Okay just to make things easier, I will calling Genshiken Nidaime just Nidaime and the og Genshiken just Genshiken

Genshiken Nidaime is the continuation of Genshiken, going from talking about talking about random general otaku stuff to a hyperfocus on the yaoi/fujo side of things with an (almost) full renewal of the cast with most of the og cast either graduating, moving on with life, etc. This is completely fine, Genshiken at the end of the day is very down to earth in this aspect, one of the big messages behind the og is how nice everyday things slowly change and eventually come to an end to create a new status quo, friends graduate or get different priorities, and what was a everyday occurance of meeting up every day in one room to talk about otakushit slowly turns into "maybe next month we can meet up with half of the crew and drink for 3 hours I guess". Remember this tidbit for later.

Anyway, back to Nidaime, it starts introducing us to a bunch of new fujos or just making them part of the main cast, Yoshitake, a fujo obsessed with japan history gay sex, Hato, a crossdresser that can only draw amazing gay porn while dressed as a woman, Sue, an autistic anime loving gremlin that is in love with the best character and Mirei, and there's Kuchiki I guess too but he only shows up for gags and nobody cares about him whatever.

The start of Nidaime is great, as someone who has never delved much into the fujoverse due to my sexual orientation, seeing and reading the whole aspect of it was really engaging and told in a very entertaining and informative manner, and the atmosphere created is very similar to the Genshiken although this time around is about gay sex, a nice comfy otaku atmosphere with some struggles of life here and there, small arcs about reviving the club with various activities, drawing doujinshi for Comiket, all the good stuff.

The foundation of Genshiken are still there but it all comes down due to the fact that it starts focusing mainly on 2 characters: Haato and Madarame.

Haato is our new protagonist this time around, to sum him up, he's a man who crossdresses as his high school crush and is into yaoi and his whole arc is about him sorting out his feelings since his situation is just a huge, although very entertaining, mess. He does however feel like kind of a Mary sue, a man who is cuter than all of the girls in the club combined that draws at a professional level with almost no training, and I feel like he gets way too much of a spotlight throughout Nidaime when the other characters had some nice plot points that really aren't explained much.

So you are probably thinking to yourself and when reading Nidaime, wow there's a lot of yaoi discussion this time around which makes complete sense but in the middle of it there's an outlier, Madarame:

Madarame is what I would like to call the exception to Genshiken as a whole. as I mentioned before, the series is very direct with it's "all good things slowly deteriorate and come to an end", and Madarame is the antithesis to this, he refuses to change and move on with life by still going to the club after graduating since "he happens to work and live nearby". Sasahara? Moving on with life working as an editor, Tanaka? Working in the fashion/cosplay industry, Kugayama? Doing some sales stuff, Ogiue? Altough she shows up every now and then, she's working as a real mangaka now, no time to do much club stuff. But Madarame? Still there, eating his lunch in a suit in the club not really doing anything, thinking about how much he hates himself and his regrets but not really acting on them.

Now, I have no issue with all of this, we are all familiar with the feeling of not wanting to move on, and the moments in which these topics are touched upon are fantastic (ex. the confession), but the problem outside of that is that he just sort of exists, doesn't really engage with the yaoi side besides him lusting for Hato but more on this later.

To be succinct, the start of Nidaime is great, Sue is lovely, Ogiue shows up frequently and her backstory is also great, Mirei has her moments and does a really nice job of the situation of being surrounded by extremely talented people but yourself not being very good at it, Yoshitake is a megane braid goddess that is very entertaining despite me not giving a damn about samurais having gay sex, and Hato is a good vessel for the discussion of crossdressing as a whole, and the whole start does an excellent job of recreating Genshiken's lively femotaku atmosphere.

Okay so now comes the negative part, all the good stuff I just talked about? Replaced with the final arc which is:

Madarame Harem

Yeah, you read that right, Madarame, the loser that refuses to move on, be active, change himself, etc etc gets a harem, and most of Nidaime centers this and in my opinion just goes against one of the biggest points that Genshiken tries to make; be somewhat realistic about otaku in society.
Genshiken pretty much drills this very often, otaku behaviour is seen as weird from the outskirts, most of the cast dates each other or other otaku because of this, the only exception being Saki who even despite most of Genshiken being about this, she still goes from finding it absolutely disgusting to tolerating it for the sake of her boyfriend. But now the series goes from a down to earth view of relationships to the lousy loser getting a harem without doing much of anything and most of his crushes being forced outside of Hato really.

All that yaoi/fujo otaku shit? Out of the window, most of the manga now is about relationship drama, Hato and Madarame having the "Am I gay" confusion over and over again for dozens of chapters without anything getting resolved, Mirei having issues trying to draw and having confidence issues? Out of the window, now she also wants to fuck Hato but oh no she's part of the harem!!! Ohno and Ogiue? Out of the picture, funnily enough one of the best parts of Genshiken with the whole people moving on finally plays as a negative, because now there's basically no way of talking about anything other than haremshit. Sue? She's great and very cute and has some of the best moments but she doesn't really get developed much because he's just used as a mascot and all we get really is the fact that she now wants the MadarameD. The best thing I can say is about Yoshitake whose role in the whole drama at least makes her very entertaining but it doesn't redeem the arc itself.

So after dozens of chapters of nothing because it's haremshit, things come to an end, in the end, nobody wins because Madarame admits that he's a loser that hates himself etc etc and finally decides to move on, closing the cycle of the original Genshiken. But then the mangaka figures out that the best girl should win and if you don't consider her to be the best girl then tough luck buddy that's how harems work babyy

Another random tidbit is that I got really disappointed that they just flatout stopped doing extra pages about Kujibiki Unbalance, even though it was mostly random bullshit about it felt extremely cute to read about, and now the entire segment is completely gone here.

To sum it up, Nidaime is great, the foundation of it is great, the characters are fun and have a lot of chemistry with one another which works really well as a sequel to Genshiken but with a different vibe and topics covered, but it throws away most of it for the sake of a harem arc that feels directionless most of the time and way overstays it's welcome

7.5/10, mostly brought down by this final arc, Ogiue Chika is my wife and Sue is my daughter