Score: B

It’s kind of nice to have this show back. Everything just slid back into place like the previous didn’t wrap up about 6 years ago. They didn’t even really spend that much time on recap. Just gave the basic idea and then got going. I suppose that might reflect how the story doesn’t have much time to waste if they want to adapt as much as they can. I honestly haven’t watched the last season in a while and yet it wasn’t a problem to pick up on where the story is at present. Aki and Makabe very much feel like how I remember them. A pair of goofballs that will probably work things out before the show is over, but will have to see. The premise itself would go against that, but all that’s needed is Makabe to bail on revenge before the end.

Nice girl…troublesome family

Honestly I’m enjoying the current dynamic between Aki and Makabe. Of course his plan is still on the surface to get her to confess, dump her, and I suppose reveal his connection to her past. But really…when the time comes it’s going to be tough to see him do it. Though I suppose he’ll have to for the story to make sense. He’s not going to make it to the end of the show without ever revealing what he intended to do here. In that sense it’ll be tough on both parties. But for now things are good.

While the antics of Muriel are a bit of a pain at least they do force those two to spend more time together. And if they have to show off “love comedy” to the girl then maybe they’ll fall harder for each other along the way. Be nice at least if Makabe forgot about his plans for a little bit and just got absorbed in what was actively going on between them.

She’s certainly got passion…

For the time being though they are unfortunately sucked into helping Muriel understand Japan. I wonder if it’s supposed to be a shot at some of the western audience that try to impose their thoughts on how Japanese anime/manga should be. At the very least it feels like a message very fitting for the present day. Muriel clearly loves manga and wants to draw, but she has no understanding of the material itself. I don’t want to be arrogant, but at least I think that I get anime/manga a bit better than she does. There are just rules and cultural meanings behind things that you have to work with. While Muriel may want a love comedy that immediately jumps to a confession and dating…that’s just not the genre.

The scariest thing is her seemingly mobster brother using goons to harass people into helping his sister out. They aren’t obligated to spend their free time helping this girl understand something she could clearly learn herself by…reading more manga. It’s not that hard to pick up how things work within the genre if you spend some time on it.

This could make things interesting

There are some interesting antics and factors at play here. Clearly Yoshino was trying to eliminate interruptions (as much as possible) for Makabe to spend more time with Aki. But she got the nice reversal pulled on her with Gasou showing off that picture. Of course just having that picture doesn’t mean much unless Gasou does something good with it. At minimum it means Gasou won’t be lured off by Yoshino. But it’s probably going to be more than that. Otherwise, there’d be no reason to go off with her at all when it was clear she wasn’t going to lead Gasou to Aki. So I’m presuming that Yoshino’s position will get even more complicated and Gasou will try to blackmail Yoshino into playing both sides. After all if that picture is shown to Aki then things get tricky.

Best of luck

We also have Fujinomiya and Kojuurou’s situation, but there’s not much to say about that one. Clearly Kojuurou is so enamored by Fujinomiya that it’s not easy to actively talk to her without stumbling over words. At least they are spending a good deal of time together on this trip to France, but whether anything comes from it will depend on Kojuurou stepping up a bit more. Not that Fujinomiya doesn’t care at all, but her attention is clearly on other things most of the time. Best of luck to Kojuurou though. Things might work out in the end there.

There’s a sister used to Makabe’s antics

Honestly, this was a solid if not simple return for the show. They jumped right into it with Makabe’s intense narcissism and ended it with a nice scene between Yoshino and Gasou. I am falling back into finding it fun how Makabe and Aki are so interested in each other, but things are getting in the way of anything coming from that. Aki’s tsundere personality keeps her from doing more than she has been. Although credit to her for trying to talk to Makabe and set things up to spend free time with him. But the bigger hurdle is with Makabe. He is still active on his revenge plan while also having actual feelings for Aki. When things get serious I’m curious to see how he’ll handle it. I probably won’t cover the show, but I did want to cover this episode.