Horimiya is very weird because when you look at it from afar it looks like a shoujo, when you read the synopsis it is literally the same as a generic shoujo, but when you see where it was published it is in a shonen magazine, and I know Horimiya isn't the only example that can be said that it looks for a different demographic than what it actually is, but really, Horimiya is like a very watered down version of Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou.
The problem with Horimiya is obviously how the premise is good, but it doesn't know how to work it out due to the very simplistic and dumb "secrets" the protagonists have, and in fact, I think the most uninteresting part of Horimiya is the main couple, and I can confirm that after having watched Hormiya: Piece. You see, these secrets definitely aren’t worth covering up, or at the very least Hori's secret isn't a secret at all? Her being a nice sister that takes care of chores is definitely not a secret, even less something worth covering up, while Miyamura's is more understandable as he doesn't want to be seen as a criminal but still, some tattoos aren't the end of the world given that plays no role in the series. This clearly tried to take KareKano's premise and do it again, but as the author didn't know how he was supposed to do it, he just plastered something very inconsequential.
Horimiya, despite being a romcom with a clear main couple, is also very clearly an ensemble cast, so last season focusing mainly in the main couple and cutting most of the scenes of other characters clearly hurt the series, so they clearly tried to fix it with this season, and while I can say it finally accomplished what it set out to do, it doesn't take the fact that these characters aren't people whom I can care about. I'm more surprised it took until Horimiya: Piece to see more of their development, I remember seeing a meme that said that Horimiya was "The development of the side characters comes separately: The Anime" and that is the truth, and while I like the idea of making some new episodes to adapt stuff that were left out from the first season, I wouldn't expect a whole season worth of content, at that point you could have simply made 2 seasons adapting the series as you should and not what came out from this series.
The series looks the same as the previous season, so you don't have to worry about the supposed quality of the show, as it's just your regular barely watchable series that comes from Cloverworks. For what Horimiya is worth, this season is unironically better than the main series and can be funny at times, before I didn't actually like the Horimiya characters, but I got a little liking to Sengoku here and I can't believe how little he appeared the previous season, stupid jokes like his arm exploding just so he didn't have to clean the pool actually made me chuckle, unlike the previous season which was full of unfunny jokes.
Thank you for reading.
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