Hi Score Girl II

Episode 6:
Aww shit man, this is gettin' real now. Haruo's finally moving forward, unknowing that they're set to be separated and Oono is likely fighting to make herself feel like it's okay. Even if she wins, it won't really make it okay, but that's probably what she's telling herself.

I think people are writing off my thoughts on the Hidaka vs Oono arc a bit too soon... Yes, clearly there was a great deal more to Oono's pained expression than I suspected what with the going off to America thing, but that doesn't exclude anything. They've withheld the conclusion of that battle for much too long for it to be nothing, especially when you consider this episode's scene of Oono deciding she has to settle things with "her" and entering what was definitely Hidaka's family's shop. Tbh I'm expecting Hidaka to show at the tournament as well, her victory over Oono to finally be revealed, and be an obstacle that must be faced before our final battle where Oono and Haruo settle their rivalry and their feelings become clear. The obvious way to do it would be for Oono to have to take Hidaka down on her way to Haruo, but perhaps more interesting might be if Haruo's the one who has to face her on the way instead...
 
MistLiigh said:
Episode 6:
Aww shit man, this is gettin' real now. Haruo's finally moving forward, unknowing that they're set to be separated and Oono is likely fighting to make herself feel like it's okay. Even if she wins, it won't really make it okay, but that's probably what she's telling herself.

I think people are writing off my thoughts on the Hidaka vs Oono arc a bit too soon... Yes, clearly there was a great deal more to Oono's pained expression than I suspected what with the going off to America thing, but that doesn't exclude anything. They've withheld the conclusion of that battle for much too long for it to be nothing, especially when you consider this episode's scene of Oono deciding she has to settle things with "her" and entering what was definitely Hidaka's family's shop. Tbh I'm expecting Hidaka to show at the tournament as well, her victory over Oono to finally be revealed, and be an obstacle that must be faced before our final battle where Oono and Haruo settle their rivalry and their feelings become clear. The obvious way to do it would be for Oono to have to take Hidaka down on her way to Haruo, but perhaps more interesting might be if Haruo's the one who has to face her on the way instead...
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Bruh... even if Hidaka won the battle, she's lost the war.
 
Did my boi Haruo just pick up broken glass with his bare hands? That seems dangerous.

Not too much happened this episode. I think at this point we should just be making bets on who will win in their match. Losers get tickled.
 
Ugh, super cute episode. From the ridiculous animals and herd of ghosts on the train to Akira and Haruo staring at each other in the same bed.

Even though we as the audience could always see Haruo's infatuation with Akira, they've still come a long way toward being completely comfortable around one another. I'm glad that they're finally happy. Now if only she wasn't moving halfway across the world...
 
I like how we are in Haruo's perspective, for once, and he's so concerned about winning and the tension and frustration is built so well up to this point only to have the rug pulled out from under us that Akira didn't make it past the first round. I mean, they used it as a plot point to develop her a bit, but I felt like it was a really good feint.

This episode felt a bit rushed though. It looks like this season ends with the next one, so I guess they are trying to move right along to get to whatever they want to say before this ends. Not that I necessarily care about watching Street Fighter matches for 10 minutes straight, but I wish we had a little more interactions with Haruo and Akira. The stuff at the beginning, the tickling and the biting, was pretty cute. And Haruo affirming his love was a nice moment too. But, I never once felt like Haruo actually hated Akira.

Also the ending song: Unknown World Map has grown on me quite a bit. It's probably one of my favorite endings at this point.

Man, they made use of a lot of lighting effects in this episode. For the entire first half Haruo was purposely always covered in shadow. Not only that, the art actually looked noticeably better in this episode than in any other episode in this series to date. They clearly spent the bulk of their budget on this episode. The best part was probably the very beginning though. The visuals between Haruo and Akira during their final match were intense. This was a very visually impressive episode.

The voice acting for this episode was pretty on point too. I watched the Extra Stage stuff dubbed, but I feel like there is no way the dub actors will be able to match the intensity that was put out in this one episode. This one episode sort of edged out my biased opinion of Chihayafuru 3 being the only 5/5 anime this season.

I had actually read the end of the manga a few weeks prior to this, so I knew what was coming, but the pacing and acting was so much better in this episode than how the chapter was presented. Usually I don't think that, but I gotta give credit where credit is due. Even the segment where Haruo is rushing towards the airport was a lot more concise and emotional than in the manga. I like the idea of the gaming world bleeding over into their world and the plane turning back for turbulence was a believable enough excuse. While Guile's Sonic Boom probably didn't cause it, whose to say it wasn't at least a contributing factor? This one episode was like everything I wanted from this season and then some.

Overall, I liked Season 1 of this series, but I loved Season 2. This is getting a 5/5 from me.
 
Ugh, they're so cute. Them in bed and Haruo looking at her and saying, "You're really cute." And then, "I love her to death!" YES.
First of all, I was kind of expecting Akira to win, just because she seems like an overall better gamer. What I wasn't expecting was for her and Haruo to just act like that ended everything. I mean, I know they said that's what they were going to do, I just didn't expect it to actually happen. Like, they had a whole month while Haruo had realized his feelings and he just...couldn't face her, I guess.

The airport scene though. When they held each other crying and Haruo was like, "I won't let you leave"...that hit me in the heart, man. But then it just sort of...ended? I guess there wasn't a whole lot they could do, and at least they did confess their feelings toward one another. But part of me is like, what happened after that? Did Akira leave anyway? And another part of me is like, it doesn't really matter.

Whatever. I'm happy that they're finally happy, and the part with them running towards each other, as cliche as it was, was like all of the emotion from the whole series coming out in a final burst. It was all we could have hoped for, really.
 
SkyOnAnime said:
First of all, I was kind of expecting Akira to win, just because she seems like an overall better gamer. What I wasn't expecting was for her and Haruo to just act like that ended everything. I mean, I know they said that's what they were going to do, I just didn't expect it to actually happen. Like, they had a whole month while Haruo had realized his feelings and he just...couldn't face her, I guess.

The airport scene though. When they held each other crying and Haruo was like, "I won't let you leave"...that hit me in the heart, man. But then it just sort of...ended? I guess there wasn't a whole lot they could do, and at least they did confess their feelings toward one another. But part of me is like, what happened after that? Did Akira leave anyway? And another part of me is like, it doesn't really matter.

Whatever. I'm happy that they're finally happy, and the part with them running towards each other, as cliche as it was, was like all of the emotion from the whole series coming out in a final burst. It was all we could have hoped for, really.
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I mean, that was the whole basis for the tension for Ep. 6 onward. Akira was going to do something so drastic, so unlike her character, to just burn this bridge with Haruo. These were the stakes. Our only hope was if Haruo managed to win in his match and confess to Akira. So by Haruo losing we've essentially reached the bad ending in which Haruo is respecting the terms of their match. He didn't win, so he won't try to stop her by confessing. We even have him verbalizing this to a degree during the conversation with Makoto.

This is probably one of the few series I'm okay with this "ambiguous" ending mostly because it's already established everything we need to know. The told us what's going to happen from here, and that's enough for me. Haruo is going to end up coming to find Akira at some point with a real ring and they'll presumably live happily ever after. This season had a lot of subtext, and I feel like that makes up for this choice of ending. It's bittersweet and not just lazy. This season was definitely a step above the last season and I never would've expected it to go in this direction as the initial series didn't seem like it was that invested in romance.
 
I'm 3 episodes into this. How does Hidaka manage to become more insufferably annoying with each appearance? It was bad enough when the cow was just the boring side piece distracting him from best girl. But now she's also a bitch, and completely out of her goddamn skull.
He doesn't wanna get dragged to a no-tell motel by an unhinged classmate, and I'm supposed to feel sorry when that causes her to have a public meltdown and try to make him hug her?

Cripes, I hate this bitch.
 
Well aside from the aforementioned Hidaka bits, just as adorable as ever.
I'm a sucker for a good "Race to the airport" love confession. Call me a sap if you will, but it gets me every time.

Good stuff.

4 out of 5.
 
So, picking up where I left off, binging the second season. Unfortunately what I thought was a clever juke of the 12 episode season limitation was just borrowing three episodes from this season, so it was a bit short.

This season was excellent, however, I notice we are drifting towards a heavier focus on comedy and the love triangle. I had a ton of laughs with most jokes landing, and Chaos-Oono is fixing many of the problems with Oono as a character, namely her mute trait, which at this point is clearly a weight dragging down the show. If she actually is mute, then she should learn sign language or have some other communication technique;obviously, I think, she actually can speak and is choosing not to. Thats fine for a side character, but it makes any Oono-centric arcs feel a bit off. Her sister Chaos-Oono exists to facilitate communication, quite common for a side\utility character to do so, but honestly Chaos-Oono is threatening Oono's place in my heart and probably if the two were combined via fusion it would likely work better.

Hidaka has fought her way into becoming the best girl of this show. From a story and structural point of view, the anime works best with Oono;however, as a character, Hidaka is superior in my eyes. Her uphill battle against both Yaguchi and Oono is admirable, although Im not still convinced her reasons for liking Yaguchi would really result in a crush and motivation of this intensity.

And get Hidaka a lake to drink! Being ignored by this dense rock known as Yaguchi is resulting in some thirsty, pent-up frustration.

Hidaka being the one to tell Yaguchi what the ring meant and telling him to pursue Oono was huge. What selflessness! I really like this character a lot, and she is by far the best fit for Yaguchi from a realistic, social perspective. I mean, Oono is just too much of a princess, her family would never let it happen. Hidaka makes sense for him.

I do think Yaguchi is getting a bit too much flak for his response to these girls. I mean come on, most of us guys could not handle one girl throwing herself at us back in high school, let alone two. I remember doing a bunch of jerk things in conversations with the girls back then. These are not random B tier girls, but S class hotties, the show itself makes fun of the situation and how absurd it actually is. Love that conversation with Yaguchi's mom and Chaos-Oono where Yaguchi is considered not even a good consolation prize lol.

Yaguchi's ability to keep it platonic is incredible, I mean sleeping under the same blanket as Oono? Hidaka throwing herself at him earlier? Its both a good asset to his character that he treats the girls like a gentlemen, but its also a bit hard to believe it working out like that in actuality...

I felt like the finale of this season was weak again. The tournament in ep8 was lame, again like in the 3-episode Extra, it had weak battles that didnt integrate the ingame action with what the characters were going through, and lots of filler battles portrayed. I think the series is losing its focus on gaming and shifting towards comedy\romance, with a resulting detrimental effect on any battles. Just about every comedy sequence in this season was vastly superior to any of the battle sequences.

Im not sure the ending is as ambiguous as they say;she clearly is leaving for LA no matter what Yaguchi says or does. What actually happens in their relationship is a mystery, but I dont see marriage as on the table. That would be a massive uphill battle for Yaguchi. On the other hand, he seems to have decisively rejected Hidaka.

It seems season 3 is many years off, since the sequel manga Hi Score Girl: Dash is still in progress. Looks interesting, a 10+ year time skip?
 
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