I’m not a huge Chuunibyou fan, not even a big one, rather a sort of a regular watcher who enjoyed the first season. One who enjoyed the antics of a group of high schoolers with too much imagination and second to none escape mechanism skills, enough to guarantee a second season. Thing is, I didn’t care much for the main couple beyond it being part of the main story. I still do. After the 2nd season this hasn’t changed much. Why?
Rika and Yuuta’s relationship is boring. Yuuta has always been boring. Rika has become boring. I’d say I find Kumin to be more interesting but that’d be false. The relationship feels stale, dull. The story’s been moving at a snail pace for developments. When there is drama it is anticlimactically solved within the same episode. When they do make progress I don’t care much for it either way – as opposed to the 1st season when they weren’t together and their interactions were more interesting to look at. Will he help out of her chuuni once and for all? Will her parent send Rika away? Where is all of this going?
The 2nd season has had too little challenges. The apartment situation is solved in the first episode, the sister removed any sort of challenges possible, at school they basically do nothing but stay at the club. The new character Satone was supposed to be rival or to create tension between the chuuni couple, but the whole situation is also solved swiftly. I’m more impressed by her laugh than anything.
When the two were still having problems adjusting to living together I was more interested in Dekomori helping Nibutani gain the position of student council. While Rika and Yuuta were on a school trip I was more intrigued by that Mori Summer fake website than that feeble 10-minute quarrel.
The main couple has grown dull. Helping Rika, grow out of chuuni phase is the point of the show, but at the same time there are others with the same condition who are far more interesting. In this I realized that I’ve been watching Chuunibyou for the other ongoing subplots from the very first season.
There’s the tremendous character growth of side characters such as Dekomori who goes from being an obnoxious dumb brat to a more amicable, intelligent, complex, why not, likeable character too, even endearing (feels too weird just typing that) when acting like a normal person. A minor character who was supposed to be Rika’s sidekick, a yesman in her chuuni anticts, who by now I think, has become more interesting than the protagonist herself. Even Satone becomes more interesting by the episode.
The case when minor, side characters, second-main characters whose stories and interactions are more interesting than the main one themselves.
Nibutani and Dekomori’s antics are more interesting than anything in the show. Has been and still are. Neither of them is openly battling their chuuni but a past. They have a history as teacher and student. They’ve got an ongoing feud from the first season that doesn’t get tired as opposed to Rika’s chuuni antics. They don’t need to live together to create tension. They are constantly at each other’s throat, sometimes at school, sometimes outside, sometimes literally. More importantly, the cause behind most of the chuunibyou in the story, that is, Nibutani’s enlightened past self back when she imagined herself a holy saint and in her wildest chuuni episodes created a whole bible of made up incantations. The chuunibyou core of the story.
Episodes like the fake Mori Summer episode is more what Chuunibyou, in the general sense, is about, at least the way I see it. It is not necessarily about Rika or about Yuuta and much less about puppy love, it is about something the main story seems to have paid little attention to, it’s about past and new selves at different points in life, about accepting oneself and whatever sort of uncomfortable past that comes along with it. While the uncomfortable phases are best forgotten, in the case that one has not really come to terms with it and when the past still lingers – the problem has not really been solved. They say that one cannot really move forward unless one accepts themselves first. The problem comes back because it has not been faced. The realization of the self coming to terms with its distorted versions. And that, that, is the reason why I’m more immensely more interested in the ongoing subplots than the main story.
With that comes too the strange realization that I had while watching the show, that I do like this show. You win this round KyoAni.
「 Just as Planned 」 