My major qualm with this episode was that the crisis was forced and largely unnecessary. I get that Tomoka’s father was concerned about her because she had a pretty bad experience with basketball in the past – which served as another reminder, for those of us who forgot about it – but his desire to protect his daughter became silly once he tried to forbid her from spending time with her friends at an event that had nothing to do with basketball, and despite every indication that she was very much enjoying the sport once again. Here’s the thing – with a plot line like this, if it can be resolved in a single episode, it probably didn’t need to be done at all. It had no emotional oompfh and was over with way too soon, so why bother?

Well, one reason was to once again allow Subaru (Kaji Yuki) to strut his stuff and win points with his future father-in-la–I mean, Tomoka’s father. Seriously, what a gentleman. I’m pretty sure that if these girls were in high school then Subaru would already be the biggest harem master of them all, except he’s so nice he would just date one of them seriously. Or he’d have already knocked up both Tomoka and Aoi, who knows.

Death By Adorable

It’s official – if I don’t make it through the season, this show is why, because after only 20 minutes of Tomoka (Hanazawa Kana) going “Huee~!?” and Hinata (Ogura Yui) going “Oh~!” and my heart could barely take it! I also very much enjoyed Maho’s (Iguchi Yuka) shooting incident (for the laughs!) and Saki (Hikasa Yoko) getting all lovey-dovey with Tomoka’s ma–I mean, Subaru. Airi (Hidaka Rina) didn’t get to stand out much this episode, but she will. She can hardly help it!

Ahem…anyway, so even though the first episode consisted largely of reintroductions, they took some time to introduce a few characters that will be on the rival team from the OP. I’m wondering, are they going to be from another school, another club at the same school, or will all the characters be on the same team? I’d kind of like it to eventually end up the latter, because then we’d get to see some other dynamics during team play, and also because playing a whole game is tiring. We’ll have to get past the rival stage before they can be friends though, so that’s next. First up: the unsubtly introduced rival Mimi Balguerie (Kuno Misaki). Seriously, she shows up saying the most well known French phrase in the world AND wearing a jersey that says France? We got it, we get it! Now let’s play some basketball.

I’m not sure whether I’ll continue blogging this – I’d like to, but I’m not sure I’ll have the time, plus I mainly just gush about this show, and who wants to read that? – but I’ll certainly be watching it. So for now, until (maybe) next time, enjoy!

tl;dr:@StiltsOutLoud – A reintroduction to all the characters. Tomoka’s “Huee~!?”, Hina’s “Oh~!”…too much moe!! *dies* #rokyubu

Random thoughts:

Sequel OP and EDs are always tricky – you want to hearken back to what was (I assume) successful the first time without giving us the exact same thing all over again. This OP was very similar to last season’s, especially musically, so while it doesn’t really offer much new, if you liked the previous one (which I did) then you’ll like this one. As for the ED, I didn’t like it as much as last season’s, but then again, I almost always say that on the first episode, so we’ll see how it grows on me. Growing, get it? Eh? Eh? Ahhh I’ll stop now.

In case you didn’t catch it, they actually switched up the positions on us – Hina used to be the shooting guard while Tomoka was the small forward. I wonder why the change?

Speaking of OPs, what was with the season 1 OP played as an insert in the very first episode? It sounded like they were going to elope for a second there!

I’m impressed by how much detail they put into all the mob characters. A good sign.

Tomoka wants to be closer to Subaru? The princess carry? Holding hands in the very first episode!? They’re not holding much back, wowza!

If you haven’t heard, an OVA that takes place between last season and this one was released not too long ago. You should definitely check it out – it involved Hina rubbing Airi’s chest and Tomoka getting sprayed by condensed milk, so you know it has to be good! Pero pero good, funya~

For more from yours truly, check out my blog on writing, art, and the book I’m working on at stiltsoutloud.com.

KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! My heart… I’m totally ready to die from adorable causes. The OP1 insert was really out of nowhere, you usually hear something like that towards the end of a series. Natsuhi you sly dog. Not only does he have twin imoutos BUT THEY ALSO CALL HIM NII-TAN!!! I am jelly.

I think the OP insert thing might have been because they were trying to make us think something big and epic was happening, but it was so abrupt (and short, and anyone could intuit what was happening) that it didn’t work. Or they’re going to do that every episode? I don’t know, I’m not a doctor.

@Stilts After reading your comment I get it. It was abrupt
because it had to be abrupt. If there is anything ♡ growing
between them, it would be tarnished by going too far too soon
(i.e., running into each others arms). At least that what I
thought the writers were trying to portray.

It works because her Mother trust Subaru and he’s not dumb
enough to betray that faith (not that he would).

The positions changed as Subaru came to understand the girls’ strengths and weaknesses more. Hinata started out as point guard, Tomoka as small forward. This was just because vol. 1 Hinata didn’t have the stamina to run around the whole match, so her role was more like “pass to whoever is free”. When Hinata got some training done, the two switched.

That made Tomoka point guard, but she was eventually replaced on this position by Saki, whose intellect and understanding of her teammates was best suited for the game-making position (vol.4, or the last anime arc).

Freed up from point guard, Tomoka became shooting guard (or, unofficially, point forward). She did the most position changing mainly because she could do well at anything if absolutely necessary, so Subaru used her for whatever the team lacked most at the moment until a solid team tactic fully emerged.

I remember most of the changes, including the change of Saki to point guard (one of my favorite moments from s1), but I had thought Tomoka was still small forward while Hina was the shooting guard at the end there. I might be wrong, though…its been a while.