Though I had assumed the first season was quite well-liked, I was a little taken aback when Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki 2nd Stage did not garner enough ANN reader votes for weekly streaming reviews of its second season. I suppose I was in error. Every new book of Tomozaki’s light novel may pass for a brand-new Bible testament to a number of my online friends. I’m not quite that fixated. Although I haven’t read the light novels, I thought the first season of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU was a much more amusing show overall and less introspective.
As previously, the deep, subtle character development and dynamics of Second Stage are its greatest assets. Tomozaki is less likely to be mistaken for a sociopath-in-training than Hachiman from SNAFU. He is a very normal teenager, with little confidence in large groups of people or in unfamiliar faces. Instead, he would rather pass his time playing the online game Attack Families, also known as AtaFami. It is obviously a parody of Super Smash Bros. Aoi Hinami is his primary opponent on NO NAME, the game’s leaderboards. Throughout this season, they have continued to engage in frequent online sparring, although Tomozaki’s AtaFami alter ego “nanashi” is still the clear winner.
As directed by puppet master Hinami, the show mostly focuses on Tomozaki’s character development through interactions with real people. As for Hinami, I don’t believe there is a teenage girl alive who possesses the kind of raw willpower, motivation, and psychological acumen that she exhibits while controlling her classmates or her own perception of herself. She is an unsettling figure who will stop at nothing to uphold her position and uphold her own brand of justice, all the while keeping herself spotless and seemingly beyond the law.
The first five-episode arc’s finale displays Hinami at her most ruthless; even Tomozaki and a few other characters flinch in dismay at her overt emotional manipulation of bully Erika. The conclusion is (arguably) extremely favorable, but Hinami exposes a good deal of the cold, cunning monster hiding behind her many faces in order to exact her strict brand of justice for the victimized Tama. I know that this entire arc has turned off some viewers, but it’s uncomfortable. Even yet, I wouldn’t hesitate to describe it as “entertaining” because I thought its analysis of the group dynamics around bullying was fascinating.
By now, it’s hard to like Hinami as a character in the plot. Even though she has improved Tomozaki’s social status, I’m happy to see him reject some of her unethical tactics on a moral level. Though ridiculous, she’s a fantastic character. Though she has a much smaller role in the second major arc that takes up the rest of the season, the program wouldn’t be the same without her. Rather, the attention shifts to the two primary female characters that Hinami gives Tomozaki to pick from: the blue-haired queen of mayhem and beaming grins, Mimimi (absolute Best Girl, I will broker no disagreement, fight me), and the mousy, introspective writer Fuuka Kikuchi.
Though she’s fairly self-conscious and pensive, Mimimi appears to be a more traditional “genki girl” persona in that she’s cheerful and vivacious and gives people funny nicknames (Tomozaki is “Brain,” for example). I adore her insane yet ferociously encouraging friendship with the far more reserved Tama. I was hoping Mimimi would find her true love, but is Tomozaki the one? In contrast, Kikuchi is more difficult to measure. She tends to be more self-defeating in her attitude, is introverted, and is intensely concentrated on her writing. Although her persona never really grew on me, I can see why Tomozaki could find her endearing. When you can enjoy a character’s intricacies and evolution without feeling a strong emotional connection to them, that’s a sign of quality writing.
The season finale felt a little plodding to me, especially considering how much of a plot device the school play was used in it. I don’t care for the characters in this narrative inside a story, even if they are only loosely disguised versions of the “real” characters! It’s really a little awkward and annoying! Sometimes, I find it hard to understand (or care about!) Tomozaki and Kikuchi’s talks about a fictitious author’s works and characters since they present an abstraction above their true emotions.
As this previous ANN article pointed out, Tomozaki draws a lot of inspiration for his stunning background paintings from actual locations. This gives the program a more realistic feel. It’s a visually appealing program overall, with good character animation and emotive designs. The upbeat opening and closing tracks by the eight-piece band Dialogue+ are also really great; they make frequent allusions to Tomozaki and Aoi’s rival gaming personalities in both the lyrics and the sound effects.
All in all, it’s a really sophisticated anime production with rich, compelling characters that, although deeply moving, occasionally function a step or two far from the more instinctive feelings I believe it ought to arouse in the audience. Rather than being as engrossed in the characters as I would have liked, I frequently just sat back and marveled at the author’s storytelling ability. Like the ostensibly related SNAFU, not everyone will enjoy Tomozaki as an anime. For those who have the patience to grasp its subtleties, I still suggest it even if there’s not much action—mostly talking heads and introspection.
