With Skip to Loafer finishing its run, seems like as good a time as any for a status check on where we stand on sequels for this packed season’s anime.

• BokuYaba – yes (official)
• Tengoku Daimakyou – yes (leaked)
• Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia – no info but rumors of “new anime information”
• Jijou Tenkousei – no info (seems like an extreme longshot)
• Golden Kamuy – no info but seems very likely to eventually be completed
• Vinland Saga (winter) – no info, but Abiru Takahiko tweeted “Thorfinn’s journey will continue”

So what about Skip and Loafer, then?  To be honest, it seems fairly unlikely to me.  It’s a seinen, first of all, and true sequels are rare as hen’s teeth for those.  If it were going to happen a split cour seems more realistic, but we’d likely have heard something by now.  Overall the series seems to have been well-received.  It’s a highly-rated manga which received a very skilled adaptation by P.A. Works.  But somehow I don’t see any evidence that it really caught fire – more hummed along quietly in most viewers’ “yeah, I like that one too” file.

That’s kind of where I am with it too, to be honest.  There are seasons when it would certainly have been in my top two or three series.  I like more of the characters than not, the art style is lovely, and the lack of annoying anime tropes is hugely welcome.  It’s a very good series by any standard I could use, and if it did get another season I would certainly be happy.  It just never closed the deal with me emotionally, somehow – not the way BokuYaba (obviously), Insomniacs, and Clueless Transfer Student among this season’s romances did.

We did get some drama down the stretch, no question about it.  That’s because the focus largely shifted from Mitsumi to Sousuke.  Mitsumi is a sweetheart and makes a good anchor, but there’s just never been any sense that anything really bad could happen for her.  She’s indestructible.  Sousuke is a bit of a basket case, and that makes him (and Mika, for example) more fertile ground for actual development.  The fly in the ointment is Ririka’s role in that.  She’s a lot to take, to be honest – a pretty 2D plot mover rather than a truly fleshed-out character.

Ririka’s fingerprints are certainly all over the finale.  First she chases off Sousuke’s mom by accusing her of getting Sousuke to “act for you” again.  Chris should never have told her about the culture festival, so his irritation at Ririka’s rudeness rings pretty hollow.  That job done, she immediately blows Sousuke’s cover with his fellow students (which was not her right), and goes at Sousuke pretty hard about his so-called narcissism.  Mitsumi doesn’t fully grasp what’s happening here but she instinctively goes into “anteater mode” when Soususke is under attack (even thought she and Chris are pretty much terrified whenever Ririka lashes out).

I feel a lot worse for Sousuke than I do for Ririka, I’ll say that much.  And that was before the revelation that he tried to dissuade her from following him on that fateful night.  She’s a pretty awful person to be honest – she just wants to control Sousuke and make sure he’s not one whit happier than she is (and she’s pretty miserable most of the time).  Kudos to him for finally standing up to her after the play -it was a long time coming.  Sousuke resolving his problems through narration was a bit direct and a bit rushed, but you got the sense that some boxes were being checked before the end of the season. Which further discourages speculation about a second.

That said, Sousuke did pretty much stick the landing in the end.  His self-analysis was pretty on-point – he does need to start thinking (and yes, maybe acting) for himself.  Trying to meet everyone else’s expectations and never presuming to have any yourself is a sure fire ticket to an unhappy life (much less adolescence).  Right now he doesn’t seem to have many concrete expectations for himself beyond “enjoy a normal life”, but that’s just fine – he’s been suppressing them for so long that they’re not going to flick back on like a light switch.   And at some point “I want to be with Mitsumi” is surely going to be one of those expectations he finds his way to.

I didn’t really expect any significant movement with those two, so I’m not really disappointed there.  It did kind of suck that Sousuke realized Kanechika-sempai’s play was great but never went back to tell him (people with goals are one of his triggers), knowing how much that would have meant to Kanechika.  And I kind of doubt that Ririka is going to allow herself to be shoved out of Sousuke’s life that easily – that would be out of character.  But the field is basically cleared for him to start living again, and invariably that will mean growing closer with Mitsumi.

All in all it was a very solid finale without too many surprises – probably a “read the manga” ending, but one that did manage to leave the story in a pretty satisfying place.  As I said, I’ll be very happy in the unlikely event we get more Skip to Loafer – it’s a bit fluffy and low-risk for my taste, but has enough wit and intelligence to cut through the worst of the effects.  More manga adaptations from P.A. Works would likewise by very welcome, given that they’re still a very interesting studio visually and that their recent track record with their boilerplate originals has been less than stellar.  A good show, this one – let’s have a few more in the same vein.