Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san at this point needs no introduction, not because of its popularity but because this is the entry of its second season we’re in rn. It is one of those romcoms that are about a girl teasing a boy, however this one started a little bit more extremely than normal, the first episode is downright bullying, Nagatoro came and made cry Naoto right away in there, and you can understand why people had a lot of disgust with this series, because honestly it comes across as a little distasteful, but once you go past that point you realize that this isn’t about bullying, and thank God for that because this series wouldn’t cover that topic with a modicum of sensitivity. However, that is what leads to us to the development of this season.
You see, the antics of the first season come back completely in here, but it never returns to the point from the start since across the first season you could see how, despite still teasing him quite hard, Nagatoro changed a little to be a little less obnoxious. However, the most important part of this season isn’t how Nagatoro changed, the important part is how Naoto/Senpai’s reactions changed. He started as a very timid and reserved guy who just accepted Nagatoro’s teasing, not trying much to go against her, and you can see here how not only he starts to answer to what she says, but also tease her back a little.
As you can see, Naoto is easily the character that can be talked about the most, going from his transition of never answering back to standing up a little on his own and gaining more confidence as the show goes on, while you would never expect this guy would try to make any advancement in his relationship with Nagatoro if you only go by the first season. You can always see his nervous tic of adjusting his glasses, and while you may say that this is seen when talking about characters with glasses in general, but not only do they usually adjust their glasses to get an opaque look on the glass while boasting confidence, Naoto is quite the opposite to that description, and in fact the only times where he adjust his glasses in that specific way is in his imagination which is obviously to mock on this type of things. You can see that tic stays with him even after he starts using contact lenses as he is used to that and that kind of thing isn’t something that will disappear easily, but him taking off his normal glasses to start wearing those contact lenses serves as one of the points of biggest change to him. His personality is still not something that changed easily, it took a long time for him to build up confidence as some people pushed for him, and he still has some ways to go by the end of the season, but he tries his best to not go back to his old self. I think the part that shows his biggest change, not only in the previous season but across this one as well, is where he finally decided to invite Nagatoro to a date by his own will, and he’s kind of a masochist for accepting Nagatoro that way, but you can see that he is happy in the way she teases him now, which is far cry from their first meeting. He is honestly the strongest part of the series thanks to his gradual growth and I have to thank that, even if he started quite weak, he isn’t the thousandth Kirito-look-alike sadboy MC.
Nagatoro obviously stays mostly the same, but she is more honest with her feelings as well. At this point, it is not only full on teasing Naoto, as she’s also showing some signs of vulnerability. Her way to make others pay attention to her is very childish, you know that whole “if I bother him, he will surely notice I love him!” kind of mentality, it is surprising that it works at all, but it is some of the concessions you have to make while watching this, specially since this guy seems to take it in a good way, where most people would take it as something very very annoying and obnoxious. And I’m not going to lie, Nagatoro is quite an obnoxious girl, that’s her whole gimmick, she was near unwatchable the first time but she gets more… lovely as time goes on.
As for other characters, they mostly stay the same, like you can describe Gamo, Yoshi and Sakura with basically the same line “a gyaru girl who is friend with Nagatoro and also sometimes teases senpai”… yeah, not the most well thought out characters, like sure, Gamou is the one with most other qualities, like you can see that she also trains judo alongside Nagaotoro, but Yoshi barely talks and Sakura is just like a slut or something. President Sana stays basically the same, she is very hardheaded, a nudist and is more tits than personality. The new characters include Orihara, who is a rival to Nagatoro and the main reason why she left judo before, she doesn’t actually do much but she kind of inspires Nagatoro to become better, as well as Hana, the president’s cousin, she has more personality than her cousin and has similar quirks to her, while also seeking to help Naoto in his relationship with Nagatoro and is worried for him, since she knows her from before as she also likes doing art.
The series looks basically the same from the previous season, and it stays pretty consistent across the series, it doesn’t have amazing animation or directing, but it never looks ugly and/or cheap like a CloverWorks show. The opening is better than last season’s OP and the ending is fun to watch and hear, with a name like “my sadistic adolescence” as the song’s name what else can you expect? I also find endearing that they made a song to play in the scene where Naoto’s invites Nagatoro to the aquarium, as that is one of the most important moments in the story so far.
Nagatoro-san doesn’t do anything particularly new, Takagi-san’s manga was going around like 5 years before Nagatoro-san’s manga started publication and it has about the same premise, only that Nagatoro-san doubled down on it. The series does have a direction that advances without going too slow and that tries to build the relationship between Nagatoro and Naoto, making it quite a fun and enjoyable series as long as you can stomach the first couple of episodes of the first season, and I’m sure you will like it more if you can actually get to like Nagatoro.
Thank you for reading.
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