Haganai NEXT

Personal feelings aside, I'll keep this short. Essentially, this season carries on seamlessly from the previous season - same animation, music, voice acting and general tone. One thing they seemed to do away with was the ecchi quality of the first season, not that it had much prominence there either - so no nudity and half-time eyecatchers this time around. Anyway, as a light, high school based comedy, this series does fairly well. It's nothing you won't have seen before in such arrangements, but Boku Wa Tomodachi Ga sukunai is nonetheless a fun watch through both seasons. If that's the type of thing you're after, I'd recommend trying it. This is a series more than that though, and it's at this point I become less eager to recommend it.

Yeah, don't watch this for the romance. Well it's your call, but having seen it through to the end, I personally wouldn't rewatch this series purely as a result of how the romance plays out. I'm aware a large portion of romance fans favour satisfying romances, even if there isn't a happy ending - I'm certainly in that camp, at least - and Christ is the romance in this series anything but. As throughout the first season, romance is more or less left to simmer. That is to say, for most of the runtime, nothing really develops beyond what we already knew regarding how certain characters feel about Kodaka.

But okay, the first season was based more on romantic subtext, hardly aiming to develop any such relationships - at least beyond a certain point - and that worked fine. However, that direction works because it sets the expectation that eventually, romance will see a place in the limelight. Bear with it, it implies. So you wait and wait, and... wait, this is the tenth episode!? How will all this romantic potential between characters tie together in just three episodes?

When romance finally begins to get the anticipated spotlight in episode ten, it feels like it's too late. Surprise surprise, it is. At least, the story doesn't bother trying to cram it all into three episodes. Instead, it draws upon the plot point you thought had been succeeded long ago - friendship. As soon as the club members were all present in the story, this theme seemed all but redundant. Sure, they hadn't yet acknowledged it, but as far as anyone could be concerned by this point, they're all friends. Although resurfacing occasionally, this theme began to lose its grip more and more as romantic expectations increased through the story's progression, so when it suddenly tightens in the final straight, I was left thinking "what was the point in the romantic setup?".

So, that's the romance. There are other things usually covered in reviews but I didn't really set out intending for this to be so thorough as to cover all bases, so onto the summary. First, this season specifically. As mentioned, it carries on well from the first with perfect continuity, but leaves far too many loose ends. Now, the series overall. If you're seeking romance, look elsewhere. If you're interested in this series for anything besides that, you'll likely find this a fun, engaging watch, but since romance is an inescapable aspect of the plot, you'll end up having to face it one way or another.