Sakuta Azusagawa couldn’t be living a better life: he’s
now on a direct track to a full blown relationship with his beautiful Senpai,
Mai Sakurajima. However, fate seems to
have other plans as a new Puberty Syndrome phenomena traps Sakuta in a time
loop. In order to break it, Sakuta will
have to help a childhood friend through her own relationship troubles, even if
it puts Sakuta’s future with Mai at risk.
Can Sakuta escape his loop, help his friend and still get the Bunny Girl
all at the same time?
Time Loop episodes are nothing new in any medium. From Groundhog Day to Star Trek, you all know
how it goes: protagonist(s) repeat the same day over and over again until a
monumental change from a life changing lesson occurs and boom, loop
broken. The most popular example in
Anime is the divisie “Endless Eight” of Haruhi Suzumiya, where Kyon found
himself repeating the last day of summer thousands of times while for the
viewer we had 8 different episodes dedicated to this plot…8 episodes
(thankfully the Haruhi Suzumiya movie justified this crazy storytelling
tactic). Bunny Girl Senpai took a stab
as Time Loops with Sakuta trapped in not one but two separate ones that kind of
ended up connecting in a big way. His
mission: help a cute first year, Tomoe Koga, deal with the pressures of social
groups and escape the torment of living with a social stigma the entire school
would shun you for.
If you’re rooting for Mai and Sakuta’s romance (as you
should be), it can be easy to dislike Tomoe for getting in the way. However, Tomoe might be hiding her true
feelings towards Sakuta (which ends up being the cause of the time loops), but
I found it impossible to be mad at her at any time. We’ve all gone through the pressures of the
High School social scene: finding the right groups or cliques that work for you
and hope friendships do develop and that you stay secure but never stray from
the safety of the spotlight…something like that. You can feel for Tomoe’s situation and how
she doesn’t want to be alone yet must mask her true feelings so as not to
alienate the one person she can rely on, that being Sakuta. Tomoe’s a good kid and I’m glad Sakuta was
able to help her find her resolution thanks to his honest, tone def
bluntness. They deserve a solid
friendship and Tomoe’s a solid addition to an increasingly likeable supporting
cast for Sakuta and Mai.
I didn’t really touch on Sakuta’s friends outside of Mai
and his sister in the opening review but I like them. Well Kunimi is harmless but hasn’t done
anything truly special. I mostly like
Bunny Girl Senpai’s Yuki Nagato for the series, Futaba. She’s been Sakuta’s go to expert for all
things and theories Puberty Syndrome related and actually makes it sound
digestible and not so heavy handed when you really break it down. Turns out, Futaba also has feelings for
Kunimi and Sakuta trying to push her into a confession resulted in one of the
cutest outbursts, putting Fubuta much high on the emotional scale than Haruhi
Suzumiya’s Yuki Nagato. I feel like I
could listen to Futaba talk about everything all day, not understand a word and
yet still feel like I’ve had the best conversation ever. Mai might be everyones favorite love interest
but Futaba is a close second for me.
Our titular Bunny Girl Senpai had a reduced role in this
set since the mystery was focused on Tomoe and Sakuta’s time loop. When she was around, Mai continued to show
why she’s still a reason to keep watching.
She continues to combine cuteness with confidence and the shyness that
makes anyone want to tease of cheer her up.
She also actually gets back into the Bunny Girl suit for Sakuta in like
the blink of an eye (are we sure she isn’t secretly a Magical Girl?). Mai even went so far as to show that Sakuta’s
romantic feelings aren’t so one sided, chatting more friendly with him and
giving his sister, Kaede, an outfit from one of her acting jobs, hoping it will
give her courage to start getting back into the world. Sakuta is still hit and miss but was more hit
this time than last. His lewd tone def
bluntness still annoys me but it came in handy a couple of times in this story
arc, particularly when he defended Tomoe from a High School Basketball playing
scumbag. Dude’s got a good heart even if
his mind is 50% in the gutter when it comes to just about any girl…seriously,
he made lewd passes at Mai, Tomoe and Fubata at least once and it was all in
jest (2/3 it wasn’t). He may be uneven
for me, but Sakuta…he’s growing…he might step back into dull territory but when
a genuine emotion comes out properly, he’s fine.
Sakuta gripes aside, I really liked this follow up to
Mai’s mystery. It progressed smart and
thoughtfully and ended on a bit of a heartbreaking but optimistic note and it
even gave Sakuta added points with Mai in the end. But it looks like fate and Puberty Syndrome
aren’t done making things difficult for the would be love birds as we saw them
run into a very familiar face from Sakuta’s past. Who is this girl and should we be worried
(should Mai more importantly)? We’ll
find out next time as Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai continues over
at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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