Nasa, at the request of his former junior high school teacher, Ms. Yanagi, finds himself entrusted with teaching a programming class at a high school. But here’s the catch—it’s an all-girls school. Surrounded by the limitless energy of teenage girls, Nasa tries to maintain his composure, but deep down, he can’t help feeling nervous. With a capricious boyfriend, secret admiration for someone, and a multitude of romantic dilemmas that can’t be solved by programming, Nasa wonders if he can crack the equation of love!On the Technical side, The animation once again is by Seven Arcs with this short 4-episode ONA (Original Net Animation) being directed by Hiroshi Ikehata. Scripts by Kazuho Hyodo, Shigeru Murakoshi, and Yū Satō. Japanese Voice actress Saori Hayami performs the opening theme song “Plan,” and Akari Kitō, who plays the Japanese dub voice of Tsukasa Yuzaki in the series, performs the “Guru Guru Live” ending theme song.In a nutshell, this is an “Interquel” taking place between seasons (after season one, but before season two). I don’t know why the animation team felt the need to make this its own short & separate series instead of making it simply part of the aforementioned season two, but I guess it was to cater to the Manga fans who want 100% of their shit adapted. Despite this being 4 episodes, Japan had to play the waiting game more as they had to wait 4 consecutive weeks just for it to finish before its eventual dubbing. Innocuously enough, Nasa Yuzaki is asked by Yanagi-sensei to teach a programming class at Otogi High School, a high school for girls. There, he meets some eccentric students. And it starts pretty well, meanwhile one particular student(?) at the school whom the others refer to as “Princess” is supposedly as smart as Nasa. Besides the whole married couple craze, this is your everyday slice-of-life romcom, just with the same level of humor you’d expect from this show. That hasn’t changed and I doubt it ever will. I think this short series puts more of a focus on the side characters. And while sometimes the side characters sometimes had a role to play, they never overshadowed the focus unless the plot demanded it. For all the people who think that Tonikawa is cliche and littered with tropes, they have made a fundamental misunderstanding. Tonikawa is a Satire a lot of the time, the whole joke is that it makes fun of said tropes while playing with romcom expectations. Most Anime romances end with the lead characters finally being a couple after fixing all the contrived drama & b.s. that was holding them back. But here, the show played with those expectations with the two as a legally married couple in the early beginnings of season one which is quite refreshing for this genre. The thing is, slice-of-life anime like this heavily relies on its characters and how they’re written, and designed, what their personalities are, etc. Unfortunately, Nasa and Tsukasa here are less than amusing or interesting and the side characters are, which leaves me to wonder why was this even made. If everything was executed well like in season one and was written with much more creativity and less feeling like the writer asked the Google Bard AI to create a script for a romcom with some weird mysterious character, maybe this wouldn’t feel so irritatingly dry.At the very least, the romantic chemistry between the two leads seems much more natural and less awkward, and some moments kept the proceedings engaging to a certain degree. There was also room for character development which meant things wouldn’t get so boring while attempting to be interesting with the character Gekkou Kaguya, a student who is referred to as “Princess” by others. The thing that’s funny about her is that she’s presented in a way that suggests she’s some mysterious antagonist or something. She’s got dark clothing with a mask concealing her lower face, with her appearance having some cyberpunk-ninja thing going on, with a possible subtle connection to Tsukasa in some way… Overall, despite this being an “Interquel”, it feels more like a setup for Season 3 in terms of the connective tissue it potentially has on a narrative level. Tonikawa is like a big, unfinished puzzle, and high-school days only put the first few pieces together that I felt should’ve been part of Season 2 in the first place. If the writer intended Kaguya to be some sort of mysterious key part of the plot, they could’ve designed and written her a lot better; she’s comically exaggerated. Besides that, it feels like it tried to replicate more of season two, but with a tacked on mystery that leaves the audience with too many questions. Hopefully there’s a payoff this later on if Season 3 becomes a thing…
