likes him and even tried to throw a few of their games on purpose. Of course, Nishikata is way to fucking dense to ever get the obvious signs that she wants him to just grab her hand and lean in for a kiss, but who can blame him he is like 11 and does not have much life experience. This improvement in characterization, especially during the anime original camping scenes, greatly improves the atmosphere of the show for viewers, as we no longer have to feel exhausted watching Nishikata get bullied episode after episode with no chance of winning. Takagi being kind and clearly trying to make games where Nishikata could win if he had some courage changes the atmosphere from being exhausting to refreshing, the show has progressed further into the romance genre and focuses less on the same overused mind games that occurred before. There is also one big moment in the show near the end where Nishikata does step up and its quite touching and shows how far he has grown since the start of the series. Something else that improved in the show is the sound track, the opening actually covered a lot of the themes in the show, Takagi and Nishikata rivalry, their romantic undertone, the experience of adolescence of the other relevant characters in the series, and blended them all together in a very well-made OP. The general sound effects and OST did not change much however its use improved, the same soundtrack was not used for multiple stories back to back and instead the show alternated between them to keep it fresh, while in the first season they constantly used the exact same theme, you know which one I am talking about, whenever a new story started in the episode. One other thing that improved was the focus on side characters, the show was getting boring with the entire focus being on Takagi and Nishikata in season 1. However, this season the 3 side girls had their own segments every episode and it made for a very comfy slice of life break from the drama between Takagi and Nishikata. The jokes involving the 3 girls were also of a completely different kind from the mind game jokes between the main characters which creates variety instead of the tired and overused humor we were seeing earlier. The other side characters like Nishikata’s friends had more scenes as well in which they served as commentary on the main characters, pointing out the frustrating stuff the viewers noticed but also misunderstanding some aspects of the power dynamic between Takagi and Nishikata which was sort of funny. Even the teacher got some more screen time and went from a hard ass who exists to yell at Nishikata to a more respectable guy who is just trying to properly educate children and make sure they behave in a reasonable way. As far as art and animation go, Takagi San season 2 isn’t really any different from season 1, but that is alright no one is watching this show for quality animation or amazing art, it’s a romcom set in a middle school after all. Some things that were an improvement though was that the same background art was not being reused like last season, there were many new parts of the school, the town, and of course the entire background during the camping episode along with the starry sky that were very different from season 1. Overall though these improvements do vastly improve the show for the viewer, even if a lot of mind games are the same as before, and the story plays out the same, there has been growth in the relationship between the main characters. The growth along with the small improvements in several aspects of the show lead me to give Skilled Teaser Takagi San 2 a rating of 8, higher then the rating of 7 I gave to the first season.

With every season comes a new waifu battleground, where everyone is on a crusade to extoll their seasonal waifulogy and battles fiercely with the heathens. Why not take a break and embrace the wholesome Takagi-san, where there is no war, but only love and peace? The series features the day-to-day interactions between the main duo, Takagi-san and Nishigata, which revolves around trivial moments in school and daily life, ranging from visiting a small grocery store to throwing stones beside the river. Each episode is divided into several sub-episodes where they will hold small bets or “contests”, with Nishigata being the loser on nearly all occasions. Still,he tries every desperate mean to trick Takagi-san back but fails anyways. Bit by bit, day by day, their relationship grows from the little pranks they put on each other. The second season continues to illustrate Nishigata’s inability to retaliate and the ever-increasing intimacy with Takagi-san. The immaturity of Nishigata can be pinpointed in the title itself. In Japanese, “-san” is usually used for addressing formally or someone you are not acquainted with, which is basically the equivalence of “Mr.” or “Mrs.” in English. The fact that Nishigata still adopts such a distant approach with Takagi-san even after a whole year shows that he is unable to handle conversations or even a relationship with the opposite sex - a perfect example of how carefully designed Nishigata is. If I were to nitpick, the show’s greatest downfall would be its repetitiveness. Episodes after episodes of contests with very predictable outcomes are surely dull and boring. Retaining the same format, the story nonetheless showed some progression from the first season, with Nishigata evolving from not revenging at all to reminding himself of the humiliation through push-ups and constantly plotting back at Takagi-san. It is crucial to bear in mind that Nishigata was merely a grade 7 student(grade 8 in this season). Immaturity, irrationality, and evasion from physical and verbal contact with the opposite sex are all undeniably traits of someone in Nishigata’s age, and that is exactly what the show depicted Nishigata as with panache. Aberrant the scenes may seem, they are nonetheless a genuine and authentic portrayal. Takagi-san features an art style nuanced from the mainstream. The colour tone is mainly bright and vibrant with the doodle-ish feeling, which is not commonly seen in other popular shows. We can see that the animation is done with passion and care. The backgrounds are well-crafted and details are not compromised. The opening “Zero Centimeters” is sung by Yuiko Oohara, who also sang Season 1’s opening. The endings are sung by Takagi-san’s voice actor, Rie Takahashi. Not only are the opening and endings catchy, but the background music also gives a youthful and upbeat feeling with its performance with recorders and a piano, fitting the middle school theme perfectly. Takagi-san has transcended beyond your typical seasonal romcom waifu battleground. It remains one of my favourites in the romance genre for its simple yet meticulous depiction of some heart-tingling and face-blushing middle school romance and touches on themes seldom explored. Next time before you are about to dive into another brawl for waifus, why not take a break and fill your wholesomeness meter with Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san instead?

The summer anime that i was looking forward to ever since it was announced and had expectations for this season after watching season 1 last year, and I can gladly say that I was not disappointed one bit! In fact, I fell in love with the anime because one thing was clear from the beginning, something about Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san S2(I'll call the anime Takagi S2 from now on) stood out compared to season 1, and that was Takagi and Nishikata in the final 2 episodes. Story: The story continues on from S1 with Takagi teasing Nishikata non-stop as usual. However, something felt differentabout her teasing this season compared to S1. I think that something was the fact that in the majority of her teases, she was conveying her crush on Nishikata to him and was giving him hints. However, Nishikata being Nishikata, did not catch her hints and thought that she was just teasing him for the fun of it, though at times he did consider her hints, only to shrug them off unfortunately, which frustrated me during the first 11 episodes as I was cheering Takagi on in her pursuit of Nishikata. Fortunately, he redeemed himself at the last 2 episodes by asking Takagi out on a date to the festival with the climax coming in episode 12 when he held her hands. I was brimming in excitement and joy at that scene. Plus the fact that we had 2 new characters this season added some plot to the overall story. The only thing that I didn't really like from S2 was the scenes of Mina, Sanae and Yukari. I know that they are filler scenes, but come on, when you watch a scene of Nishikata and Takagi, you just want it to continue and I was pretty annoyed when they showed the filler scenes to the point that I just skept them in later episodes. Overall a good continuation from S1 and is much more exciting with more juicy scenes of Nishikata and Takagi and new characters Rating: 9/10 Art: I can't comment much about the animation of S2 since it's basically a continuation from season 1. My only comment is that I really liked the animation of the fireworks in the last episode of the series. Rating: 7/10 Sound/Music: Ahh, Rieri. Her voice is so cute and soothing to the ears. I loved the endings for S2 because they were sung by Rieri. You can feel that Rieri put a lot of energy and feelings into the endings, because they were a full of happiness, longing for, and anticipation. In fact, I enjoyed the endings so much that I have downloaded all 7 ending songs into my phone! Rating: 9/10 Characters: I will focus on Takagi and Nishikata in this section because we got to see Takagi at her best this season and Nishikata redeeming himself towards the end of the season! From the very first episode, you could see that Takagi was really going in hard to tell Nishikata of her feelings for him in hopes that he will reciprocate his. Unfortunately as mentioned earlier on in the review, Nishikata was not sensitive to her hints and just shrugged them off thinking that Takagi just liked to tease him because she liked to(dont get me wrong she does, but there's a deeper meaning to her teasing). She became more and more aggressive in her pursuit of Nishikata further into the series but it seemed that her teasing wouldn't pay off. Until episode 11 when Nishikata asked her out on a date. And I enjoyed that scene thoroughly. Nishikata on the other hand, was frustrating to watch throughout the series as he always failed to win and was not good at love. Fortunately, he redeemed himself when he delivered the critical hits to Takagi when it mattered, by asking her out on a date and holding her hands in the final 2 episodes. Good job Nishikata! I envy these 2 lovebirds if only if I had a relationship like them when I was in middle school. Rating: 9/10 To conclude my review, Takagi S2 brought the best out of our 2 main characters, Nishikata and Takagi. Takagi communicating her love to Nishikata through teases and Nishikata delivering the critical hits to Takagi when necessary really made me love them more than I did in season 1. I'll dearly miss Takagi season 2 to me it was really well produced and was much better than S1. I hope there'll be a continuation of the series via a season 3 maybe? Or a spin-off from the manga of both our lovebirds when they've married and have a kid. Final rating: 10/10

When I heard that Skilled Teaser Takagi-San was renewed for a second season, I was ecstatic. Not because I read the manga or anything, but because I greatly enjoyed the first season. It was one of the sweetest most adorable and wholesome shows I had ever watched. The chemistry between the two main characters was great. The show in general was both a relaxer and a breath of fresh air. With the second season I was fully expecting more of the same. Instead, I got something a little different. The story continues kind of where it left off with Takagi continuing to relentlessly tease Nishikata.The latter of which then tries to outsmart her but falls flat. In the first season, each part of the episode was framed as kind of a challenge and at the end they would tell us who won. This season that formula is thrown away because at this point I think they realized the audience can kind of tell who won without the show needing to explain everything. I liked that nice little change. One of my favorite parts of last season was the few moments where Takagi was caught off guard. The whole time we’ve known Takagi-san she’s been this cool customer with an unflinching poker face. However there were a couple times when we got to see the other side of Takagi-san. This season we get to see that and more. Part of my anticipation with this new season was the progression of their relationship. I knew they were eventually going to get together, but I didn’t know when. As their relationship evolves, we get to see a new side of Takagi and a new side of Nishikata as well. With the stakes being raised episode by episode, the quality meets those high demands. Some scenes during the show are absolutely breathtaking with the direction being spot on. Everything is coming together so fast that you will long for the days when the innocently teased each other in the classroom. The opening song only adds to this melancholic feeling. If perhaps you had passed on this show or maybe only heard about it because of the girl with the massive forehead but ignored it otherwise, then consider giving it a shot this time. For those that have seen the first season and are wondering does it get better? The answer is yes. I can proudly say the second season has surpassed the first season in every way. This show is adorable, fun, heartwarming and absolutely worth your time.

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