Kanojo mo Kanojo Season 2: r/anime Awards 2023 Thoughts
This is part of a series of posts, reworking my casual writing from the r/anime Awards about the various shortlists and nominees. I do a lot of writing for the awards which never gets released outside of awards, so I figured I’d try bringing some of it out and putting it here. They’re not meant to be anything too serious or in-depth, just reworking my thoughts as I posted them in the awards server to here. This isn’t representative of the awards themselves or anyone other than myself involved in the awards. I’ll make a larger post with all the shortlisted shows from each category in the Write-Up Collections tab after I’ve posted all of the individual write-ups for that category here.
Of the categories I was juror for in the 2023 r/anime Awards, Kanojo mo Kanojo Season 2 was shortlisted in Anime of the Year, and Rika was shortlisted in Comedic Character, so those were the categories where I discussed it.
Watch Links: Crunchyroll
I wouldn't describe Kanojo mo Kanojo Season 2 as "more of the same" with regards to the series. In terms of the style of comedy, it kind of is, but in terms of the story, I think it actually does something very different from the first season. In Season 1, I felt like the main narrative throughline was really shaky, and left me kind of just annoyed with a lot of the "developments". We were just being introduced to the polyamorous scenario and the characters. Season 2 is more focused I feel. Each character has their own thing going on, a path which they are following, and there's a clear end goal for each of them, with characters affecting the path each ends up taking and how far towards their goals they reach.
Admittedly I did not find Saki and Nagisa's goals super compelling or find they made for strong narrative hooks. Saki wants to kiss Naoya, and Nagisa wants to help Saki kiss Naoya so that she can kiss Naoya without feeling like she's passing up Saki. This felt really weak. In general the flustered will-they-won't-they is what made S1 kind of annoying for stretches, it being carried by the girls (who I like), a few good moments, and a handful of laughs. For the show to take 11 episodes to get the kiss with Saki and for it to be so...meh...was really disappointing. Saki was all emotional over worrying about losing Naoya and it was a great moment for Shino's character, but it completely squandered the whole plot point about them wanting their first kiss to happen at a really romantic moment. Like, it's a moment of passion, but I could only think "If you were just gonna kiss him then you shoulda just done it earlier." Making the goal of the kiss be known between Saki and Naoya and the two collaborating to make it happen meant I probably wasn't gonna be satisfied no matter what, though. Like, they can both have the goal of wanting to kiss one another, but it's so awkward for them to both be trying to make it happen and for it to keep not happening, so I think the show just made it happen to get it over with. I was not moved by their kiss, just bored, and annoyed that we wasted a lot of time this season leading up to it. And that's even more to say I was frustrated that Nagisa at no point says "Fuck this, I'm tired of waiting on Saki". Nagisa was a wet noodle this whole season, she gets 0 time to shine. Appropriate I guess that the season ends and she's the only one who hasn't kissed Naoya.
Rika was pretty good this season. The festival was a great moment of giving a more complex spin on how Naoya feels about her and how they understand one another's feelings. The camping trip also was a much needed detour on the way to developing that relationship and distracting from the nonsense that is Saki's arc. I wasn't a huge fan of the way she treated Shino at first, but the way she interacts with Shino during the Okinawa trip was actually pretty perfect in being blunt with Shino and pushing her to the edge so that she actually fucking does something. Rika was the perfect person to do this, too, being as show-offy as she is.
And that leaves Shino...Shino was the star of this season for me. We start the season with her overlooking the situation as it has developed from last season, and then after 6 episodes of bullshit we get to see her develop her own feelings as she parses the situation and sees how others feel. She also had some of the same thoughts as me with regards to Saki and her feelings. What does Saki get out of letting Naoya date Nagisa too? Does Saki actually care that much about Naoya? If Nagisa can date Naoya while Saki is dating him, is there a way Naoya would date Shino too? Ep 10 was the highlight because it was a perfect climax of all her feelings, the thoughts she had about Naoya's other relationships, and Rika's goading to push Saki to take action, and after a very solid development of her feelings. Genuinely good arc!
One of the reasons I got so upset with Ep 11 and still have some reservations was it felt like it set back a lot of the progress that Shino made. She'd resolved herself, and the minute she sees Saki, she gives up. It pays off in Ep 12, albeit I still felt like in some ways it just served to drag things out and frustrate me. I will say, though, I am glad we got to see Shino resolve her feelings about Saki and face Saki's feelings for Naoya head on before finding her own resolution with Naoya. I think that whole thing is pretty well written.
One of my big issues with S1 was that, while this show is pretty aware of a lot of the tropes of the genre, and wants to play with them in ways which show awareness, I found it wasn't super smart with a bunch of them or particularly creative in a lot of cases. It kind of plays a lot of them straight, especially some of the more annoying ones, and so they are still annoying. This isn't as present in S2, but aren’t all gone either. Like, Shino's whole lucky pervert thing was clearly something the show was aware it was doing, as it makes a point of pointing it out. And it played that straight. It wasn't too interested in doing much interesting or creative with it I feel like. And, unfortunately, this self-aware playing straight with tropes is the basis of like 90% of the comedy, and this is primarily a comedy show, so I end up just annoyed and bored for large chunks of episodes. I'm happy to have someone give their perspective on how this show is actually clever with this aspect, since that was kind of how some friends of mine tried to get me to watch it, so I ended up ultimately a bit disappointed by this.
Another carryover that I really hate from S1 is...Naoya. Naoya is obnoxious and idiotic, and I hate him. He's obviously supposed to be a played up version of the nice guy, a guy so nice that not only does he attract all the cutest girls around him, but he wants to do right by all of them to the point of creating unreasonable scenarios and being an absolute dumbass. One thing I kinda found a problem in S1 which continues is that the show spends a lot of time getting us to understand how the girls came to like Naoya (and it succeeds at this to some extent), but it spends 0 time helping the audience come to like him or giving me reason to believe the girls would keep liking him. It just assumes that, once the girls love Naoya, their feelings are permanent and anything Naoya does will not cause the girls to stop loving him, even some really heinous shit. It needs to do this to make its central premise work, but it doesn't endear me to Naoya, and the show doesn't put in any effort to make him likeable to the audience either. He's just an over the top obnoxious nice guy. And this is no different in S2. He does not change, so there is nothing new for me to like about him in this season, and so my feelings are the same after S1. I’m also confused about the ways in which he shows his affection for the girls. Saki is clearly repressed, and he says he's aroused by certain things and says he wants the characters to do sexy things, but he doesn't actually show any desire towards the girls, which further makes me wonder why the more repressed girls stick around. The other girls clearly want affection from him as well, but the ways he shows affection aren't really romantic, he kind of just screams about loving them and not much else. He doesn't have to be fucking them to show affection, but I don't actually buy that he loves these girls, he kind of just says it and works hard to keep them happy without actually doing much that seems like it shows affection. No dates, no signs of affection, he doesn't even call Nagisa by her first name by the end of S2 and according to him she's tied for the person he cares for most of the girls. Like wtf is this guy doing? Why do the girls stick around?
Overall, this season was way better than S1, but still not enough for me to really want to see it nominated.
