The first season of Tonikawa was a light, refreshing slice-of-life sitcom series that answered the question – can you have a funny sitcom when everyone in the relationship has already said “I Will”, and also they don’t have kids? The answer, it turned out, was yes. The question for season 2 is, “Can this story continue to maintain this momentum?” The answer, it turns out, is also yes.
The majority of Tonikawa Season 2 is a lot of general slice-of-life sitcom stuff with Nasa & Tsukasa. They take a vacation to a hot springs resort. They discuss if they want to have a big deal marriage ceremony, that sort of thing. We meet one of Nasa’s relatives who has decided to take on the form of Chuunibyou which involves wanting to be Kazuma Kiryu. On the one hand, it’s not a particularly heavy “plot” series. On the other hand, it’s not a bad thing. Considering that we had plenty of heavier shows – whether it’s the abstract plot elements of Magical Destroyers, or the post-apocalyptic drama of Heavenly Delusion, or if you wait for Sunday and Gundam: Witch from Mercury, it makes for a good counterpoint for whatever other heavier series airs that weekend.
The show does continue building ever-so-slightly on the mystery from last season over whether Tsukasa is indeed Princess Kaguya by making it explicit that she’s significantly older than she looks (by at least 100 years). In a lesser, grosser series this could hit the “justification of pedophilia by having the underage character be over a hundred years old.” Instead, Tsukasa looks about the same age as Nasa – with both looking about 18. Now, this could get weird if we ever have a flash-forward where Nasa is a 40-year old man, but as is, this is fine.
In all, it’s a good demonstration that Kenjiro Hata still has very strong rom-com chops, and they continue to be in full effect here.
Tonikawa is (still) available for streaming on Crunchyroll. Volumes of the manga (and relevant merch like figures) are available from RightStuf (affiliate link).
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