To Heart 2

To Heart 2 stroke me as on of those animes that, let's just say, suffers from a slow, dull and, admitedly, boring beginning just to keep getting better and better the more time it progresses towards its inevitable conclusion, many of these around this medium, huh? More than anything, it's one of those shows that relies on an extensive and ecletic set of characters to carry forward its story and get us, the audience, interested on it. And let me say, it does pretty solid and decent job at doign just exactly that.

At the beggining, I was questioning my decision to pick-up To Heart 2 ... to watch in the first place, and in the end, I was glad I didn't dropped it mid-way to go watch something else.

To Heart 2's main problem lies in the fact that said "extensive and ecletic cast of characters" the show depends, and I couldn't emphazise enough, ABSOLUTELY DEPENDS to be interesting hasn't been introduced yet by the beginning of the whole thing. How's a franchise that's supposed to be about a wide array of the characters doign a wide array of different things supposed to work when none of the titular characters are present just yet? Very simple: it doesn't, the result: the very first episodes of the To Heart 2 begin as a rather forgetable experience that will make more than one member in the audience roll their eyes, no doubt about that.

However, I must remark, dropping the anime from the bad first impressions one might get from it is more than anything a mistake that should be avoided considering what awaits the spectators later down the line.

As we progress further and further down the show, more and more enjoyable characters and their crazy antics get introduced and the whole thing finally begings to pick-up steam. More and more charecters begin to appear and the more and more interesting the story begins the get. And, how could it not? When you such diverse personalities a sweet and innocent girl such as Yuzuhara Konomi with confident but adorable older sister Kousaka Tamaki and from there the quiet and helpfull bookworm Komaki Manaka paired with her best friend, the tomboyish albeit a bit aggresive at times Tonami Yuma with the questionable antics of paranormal-afficionado Sasamori Karin, closing the whole thing up with the peculiar and almost-opposite to each other Himeyuri sisters and a girl who's an actual alien.

Yep, you heard me right, there's a girl in this show that's an actual alien, the To Heart saga is back to its weird shenanings once again, lol.

And there is, where the main strenght of To Heart 2 lies, it has such a diverse stream of characters, each with their own backstory, quirks and own sub-plots going on in their main life that by the conclusion of the whole thing, you aren't even gonna be mad for the faults the show presented on its first episodes: the later half of it will be enough to convise yourself the series has been able to redeem itself through its plots on the later half.

Dropping the anime just because you didn't like what you saw on its very first chapters would be a wrongfull and precipitated decision considering what is in store for you if you just keep watching. That's what I am trying to get at, if you hadn't catched the memo by this point in the review.

To Heart 2 might not be anything special when it comes to the overall slice-of-life series, but it sure as hell provides a memorable experience for those who are both patient and know how to appreciate this media. Go give it a chance, it's worth your time and you won't be dissapointed of doign so at the end, I can guarantee you that.

Funny, I watched the original To Heart before this (at the time, I believed "To Heart 2" to be another season of the original) and was hype as heck to watch this...only to discover it was something entirely different. And I LOVED it, but not as much as the original. I loved the original so much that I am still writing a draft for that review and it's not even close to completion.

Anyway, not much to say about the core. Just another romance anime with a lifeless male lead designed to shoehorn you into buying the game it's based off of. And, well the original ... To Heart made a male protagonist with some personality, this one is just as generic as any harem male lead out there; and it doesn't help that it had to take place after Love Hina, the anime that popularized the male lead being tortured. And appropriately enough, nearly half of the new cast of females do this, which is why I feel more negative towards it.

One positive thing I will say about the anime itself was the use of the soundtrack. The soundtrack, for what very little they use of the actual piano segments, sound beautiful. Maybe the game has the same one, but if not, this anime has a splendid soundtrack and that is probably the highest number I gave was for its soundtrack, funnily enough.

Beyond that stuff, you obviously are reading this review cause you want to know of the female characters! This review ain't for the anime, it's so that you get to know the female characters in the game before you play! Cause, well, this one felt a tad bit lifeless for me to take it too seriously, so it's mostly a calm review about the characters and, well, that's about it. If you want to know about the main lead, Takaaki Kouno, he's not very fleshed out at all and his role in the anime is basically to be the generic nice guy that suffers various torture porn from some of the girls as it progresses. So, similar to what Love Hina started.

So, this character list will go from my most favorite characters to my least favorite. Sadly, I did not draft this or review it much before publishing it here, so my words might be a bit scattered since I finished this a while ago, but I did watch all the spin-off stuff as well as the extensions, so my memories of the original are a bit loose now because of this. Speaking of, I would give those a higher rating on the art cause they looked much more expressive in comparison to this one's rather bleak colorization. If this review is panned a bit much, I can just make another review on the next series that goes into fuller detail of everybody in case my sentiments here are mediocre.

With that, let us begin. By the way, partial spoilers. You have been warned. Also, I will not be counting any girls introduced in the special episodes; rather, they will have their own section in the next half of the review. Only girls that appeared in the original To Heart 2. Also, probably not gonna count the mom or maid robot, either.

Sango Himiyuri - What more can I say about this girl, besides her confidence being so overwhelming that she just upright decided to break the "no kiss romance" trope by straight up kissing our male protagonist the same episode she meets him! Yes, this guy actually gets some action, and she straight up admits she loves him! Well, "love-love" but you get the idea. I thought she was a breath of fresh air in contrast to the darker girls, as whenever she was in the scene, you couldn't help but smile.

I love her personality, her appearance and the fact that she's probably the most normal female in the entire cast with her non-exaggerated reactions and appreciation towards Takaaki. Doesn't help that she is apparently a freaking genius, either! She can create robots and do most things science. In fact, she even curbs her little sister multiple times in a very mature manner, despite how simplistic she sounds when talking to Takaaki. With a personality as unique as hers, there was no way any other girl would be number one. She was fully tolerable and nearly every scene she is in is filled with smiles.

Manaka Komaki - Oh yes, I assume for those whom have already seen this anime, you know my pattern now. This girl did compete with my number one spot, but I was judging the version of her that appeared outside the original To Heart 2, so that would've been unfair. If we count the version of her that only appears here, she's a solid second place on the list.

Sporting the warmest personality of the girls, Manaka is a very calm and delightful girl to listen to. Much like Sango, she sees more positive in Takaaki than negative; at least, in this particular series. She always listens to him and never exaggerates (often, anyway) anything, which I enjoyed a lot. Honestly, due to how little interaction she does have, or maybe it's cause my memory is a bit stale now since it's been a while since I saw the original, I can not really write much about her, despite her high placement. That's okay, though, cause she's still a fine character and most fans of To Heart 2 probably like her as well.

Lucy Marioa Misora - What the hell, I thought she only went by "Ruuko" maybe they announced her full name on her debut episode, cause that confused the hell out of me.

Um, anyway, this girl is just adorable. I actually admired the way this anime introduced the girls, as they actually start off as a character you see at least once in the background (there's a whole episode that brings this up, actually, for all of them), but I didn't think anything of her at that time. She's, by far, the most supernatural girl in the anime, as she can legitimately summon storm clouds and lightning from the sky (only does so one time, though) cause, well, she is very obviously revealed to be an alien. Her antics throughout are mostly comical, as she has minimal character development and little to discuss, beyond introducing the longest running gag in both the original anime and spin-offs, the "Ru!" line, which of course, Sango just HAD to use indefinitely every time she sees Ruuko (and sometimes Takaaki), which made me love Sango even more than I already did. But, I already talked about her, so let's move on.

Konomi Yuzuhara - The last of the good characters, here is Konomi, a character whom legitimately sleeps in the same bed as Takaaki in the same episode of both her and his debut. Not sexually of course, but she was just scared of a horror movie and wanted comfort. It was quite adorable, but of course, now you're thinking "this is the childhood friend" well, you are correct. He does indeed refer to her by her first name, no honorifics attached, meaning he has the closest bond with her. Their relationship is honestly quite adorable, as it is indeed like they are siblings, but this adds a bit of drama to the anime later on.

Her personality is likable if you like adorable characters, she has some good one-liners every now and then and, well, I did not pay much attention to her. Beyond her debut episode, which also introduced both her friends that she had to say goodbye to (though they are minor characters, so they are not counted in this), she becomes somewhat recurring from what I can remember. She was mainly there just to greet Takaaki and not do much else other than tease him, which was typical of the female childhood friend role. So, she's a fine character, and I would rather not put her lower on the list cause of what is sadly coming up next later on.

Ruri Himeyuri - Here's the little sister I was talking about! She is basically Sango's exact twin, especially in this series where their hair color is lazily different from one another, with Sango's being slightly richer in blue, well Ruri's is slightly richer in purple, but a literal slight where, if you have poor vision, you'd just say they both have a low saturated tone of blue. Thankfully, Ruri always looking angry will help you tell her apart from her big sister.

Her character development is among the most intricate in the anime, but I won't go into too much detail to avoid spoiling the whole experience. Overall, she just loves her big sister a lot, but hates anybody that wishes to "steal her away" from her. As I said before, Sango did kiss Takaaki, but Ruri responded with an immediate (and quite unnecessary) shot to his groin, despite Sango initiating the smooch. Sango almost always scolds Ruri for being rude to Takaaki, but Ruri's selfish nature prohibits her from truly listening to her words.

One last thing I'd like to note about Ruri is that I'm not entirely sure how she "loves" her sister, cause it turns into a bit of a twincest thing throughout their arc; most notably, during one scene where she touches Sango's lips (very slowly) with her fingers and then touches her own well closing her eyes (still quite slowly, and I think she moaned a bit, too). She even kisses Sango herself at the end of their arc, albeit only on the cheek. It confused me a lot as to how much she "loved" Sango, but as of now, I believe it might be between a sibling love and a romantic love. Maybe also cause, since she wants Sango to herself, she might be willing to go so far as to marry her so that she is not "hurt" by anybody. Kinda creepy, huh? But, those are the exact vibes I get from her character, mainly due to her extremely antagonizing ways towards Takaaki.

Yuma Tonami - Close friends with Manaka, this girl has one of the most hilarious hate arcs in the whole anime. She is typical tsundere, but in the most cringe way possible. She first begins the streak by accidentally running into Takaaki, but blaming him for it and claiming it to be a challenge (second longest running gag in the anime, perhaps) and always wants to fight him. From what I could remember, I believe this hatred stemmed from family manners at home where, being unable to overt her true feelings towards the career she decided to study for, she perhaps takes out her hatred on Takaaki as a means to calm herself. That's what I got the idea from.

But, again, another case of lack of character development other than her debut episode, so it's mostly laughs when you see her come into the scene, since her hatred is quite obviously the most forced tsundere mode in the entire anime.

Also, outside the original, there's a small implication that she actually secretly loves Takaaki after they share a "romance glance" (where the music stops, flowers are in the background and she blushes well starring at him for a while), but that was a different series and I won't spoil how that happens. But, I thought I'd bring it up to compensate for the little bit of information I wrote for her.

Tamaki Kousaka - VERY close to being the last girl on the list, but not quite. Like Konomi, she has a childhood bond with Takaaki, giving him a pet name and is rather not afraid to get up and close with him. On her debut episode, when Takaaki is unfamiliar with who she is (apparently, she was gone for a while in her own school, alongside some of her classmates saying their goodbyes, whom you never see again in the entire anime), she teases him for a while till he figures it out. Straight away, she hugs him, slams him to the ground (despite how it looks, and the camera angles, this isn't romance, but a very hilarious reunion hug) and just rubs her face against his a lot well he's doing the "Um, Tamaki?" line well looking down all nervous.

Coming off as very sweet thus far, you'd think she'd be higher up, especially since it's another one of his childhood friends. But, unfortunately, she has a bit of a yandere side to her. I guess it never came off to me right away, but near the end of the anime, it made sense. This will be a heavy spoiler, but I figure I should bring it up. It is implied that she loves Takaaki when they are children (she leaves him around this time, so he doesn't see her for years, I think) and so, well, she has a rather strange tsundere vibe around most of the girls in the anime, and it's quite condescending and overpowering.

Most of what I'm about to say next is kind of not done in this series, but was worth a mention since I did not wish to write multiple reviews of it. Throughout most of it this one, the original, her eyes will switch from innocent to devious (the sharp, thin looking eyes) whenever she is about to have her way, and she always does, which was a major turnoff to me since I didn't like that very much. But, in the next series, it is shown that her yandere mode is much worse, as she is apparently four hundred percent stronger than the average human (she stops the attack of a freaking robot) and this just proved to me that her character was mainly meant to be a kind of "bring the balance" character, since nobody could defeat her. Well...maybe one, but she's not in the original series.

Overall, Tamaki is a rather peculiar character that's hard to love due to her condescending nature, but she is indeed the only one that wrote a real love letter to Takaaki (we find out more about this in the next series) and, judging from how she reacts around the other girls at times, she can kind of look like a cryptic yandere type of girl. It's hard to elaborate, but that's the best way I can describe her.

Karin Sasamori - Quite honestly, I wanted to skip most of the girl reviews and just write about her, but since I knew that would be a rather poor writing of the anime, I had to include the other girls, too.

Yes, this is the girl whom I consider to be the worst in the series and for multiple reasons. Despite not being as intimidating as Tamaki, Karin manages to do one of the lowest things in the entire anime. I honestly don't want to spoil how it all leads to this, since I will leave that up to you to watch.

But, at some point, a sign falls on Takaaki and the "anime accident" occurs where the main guy just happens to have one of his hands on the female character's breasts as he fell. Taking advantage of the situation, Karin asks that he is bold (general running gag in most anime when a male lead goes in for a move) and, before Takaaki can remove his hand, Karin places it back on her breast, albeit harder. She then says if she were to scream in agony, everybody in the sports team (coincidentally right next to them, just outside the room window, doing warm-ups) would hear and his reputation as a man would be ruined.

And thus, begins the third longest running gag in the anime where Takaaki has to aid her bidding or else she will ruin his reputation. With Tamaki, despite her tsundere ways, she still cares for Takaaki and wouldn't truly hurt him (she does, inadvertently, in the next series, but it was by accident), well Karin is the very definition of sadistic. Her character is just not likable to me and she has no redeeming traits aside from having the most normal hair in the group. I was gearing up to enjoy her when she debuted, until that episode went on.

Even worse, she indeed enforces this on Takaaki, even when he's in the drama portion of the anime where something serious happened. Only once, I believe, does he get out of her bidding, but only cause a friend pulls him out of the room they're in. Otherwise, she also has her way like Tamaki most of the time, but the thing is, she doesn't care if he hurts him or not. And that made her the cruelest character in the anime. Cause both Ruri and Yuma admittedly like Takaaki, but in their own unique way. Offscreen, according to Sango, Ruri admits at home that she "misses Takaaki" sometimes; as to which, she does the obvious blush before talking, hinting the fact to be true. As for Yuma, well, not much happens there until that light spoiler I gave of the next series.

Yeah, this review was...pretty lifeless. It was hard to be optimistic writing about this, cause the anime became a bit of an earful, among other things, as it progressed. I just began disliking it a lot, with a few notable exceptions such as Sango, Manaka and others really managing to have bright enough personalities to cheer me up. I would've had more to write if I didn't wait so long, as it faded my memory of the anime and I wanted to just write something cause it had been a while for me.

But, before I end things...there is one more girl in the bunch, one that apparently only has a cameo in a flashback sequence in this anime. Since she appears, though, and is considered a potential love interest for the main character (as a "bonus" according to what I saw, but was simply left out of the anime), I feel she counts.

Yuuki Kusakabe - Honestly, if I count outside of this anime, this girl is probably my real third favorite...oh, who am I kidding, I've already mentioned the next series enough already, I'm not fooling anyone.

She appears in a small flashback, revealing that she had to move away and also change her last name, so she could never see Takaaki again. As such, she is not necessarily a "childhood friend" of his, but close. She only ever got to interact with him for a little, but she grew close to him and, arguably, Yuuki is probably the girl that he has the most potential to date in the actual series as a whole. If you want to know more, you can read the last paragraph of her description or wait till you watch the next series.

In the full version of the flashback, in a rather sweet way, Takaaki offers his last name to Yuuki so that he will never forget about her, saying she can go by "Yuuki Kouno" if she likes. This shocks the other girls in the next series, as this kind of implies that he proposed to Yuuki, and technically, inadvertently "dated" her before any of the other girls. It's pretty cute, honestly, but they only share one real heartwarming moment in the next series. Their interaction is also rather subtle, maybe cause the next series might take place a year later and, by this point, maybe he hadn't seen her in so long (want to say over half a decade by this point) that he just forgets about her. It's rather sad, really, but it also did not help at all that, in this series, she has teal(?) hair, well in the new one, it's black. Maybe they just couldn't write her character fully for the anime and she was more in a "beta" phase during that flashback. Either way, I enjoyed her in the next series a lot and, indeed, she would be my personal number three if this review wasn't bias towards the original series.

So, that's the last of my sentiments towards To Heart 2. It's very vague, cheesy and this review wasn't fleshed out at all. In fact, due to the lack of free time I have to write this stuff anymore, I didn't really want to pour my soul into this, either. I'm saving that for the original To Heart later on this month, if not the next. So, this is more of an opinion thing I have between all the girls.

My final sentiments regarding the anime are that it would've been better if it was made before Love Hina, like the original was, as it would've allowed for better development, no tsundere bull and, well, less negativity perhaps. The drama was a welcomed idea, of course, considering how lighthearted the series before it is, but they do it in very strange ways; only becoming stranger in the next series.

Hope you enjoyed the read, and look forward to my sentiments on the original To Heart!

In this review there are hints of mature language.So if you aren't old enough to buy beer.......Not your fault i know..But hey if you do happen to read it i'll not tell anyone...
Do you know those tv ads,like don't eat meat,eat weed or don't smoke go for a run in the woods?Well i got one as well,smoke meth don't watch animes like this.

You're probably reading this standing in front of your screen going:"what the fuck he's on about"..But wait..Recent studies show that watching 1 episode from animes like To Heart 2,basically your everyday harem-romance anime,it shortens your lifespan by 1 week.That means that after watching ... an entire season you've had it.If you're a dog that means you're already dead.Thanks Frisky for all the lovely memories.We will always remember all the joyous walks to the park,your barking as we parked the car.

And it's your fault Frisky bought the farm.Cause if you fruitcakes stopped for a moment being such whiny little bitches we would have more animes like Elfen Lied and not this shit.You ruined the anime bussiness and now all we get is this romance/drama/harem crap that causes people serious death.And i don't care about people but what did Frisky ever do to you you little fucktards?

And if you think that i'm out of rants woohoooooo,i'm so not.I'm just starting with this bitch.

To Heart 2....This must be the work of a mad scientist cause there's no other word for it,this is as lethal as a biological weapon.In fact there were rumours of entire villages "mysteriously" vanishing from the map around the time they were making this anime..I'm not so sure it was THAT mysteriously lads.I think they kidnapped those poor souls,handcuffed them in front of a massive screen and showed them eps from this.Death was instant.According to some reports that were leaked their brains melted and their eyes had turned into this pure white cream.

So how,you wonder,this dangerous thing made it onto our screens?It was thanks to a special task force team,joined together by the UN.They worked day and night to make sure it was suitable for broadcasting.But even they,the very best of them all,couldn't quite tame the beast.

And we ended up with this hybrid.Part bio weapon part anime.Or in terms you can understand part UCT(Unholy Cancerous Trinity) aka Kanon,Clannad,Air,part Japanese fever.

Story?Hasn't got one.It's the classic school setting where one lad gets all the women the other lad gets his dust and some free porn on the net to pass his time.Oh we also have a vast cast of women who have the hots for the first guy.And this is a known fact that the almighty god gifted him with so much testosterone that women were known to pass out after being drained from their bodily fluids.That's called the squirting phenomenon.

Animation,you say?Well that my friends is where things get even worse than before.The purpose,in my mind at least,is to make the new anime better in every way than the one before that.Well in some areas it looks so much better than the previous effort which was a blatant copy of UCT.But because this was made by men tehy couldn't do many things at once so they only fixed some parts of the hideous animation like the huge foreheads for example.While doing that they forgot to make the animation look like it was a product of 2005 and this resulted in it looking like one that was made in WW2.

Songs and VA?Well the songs are as always a mix of the pink vomit of unicorns and the turds of the care bears.As for the VA it was there to do one job..Being absolutely subpar.

And now onto the last part..Them characters.This time round they decided to go fresh,start anew.So their first job wwwwwwwaaaaaaassss...A new freakin robot...I'm not joking this also has a robot..Granted it doesn't play a major role but how lazy is that?If you're starting fresh ditch every single thing that made the previous 2 seasons such a waste of time.But at least i have to say that the rest of them are actually a tad better than the old folks.Mind you that doesn't say much.That like saying "oh look i have aids which is better than Ebola cause i won't die in few days but in 2 years from now".They are all the same shit you'll find in every other anime of this type.Nothing new.

Sisters that both like the MC and one is a tsundere?Check

Male friend that is there to serve as a plant?Check

Cute Class Rep who is also afraid of boys but falls for his non existent charms?Check

Childhood friend who after so many years wakes up one day and realises that all along she wanted to jump him and bear his children?Motherfucking CHECK.

You must be thinking at this point that for a rant of this size there must be many things to this anime.But you'll be wrong.This is exactly like any other anime out there.No character,no soul,no passion.It's as lifeless as a dead corpse that is...Well,dead!

If you want to watch it,then do by all means.Just don't come back here crying that i didn't warn you.Honestly if you are into self destruction please start taking drugs or start drinking and gambling.