Kousaka was most likely the only reason I made it through this

To Heart 2 is the third installment in the To Heart series, the others being the original To Heart and To Heart ~Remember my Memories~. Not having watched RmM due to some horrible reviews and having just finished To Heart 2, the original is still the best in my eyes.

The problems with this anime are numerous. First and foremost, the characters. Harem and love comedy romances are almost all unoriginal, the base plot of the genre must be generic by nature and therefore do not allow for much creativity. Primarily, what defines and separates the good harems from the bad is its characters. To Heart had a strong male lead capable of humor, independent thought and free will…

To Heart 2 had a male lead who was physically and mentally weak, indecisive and had his spine removed at birth. Case and point: Who apologizes to the assailant when they get run down by a bike? But fair enough, male leads are known to be wusses, and this can be counteracted by interesting female characters. However, in this particular case both areas fail, with the exception of Kousaka. The other girls were devoid of emotion and sincerity, I attribute this to the fact that the story was too ambitious in trying to cram so many characters into 13 eps. Each girl was given a dedicated episode only to be relegated to cameo appearances thereafter. It also saddened me that the most annoying (though very cute) characters, the twins, got three particularily boring and uninformative episodes dedicated to them. So although the cast of characters had infinite potential, having only 13 episodes and an unimaginative script writer crippled this series. Randomly; Ilfa sucks, Multi ftw!

The story, as expected, was dull and very generic/cliche’d. The storyline, much like the original To Heart, was non-linear meaning that the events happening did not connect by any common meaning, goal or event. Now this can work if done well, like it was in the original, but this time it felt like snippets of the game paths which had all the good parts taken out of it and thrown together. Short spurts on each character can be interesting (ie. AIR, Kanon and SHUFFLE!) but in this case such little development was seen with each girl that by the end I felt I had wasted my time, the fact that no paths were concluded does not help either. As for an ending or climax, there is none, To Heart had an anti-climactic ending which implied a resolution, whereas To Heart 2 felt abruptly cut off. No confessions, no implied feelings and only a single kiss scene, which was more of a joking kiss than one with feeling. Had they decided to focus solely on one path, this story may have succeeded, but with 8 girls and only 13 episodes they were doomed from the start.

Animation and sound were mediocre, not too bad but nothing amazing. Considering that it was made in 2005, the animation could have been significantly better. I’m not asking for Shinkai Makoto or KyoAni quality animation, but surely it could have been a little better. The OP and ED were fairly good, nothing that will stick in my head for very long, but not terrible. The background music, however, was often poorly used and the tracks themselves were monotonous. Voice acting cast was varied in quality, some characters like Kousaka, Yuuji and Karin had very fitting seiyuus who managed to convey emotion quite well. But then you have ones like Sango and Konomi who’s vocal chords deserve to be displaced.

However! All was not bad! While the characters were underdeveloped, I did like a lot of them. Ruu had this odd charm that is hard to describe, childish naiveness backed by superfluous factual knowledge, I loved it. Karin was also an interesting character, her eccentricities and idiocyncratic behaviours were fun to watch as well of her taking advantage and blackmailing Takaaki. And finally, Kousaka, I love this character archetype; strong willed, intelligent and playful. As mentioned above, her presence was most likely the main reason I managed to sit through 13 episodes. Though, sadly, even she was reduced to cameo type appearances after the passing of the first 3/4 episodes D=

So all in all, much wasted potential. I don’t necessarily regret seeing it though to the end, but I am still scratching my head as to why I did. I can’t confidently recommend this anime to any of you out there, but if you’re EXTREMELY bored and are in the mood for a light harem, by all means check it out. Let’s hope for another season that mirrors the quality of the original.

Oh, and 18 days until Kanon! Uguu~

~ Shirukii ~