Operation nostalgia that does nothing of value, playing with the watcher's feelings about the 2010 masterpiece.

The problem with this sequel? Potential future? Whatever it is, is that it's lazy. Extremely lazy. It back-loads the entire character development, background, and nuances to the 2010 main series while giving us a glimpse of a different path.
But let's go in order.

When dealing with this kind of anime, which is abundantly quoting and taking inspiration from the original, it's impossible to not consider parallels with the former series. The screenwriters impose it on us, anyway, since the series forces you to know all the characters beforehand. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

ART 9.5/10

The original has aged respectably, but Shingo Natsume empowered everything to the max wherever it was showing signs of its age. Not much to fault, but there were a few static talking scenes that, in a 6 episode series, stand out annoyingly. Overall, Shingo is one of the few directors competent enough to deal with this boulder of a series. We also begin to see how much is "stolen" by the original. It's necessary and not a bad thing, but we'll see when it all starts crashing down when substance starts to matter.

SOUND 8.5/10

Again, it mostly used all songs, which is good. Tamura's and Higuchi's dubbers are weaker, and while for the latter it's comprehensible given the death of the first dubber, for the former it's just inexcusable. It's not a big deal but it's there.

Both the ending and the opening are weaker than the original. Again, they're not bad per se, but not as great as before.

STORY: 5/10

Here's where push comes to shove. The story is terrible and extremely devoid of pathos. It reeks of banality and goes for the pointless and trite trope of time travel. The original also had some supernatural touches here and there, but it was never the major point of the story, whereas here it's the main pull.

Time travel stories are almost always made in 2 ways: either you go for a closed space-time loop or a multiple-universe approach. Tertium non datur.

This series goes for the former. It removes all agency from its characters and makes the entire plot extremely predictable. Almost all plot points become devoid of interest because of it, although you can commend how the complexity of the loop was explained and taken care of. Alas, it's not enough.

The story in itself is also bad. It is pointless in the grand scheme of things because it doesn't add anything of value to the original series. It also abundantly cites to the point of annoyance catchphrases, jokes, and even major plot points.

This is eloquently illustrated by the true ending in episode 5, which features an almost identical dialogue that we have during the last episode of the original series. It's not bad per se... but we've already seen it once, which makes it...pointless.

The pacing was very good... until the screenwriters decided to add context to the first episode by backloading it after the lovely conclusion of the story in the fifth one. This is absurd and destroys the ending, by also adding stuff that it's not long enough to make us empathize with the characters. The sixth episode is basically a compressed, mini version of the first one from the original, which makes it all the more silly. They are already heavily implying you need to know these characters and the plot points from the original... so it makes no sense. Pretty baffling decision, really.

CHARACTERS 5/10

It's not that these characters are bad (except for Tamura, and there's a reason for it...), it's more like that the series is just offloading all the development to the first one because they don't have time or a reason to develop them more. It's the correct decision... but this pseudo-sequel is just a possible path that's arguably not even canon, and definitely not an ounce as good as the original ending!

So all the characters are as good as the original... but because of that, they are lazy homages to the originals. The only one who isn't it's Tamura... which in fact just sucks. He doesn't have enough screen time nor does he get developed in such a short amount of time. Sigh.

There's not much to say about them, they are fine but mediocre, they don't have their own flavor, they're just a bland copy of the originals that exist to force nostalgia out of the watcher. Pretty sad.

ENJOYMENT: 4.5/10

In the end, I loathed my time with time machine blues, because time travel stories are overdone to death unless some genius does something interesting, which unfortunately doesn't happen here. Moreover, as I have stated, the entire anime is a pointless homage to the original series, and doesn't stand a chance in comparison to it, nor is it needed or pleasurable to see.
It seems like whoever wrote the script forgot that the sci-fi escamotage from the first series was not the actual pull, but just the flint that got the plot going. The characters and their realistic stories were the main focus, which is why you can consider it the greatest coming-of-age anime of all time, and arguably one of the best, if not THE best, the media has to offer.

I also don't care that this is an adaptation of a stage play since it doesn't matter in the slightest, for self-evident reasons.

Tatami Galaxy was a masterpiece that stands among the greats even today, and its warning about living life with rose-tinted glasses is hilariously applied here: take off your nostalgia goggles and go watch something better.

Lots of self-proclaimed anime critics somehow got blinded by the pretty colors, which is understandable but that doesn't change the substance of the matter.

RECOMMENDED to sakugabooru VIP users who can gush and appreciate all the stylistic choices of Shingo. For everyone else, steer clear.