for me, A pair of cuckoos Season 2 is like “The Sunk Cost Fallacy: Anime”. I enjoyed the twenty-four episodes of the first season, which were far-fetched, silly, but sweet, but I found myself sleepwalking into the second season out of a false sense of responsibility. Like many long-running animated romantic comedies, “plot progression” (if it can be described as such) consists of a perpetual dance of one step forward, two steps back. Just when it looks like something—anything—is about to happen that might change the endless status quo, it reverses almost immediately. If this kind of storytelling brings you to tears of frustration, then stay away from this series.
Although there are now a total of thirty-six episodes in the two seasons, A pair of cuckoosThe anime adaptation only covers the ongoing thirteenth (thirty) volume of the source manga. For a moment, it looked like the season finale might actually solidify the core relationships… only to completely undermine itself at the last minute with two gripping trailer scenes. These portend more contrived complications to come if the show gets a third season.
The show, which has a generally horrific approach to storytelling, decided at the start of its second season, two-thirds of the anime’s cumulative runtime, that it was time to introduce a fourth girl to further complicate protagonist Nagi Umino’s abortive love life. She is the hitherto unmentioned childhood friend to whom she professed her undying love years before moving abroad and vowed to return one day. Maybe Nagi simply forgot about her, or maybe her introduction was a last-ditch effort by the author to inject more complexity into an already rather anemic story without committing to any concrete character development for the established cast.
Ai is a strange character. She gives off a stalking vibe, and the way she’s placed in the shadows in the opening shot doesn’t help, plus her almost vampire-like canines gave me chills. Her perpetually dead smile makes her look like she’s ready to wield a bloody meat cleaver at the slightest provocation, but alas, nothing this interesting happens during this otherwise lackluster season. If we’re going to create a vaguely morbid character, can’t we at least have her do…something? Since she enters the narrative so late, we know she has little chance of becoming the “winning girl,” so her only role is to complicate an otherwise unnecessary complication.
It’s clear from the start that Nagi’s telegraphed future partner is almost certainly Erica, the girl he was incredibly swapped with at birth. Without a doubt Erica is the best girl. Although she lacks IQ in almost every other aspect of her life, she is caring, thoughtful, and (usually) emotionally intelligent. She doesn’t even feel upset or threatened when other girls invade “her” territory (i.e. Naji). This is one of the strange features of the show that serves as both a strength and a weakness, depending on what you want to take from it: the almost complete lack of conflict.
In many harem anime, the various rival girls often hate each other, or at least actively try to sabotage each other’s chances with the protagonist. not so much A pair of cuckoos. They are all very close to each other. There were no complaints, almost no arguments, and everyone was happy to accept even the most ridiculous situations, like Nagi and Hiro’s fake “wedding.” For such a supposedly smart character, Hiro is not very good at manipulating situations to his advantage. Despite Nagi’s long-standing crush on her, her writing was so half-assed that she was almost impossible to appear in the show.
Hiro is also supposed to be engaged to a man she has never met (and neither have the audience). Maybe if this storyline was explored in more detail it would add some much-needed drama, but for now it only serves as background. Likewise, Erika’s brother (Nagi’s biological brother) has been teased for so long that he’s clearly hanging around in the background, but his peripheral involvement in the plot has been… absolutely none. Aside from announcing to anyone at the last minute that he wanted to interfere with Nagi and Erica’s future for some reason, I wonder what purpose he served in his minimal appearances this season? Maybe he’ll play a more prominent role in any of the Season 3 episodes?
At least Nagi’s sister Sachi (also Erika’s biological brother) try To advance in the season, Nagi’s first kiss is somewhat comically stolen, prompting Erika to propose to him more openly later on. She’s the only character with any agency, spreading rumors to cause chaos, and she’s probably most openly interested in dating her brother. Even though they’re not related by blood, it still makes me attack Squick because they grew up together as siblings. I don’t see any future in which she and Nagi end up together, unless the author is truly a psychopath intent on sparking a war of words among fans. (I hope they don’t accept the author’s drawing skills domestic girlfriend or Rent a girlfriend.)
While I found the overall plot, structure, and pacing of each episode of the show to be extremely frustrating, it was still a fun, easy watch. It’s a colorful, comforting animation that requires minimal mental effort, meaning it’s a great show to wind down to. The more absurd humor would make me giggle a lot of the time and never let me get bored. With the constant changes at the studio since the first season, the production quality seems to have taken a hit, the animation seems more limited, and the character designs seem a little “off.” Every girl’s big, wet, shiny eyes scare me a little bit. I did like the frequent switch to more cartoonish facial designs in later scenes, though; they’re cute and silly at the same time.
Musically the opening track is a pretty average female vocalist Japanese pop musicBut it’s at least energetic and upbeat, which suits the style of the show. The ending theme is decent enough, but as bland as the show’s soundtrack itself. Most episodes achieve a basic level of “good enough, but forgettable” entertainment, although some of the storytelling choices remain confusing, especially the actions of Erica’s parents (Nagy’s biological parents), whose motivations seem to change depending on what the plot requires them to do. In the final episode, when Erica’s father said it took him three years to hold his future wife’s hand, and then another four years to kiss him, I couldn’t help but worry that this was a blueprint for future plot developments for the show…
