Karen's Anime Blog

I’m a big fan of the Rascal Does Not Dream….series. It’s kind of looked down upon by some as kind of the poor cousin of the Monogatari series, since both series feature a male MC who helps different girls with various supernatural problems. Personally, I just like the characters of Rascal better. Sakuta, our main guy, has a sarcastic way about him, but still cares deeply about the people in his life, and shows that love; he can hold the world at arm’s length in some respects without being dangerously closed off to intimacy, which is an unusual combination. His relationship with Mai, a famous actress who can use her fame without abusing it, is one of the most interesting romantic pairings around. You can tell from their conversations why they’re together, without either of them ever needing to dive into a long speech about why they love each other.

The season starts with a flashback to the end of the most recent Rascal movie, Rascal Does Not Dream of A Knapsack Kid. Shoko Makinohara lets Sakuta know that in all the various futures she saw during her time with Puberty Syndrome, the singer Touko Kirishima never was famous until this timeline. What about this timeline caused Kirishima to become popular? In the main timeline, Sakuta, Mai and Shoko all live, so something about all of them being alive simultaneously must have triggered Kirishima’s ascendance. This makes sense if you watched the first movie, Rascal Does Not Dream of A Dreaming Girl...in theory. In all honesty, that movie confused me– I thought Doctor Who had prepared me for all kinds of time travel shenanigans, but that movie was something else. It’s brilliant though.

Shoko: “Tee-hee, I’m amazing jailbait!” Sakuta: “It’s cute that you think that.“

Now we jump one year into the future. This is surprising, because all of the Rascal stuff (one TV season and three movies) until now only took place over the course of a single year. Now Sakuta and Mai are attending Yokohama City University, although Mai is spending so much time working as an actress and model it doesn’t look like she’s getting the most out of her college experience. Mai is no longer wearing her trademark pink bunny hair clip, and that makes me a little sad. I guess she’s too mature for that sort of thing now? I thought the clip was the way to reference her title as “Bunny girl-senpai,” even when she stopped wearing the Bunny Girl outfit.

By the way, in this premiere episode, several guys ask Sakuta to help them get girlfriends, thinking that if he snagged Mai, he must really know how to put the moves on women. It would be tedious to point it out every time it happens. Of course Sakuta mostly just treats women like people, which is the source of his popularity with girls, but if he told them that, they wouldn’t understand.

Thrill as Sakuta uses the world’s last remaining pay phone.

Sakuta goes to a party and meets a new girl, Mito, who is maybe the only other person in their age group who doesn’t have a smartphone. Chances of Mito being either Touko Kirishima or the “Santa Claus” in the title? Very high. Hell, she could even be both. Even though she doesn’t tell him, Sakuta figures out that she came to sit with him to avoid a guy who was hitting on her, because he’s smart like that. Mito also lets loose that she knows all about Puberty Syndrome, making her extra suspicious.

Mito and Sakuta discuss not having smartphones, but we don’t learn WHY Mito doesn’t have one. Suspicious!

Sakuta goes home and spends some time with Mai and his sister Kaede, only for Mai to take off– she has another shoot in the morning, and Sakuta can’t accompany her outside because of the photographers that are always on her tail. It seems Mai’s agency will let her have a boyfriend, but being publicly seen with said boyfriend is a step too far. Sometimes I wonder how incredibly annoying it must be to be a famous person– I mean, there are nice things to make up for it, like oodles and oodles of money, but still.

Back to school and we’re reintroduced to another character: Uzuki. We know her already because she’s the frontwoman for the idol group “Sweet Bullet” that also stars Mai’s sister, Nodoka. I like how this show introduces characters peripherally and then gives them their own arc later on. Uzuki is as bubbly as ever, but we know she’s gotta have some kind of supernatural problem going on. Sakuta sees the middle-school classmate he started noticing in the Knapsack movie– obviously she’s going to have a Puberty Syndrome-related problem too, but I have no idea what her deal is yet. All we know about her is that Sakuta started noticing her in one of the movies so like Touko, she is possibly unique to one timeline. Maybe she is Touko Kirishima? Nah, hair doesn’t match.

Uzuki has delicious bubble tea. I could go for a bubble tea so bad right now. Is there a kit or something where you can make bubble tea in your house?

Sakuta learns from his guy friend that Touko Kirishima is at the height of her popularity, and no one knows who she is. There is a theory that Touko is really Mai Sakurajima, but of course Sakuta knows that that’s not true (I mean, I think it’s not…you can never be too sure with this show). Then Nodoka bursts in and we have to deal with Sweet Bullet drama. I honestly started to check out a bit here, I’m not particularly interested in the group dynamics of Mai’s little sister’s idol group, but it looks like Sweet Bullet is going to be front and center this season. I do like how Sakuta points out that the group’s problems are growing pains as a result of getting more popular, and it’s kind of messed up to complain about getting too popular when the whole goal is to get popular.

Sakuta is going to go to his part-time job: teaching at cram school. He has vacated his role Benny’s Family Restaurant and has now left that responsibility to his sister, Kaede. Sakuta heads to the library on some job-related errand and runs into the Santa Claus of the title: Could it be Uzuki? Could it be Touko? Could it be what’s-her-name Middle School Friend? The possibilities are endless. I enjoy the fact that Sakuta always runs into the hottest cosplay girls at the library. Meanwhile, we learn that brainy girl Futaba is now working at the same cram school– thank goodness. I miss Sakuta and Futaba’s little chats about quantum physics. I still don’t know if they make any sense from a science perspective, but they’re fun.

Want to meet hot girls? Go to the library, like Sakuta. Bookstores are a good back-up plan.

We end the episode back in Spanish class, where Uzuki comes up to Sakuta and asks “What did Nodoka say about me?” Arrgh, I hate it when people do this. Deal with your own problems and don’t quiz an intermediary. Grow up, Sweet Bullet ladies. Fortunately, Nodoka and Uzuki meet face-to-face– I’m so glad they didn’t drag out this fight for multiple episodes– and Nodoka notes to Sakuta that Uzuki was actually responding to how she was feeling, aka “Reading the Room,” something Uzuki is famously incapable of doing. I never thought about it before, but the more we learn about Uzuki, the more it seems like she’s on the spectrum, which is interesting. So we have our first Puberty Syndrome problem of the season: Idol Uzuki….developing the ability to read facial expressions. Well it’s not quite as dramatic as that time that Futaba split into two people, but I’m willing to play along and see where they go with it.

Why did Nodoka insist on Sakuta staying in the room for this chat? Everybody seems to regard him as the unofficial referee for some reason.

Our last shot is a frame of the mysterious Santa Claus girl, from the chest down. I hope they resolve this mystery before Christmas, otherwise their going to start mistaking the mysterious Santa Claus girl for regular Santa Claus girls…or maybe that’s the point?

Anyway, solid first episode, with plenty of classic Sakuta banter. In addition to the supernatural intrigue that’s going on, I also find this enjoyable because it makes me really nostalgic for my college days. Hopefully Mai will make it on campus next episode, and we’ll find out whatever nonsense is up with Uzuki and her emotion-reading.