Anime Hajime Review: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai (Haganai) Next

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai (Haganai) Next. Reader discretion is advised.***

Series Synopsis

Welcome back to the Neighbors Club, the place for people to learn how to make friends. What that actually means is hard to say.

As always, Kodaka Hasegawa (voiced by Ryohei Kimura) has been struggling with interacting with his peers. His delinquent-like appearance is enough to send anyone running. Despite that, he has done quite well for himself in his circle. The time he has spent in the clubroom has been precious to him. Even if the atmosphere can get a little heated.

Continuing their bitter war of insults are Yozora Mikazuki (voiced by Marina Inoue) and Sena Kashiwazaki (voiced by Kanae Ito). Their unshakable and often intimidating personalities keep them at odds with each other. Yet in their hands, the Neighbors Club is well taken care of.

In their quest to discover the secrets of friendship, Kodaka, Yozora, Sena, and their clubmates are never short on things to do. In fact, there is almost never a moment when this group is not together. Though they are all socially awkward, that is what keeps them close.

So much so, anything that could destroy their unity is too scary to even think about.

Series Positives

There is a question that has caused me great annoyance over and over again. I’m not sure why I keep bothering to ask it. I guess you can call it my eternal optimism. When going into the second season of a series I didn’t care for, I can’t help myself from thinking the following.

“It can’t get worse, can it?”

Of course, it can. Even with shows I like, things can always get worse. So, imagine my hesitation when it came time to continue Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, a.k.a. Haganai. If you didn’t read my last review of this series, the short of it is, I didn’t hate it.

There have been many others I have enjoyed less. There have also been a ton more that are much, much better.

A few standalone moments aside, season one of this series was bland. Although, there were enough good things for me to give it a tentative recommendation.

But that came with a condition. Hagani Next had to be worth something.

Thus, the situation changed from “can it get worse” to “it needs to be better”. If this didn’t happen, there would be no reason for me to suggest anyone watch this show. Season one was underwhelming.

My expectations for this series moving forward weren’t high. This season was set up to fall and I was ready for the ensuing impact. That impact never came.

Hagani Next wasn’t only better, it was great. It was fantastic even. The amount of improvement caught me off guard. I wasn’t hoping for this show to fail, but this was a pleasant surprise. I knew something had changed from the opening minutes of the season.

Going from one to the other, the animation received one hell of an upgrade. Everything looked brighter and more vibrant. Characters were more expressive. Movements were more fluid and smoother. Season one wasn’t bad in this aspect. Yet seeing this indicated things would be different during this go around.

And they were.

Next was much funnier than it had any right to be. Granted, this season went low brow and wasn’t above fart jokes. But there was a nice sense of humor.

Keep your eyes open. Take a look around and watch a few scenes twice. You’ll begin to see the tiny extra details that made this season entertaining.

In so many ways, Next blew the original Haganai out of the water.

The Characters

The cast of Hagani was season one’s most redeeming feature. Though everyone returned, this might as well have been a new group. I mean that in the best way possible. The members of the Neighbors Club were so much more fun here in Next.

Everyone got better and became more important. In the last season, there were only three people, Kodaka, Yozora, and Sena, who were at the core of everything. Everyone else was support for them. That was fine. This series managed to have each character play a specific role.

Next took that idea and ran with it.

Only time will tell for sure, but this may now be among one of the best anime clubs I have come across. I’m willing to bet, anytime I hear the Neighbors Club, I’m going to think Haganai and vice-a-versa. I base that on the fact that I forgot what this group called themselves after season one. I could only recall specific characters. Now I can do both.

Before we go into more detail, we should discuss something. In the last review, I explained my reasons why I was hard pressed to call this series a harem anime. Regardless if it is or not, future harem series should use Next as a reference in terms of characterization. After all, this genre only works when the characters do.

Then again, I could be looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps I’m hesitating to call Hagani a harem anime is because it didn’t quite follow what I would think to see from one. Not every member wanted a romantic relationship with the center. Intimacy didn’t play that big a role. Everyone had other goals besides wanting to become a couple.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? This series, particularly Next, didn’t follow my preconceptions. It didn’t adhere to the formula. While maintaining the spirit of this type of story, this show tried its own thing.

So yeah, maybe I should consider this a harem anime. And if I’m going to do that, I have no problem taking it a step further. Hagani is one of the more unique entries in this genre. I can’t believe I’m saying this seeing how numb I was after the first season.

We haven’t even gone into the characters and already Next has overtaken its predecessor.

Let’s start with one of the smaller improvements. Keep in mind, though I say “small”, I don’t want to downplay how much better Yukimura Kusunoki (voiced by Nozomi Yamamoto) became.

I can’t get through talking about Yukimura without bringing this up. I didn’t realize how gullible and aloof this character was. Based on the information available, Yukimura wanted to become a man like Kodaka. 

What everyone failed to account for was Yukimura’s gross misunderstanding of biology. I’m not sure why this was a thing, to begin with. But the lack of a deep explanation made the whole thing pretty funny.

Nevertheless, Yukimura had much more of a presence in Next. When things got a bit hectic, this was a character who provided a welcoming breath of neutrality. When others needed some clarity and an impartial view, they knew where to turn.

Moving on, there were the two kids, Kobato Hasegawa (voiced by Kana Hanazawa) and Maria Takayama (voiced by Yuka Iguchi). On an individual basis, these girls were like they were in season one. What made them more interesting here was how the relationship between them grew.

Over the course of Next, Kobato and Maria became much closer. They still bumped heads whenever they met, but this was more of a healthy rivalry. They had a long way to go before they admitted they were friends. 

I wish there was one episode dedicated to Kobato and Maria. These two could more than carry a smaller story on their own.

Now if you want to talk about big changes, look no further than Rika Shiguma (voiced by Misato Fukuen). This almost forgettable wallflower from season one jumped to become one of the main leads. Near the end, she was almost at the same level of Yozora and Sena in importance.

Rika became one of my favorite characters of the series. She was more assertive. No one in the Neighbors Club could get the better of her. Despite Yozora and Sena's dominating personalities, even they couldn’t slow her down.

Also, Rika, with her bombastic personality, was the one who wanted the club to work the most. This put into perspective how difficult making friends was for everyone.

Rika allowed Next to get more serious when the story needed to. This was something that happened more than I had expected. And as a follow up to that, this worked a lot more than I had expected too.

Yet what helped this season the most was how it restructured Yozora and Sena’s relationship. Their interactions were better balanced. Yozora wasn’t always the one dominating a face off. Sena could, and did, fire back. Things were a much more even match.

Part of this had to do with Yozora’s viciousness toning down. Not everything she said was an attack. She remained mean-spirited, but it wasn’t a constant. Sena could be in the room and Yozora was able to ignore her without instigating something. Then when Yozora did pick on Sena, things didn’t always go as planned. Things would backfire on her. There were even times when she realized she went too far.

With Yozora calming down on the insults, an actual cute side to her came out. She could get flustered and embarrassed. When this happened, I could feel sorry for her. And at a few points, she was plain adorable. This was astonishing. The one character that was so unlikable in the last season, had a more redeeming personality.

In addition, short hair looks great on Yozora.

Another part of this improvement was Sena’s more deserving nature. She would more often be the one to start trouble. She didn’t need to push some issues as far as she did. Thus, when Yozora retaliated, this made it much fairer.

Since Yozora’s schemes weren’t as elaborate, it was much easier to see through them. Anyone who took a second to see past her nonsense would be alright. Sena was incapable of this. She didn’t have much in the way of common sense. She was more of an easy target than an innocent bystander.

I haven’t even mentioned Sena’s creepy tendencies. Her overbearing affection for Kobato was one thing. She then turned into an unintentional stalker towards Yozora. This alone made it so Yozora could have been as cruel as she was in season one. Her target actually had it coming.

Last, there was our main guy. If I were listing everyone based on improvements, Kodaka should have been first. He didn't have any. But there’s a reason for that. Season one got him right. There wasn’t anything to change. Yet he was still a better character because of everyone else. Everything I liked about Kodaka was stronger now that he had a cast of friends that played to his positives.

Series Negatives

The first problem, you have to sit through Haganai season one to get to Next. This isn’t the worst thing in the world. Yet if I wasn’t reviewing anime, I don’t know if I would have ever gotten around to this.

The second problem is actually kind of a positive too. The fanservice in this season was much better. There were still plenty of “f@#$ you show” moments I assure you. This type of service was annoying whenever it came up because this season was getting it right.

The original Haganai was hesitant to use sexuality. That was why when it did decide to go more extreme, it came off as awkward. Next went for it.

This season didn’t tiptoe around the issue. There were more promiscuous situations. A lot more. These types of scenes happened all the time. Thus, when the frustrating moments came, they were only frustrating and not random. And since these weren’t the focus of the series, they weren't trying to distract from anything.

Next’s fan service was a nice bonus.

Even when I’m trying to talk about negatives for this season, it comes out ahead of the first. That said, there were things that didn’t work.

For starters, the actual idea of the Neighbors Club, making friends, didn’t hold much weight. The story underused this to such a degree, it was odd whenever it did come into play.

To give credit where its due, when Next did explore this issue, it was never bad. The final few episodes were as solid as they were because of everyone’s desire to have friends.

Next also had a bad habit of overcomplicating things. Though Rika was fantastic, she allowed this show to do whatever it wanted without much logic. Time travel was almost a thing in this series. That wasn’t what was going on. Instead, Rika built a super effective hypnosis device and tried to pass it off as a time machine. Yeah, that makes more sense. This series would go in directions that were not necessary.

This season’s biggest problem was its difficulty to maintain a moment. Like I said, Next was able to get serious. When this was the case, the story became interesting. A scene would begin strong, develop well, and would seem like it was leading to something. That something sometimes didn’t come.

For example, Kodaka and Yozora had agreed to keep the fact they were childhood friends a secret. I don’t remember that ever being the case, but that's beside the point. As the season went on, there were instances where the truth almost came to light. These were great. The story was building up the suspense of everyone figuring this out. When this did happen, it was a pretty heavy scene. Let me emphasize that word “scene”. As in, there was only one.

While the topic of Kodaka and Yozora’s childhood friendship did come back, it came back several episodes later. It didn’t have much of an impact for most of the season. This felt like a wasted opportunity. Had this story followed this revelation with the events of the ending, that would have taken it the whole way.

Speaking of the ending, it has one major problem. Next made it so a third season is required. Because of one line, there was no resolution. This is a problem because the final episode aired on March 29th, 2013. Four years have gone by as of the posting of this review.

Will a third season come? That’s hard to say. And with Next being as good as it was, this was not a fun way to end.

Final Thoughts

I'm happy a series can still give me a good surprise. I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t thrilled to come back to this show. At most I was hoping to get more of the same. That way things wouldn’t be worse. But low and behold.

This season did everything in its power to outdo the original. And it succeeded. The humor was funnier. The events were more interesting. The already strong characters got even better. This was so much more fun.

I did not expect to be wanting a third season to this show. Unfortunately, that third season has proven to be quite elusive. But I was holding onto hope after the first season. Look how that turned out.

If you managed to get through the original, keep on going. Hagani Next is worth it.

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