Score: A-

We are certainly back! It actually hasn’t been that long since the last release for this franchise. The last movie hit Japan back in late 2023. But for anyone watching just the tv anime…it’s been quiet since 2018! I do get the franchise going to movies to tell individual arcs since it’s possible to condense stories for that format. I’ve seen most if not all the movies, but I could have missed something along the way honestly.

This could be worrying…

Thankfully the show does try to connect to the end of the last movie and set things up. But it only goes so far. All it highlights is that someone called Touko Kirishima exists. But no one has seen them. They keep releasing work, but they are an urban myth. I wouldn’t be surprised if the mysterious girl in a Santa suit is Touko. Heck, I’m now a bit worried for Mai here. With a show like this even a passing phrase could end up having supernatural consequences. People thinking that Touko might be Mai…might result in that happening somehow.

Case number 1 is here

The big Puberty Syndrome event of the episode was Uzuki acting like a different person. Admittedly I didn’t actually notice something being weird until it was mentioned by Nodoka. This girl might have been more important in a movie or one arc in the show and I’ve forgotten about her. But regardless, it would appear that her personality has changed to be more capable of reading the room. Admittedly I think if Nodoka stormed into a room looking as heated as she did…most people would notice. But maybe Uzuki is the type that wouldn’t have been able to calm things down and would have been blindsided by an angry Nodoka. I guess we’ll see what comes from this. It is true that changing a bit to be able to read the room isn’t that bad a thing, so long as there isn’t a more nefarious consequence that we aren’t seeing.

Sakuta just isn’t looking

The end of the episode (besides the Santa girl in the background) highlights something a bit off about Sakuta. In the show he was pretty active in terms of responding to Puberty Syndrome when something happened in front of him. But he seems to be taking an “if it’s not a visible problem then we can ignore it” approach. He brought that up regarding the Touko situation at the start of the episode too. Maybe Sakuta is just tired of all the craziness that Puberty Syndrome and is trying to just get away from it. That stuff has impacted his sister, friends, himself, and his girlfriend. He may simply not want something bad to happen and could be looking away. Guess we’ll see what happens there.

Mai is back!

As always I love Mai and Sakuta. The best thing is that they ended the first arc effectively together (it took a bit beyond that to really start dating) and they’ve kept it going. They are in college now and the relationship is still great. It’s obviously dealing with distance issues since Mai is an active celebrity and isn’t always around. But they don’t seem particularly strained. Their dry humor remains the same as ever. Mai will tease, Sakuta will tease back, but they are completely in love. It’s just a relationship that’s on a bit of a professional level. Mai knows how to manage things to keep paparazzi from grabbing pictures of them together and Sakuta handles her being busy. Mai is still one of the best girls out there.

Nodoka came into that scene hot!

This was a solid return to the show. The characters are still themselves, but obviously time has very much passed. It’s fun to see a series where the story allows the characters to get older. There’s unease under the surface of this episode. How serious is the Puberty Syndrome going to be this time around? There have been some heavy moments in this show. Even the first season started up with the horrific hell of Mai being invisible and forgotten by everyone! Things could get pretty messy here. This first case doesn’t seem too serious, but it might be much darker than expected.