Of all the judgment calls on the title line this season, Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun figures to be the toughest. No, we didn’t get a sequel announcement. But we sure didn’t get a conclusion either. In fact, we ended with a straight-up tease of the next arc. And the manga is very, very popular – it was #25 in the Oricon rankings for 2024 (despite being a monthly) and has a spinoff manga (and anime) that itself sells six figures per volume. It outsells Kuroshitsuji, which continues to get new anime regularly. Maybe there’s a bit of hopium in this, but I just can’t imagine the adaptation won’t eventually be completed.

Of course the “eventually” is wherein lies the potential rub. We’ve had 36 episodes which have used roughly 90 chapters. Except they haven’t, because the first season (for some reason) skipped a couple of entire arcs. The manga is at about chapter 128 now, so if you do the math: 90 chapters for 35 episodes – but closer to 80 actually used – means about 2-2.5 chapters per episode. With almost 40 unadapted chapters, you could get about 16-18 episodes out of them. 4-5 more if they re-inserted the skipped arcs (which would require some tweaking). My guess is they want to wait till they have two full cours worth of material before re-starting production, which means about two years from now. That’s the hope, anyway.

That’s all a big unknown. What’s not is that is a great series, the second was a great season, and the second cour was its strongest. In fact I’d argue this cour was the best material of the anime so far – every episode was a masterpiece or close to it. I always felt like when the chips were down it would be Kou at the center of events, and that’s pretty much what happened. He is, as I said, the moral fulcrum. But not only that, he’s the nexus point at which all the major character threads – Hanako, Nene, Mitsuba, Teru – converge.

Again, it’s really only Kou and Nene out of this entire cast who don’t have hidden agendas. They’re true to themselves. But Nene – sweet and innocent as she may be – is somewhat driven by selfishness. She’s in love, and in love with the idea of being in love. She has a view of the world she tries to make it conform to (usually unsuccessfully). Kou… Kou is basically trying to make everyone else happy. Nene has an agenda, Kou has an ethos – that’s the difference. And that utterly consistent moral rudder is what drives him to defy his Nii-san and let Hanako and Nene escape. Yes, he’s motivated in part by himself being in love with her. But he’s doing it to create a world where everyone can be happy, as naive as that may be for him to believe.

Teru is not happy, to say the least. He really lowers the boom on Kou here. He calls him a hinderance, says he’s weak. Ridicules him for trying to play hero. To an extent I understand where Teru is coming from. Not only does he have responsibility for the family business thrust upon him, he has two younger siblings and a mother who’s gone. But he is wrong about Kou – he’s not weak, just kind. Teru sees kindness as a weakness, and there are times it can be. But it can be a strength too, and his little brother is a lot stronger than he gives him credit for.

The arrival of Shinigami – just after the arrival of Akane (Aoi) and Aoi (Akane) – puts the sibling feud on the back burner. Shinigami has an agenda of his own, and in no way does it overlap with either brother’s. He makes quick work of Teru, and of first Kou and then Akane when they try and intervene. It’s Aoi he wants, her role in the Severance taking precedence over everything. Shinigami is another one of those who sees themselves as being in the right because they do the bad things that somebody has to do. In Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun right and wrong is mostly a matter of perspective. And for Number Six, “Why?” is a question he has no time for.

As for Nene and Hanako, they’ve escaped Teru’s blade, but he’s aghast that she’s chosen to come to this place when he worked so hard to give her a life. Nene is rightfully pissed about this, and gives Hanako a richly-deserved slap. Hanako and Teru are so alike – always trying to decide for others and seeing themselves as noble for acting ignobly. Nene is brutally straightforward with him – she’s here because she’s chasing after the boy she likes. And if he did all this to give her a life – a life from him, and no one else – Nene reasons that he must feel the same way about her. But to her great frustration, she can’t get him to say it out loud.

The thing with both Hanako and Teru is, even when they’re being A-holes it’s sometimes hard to disagree with them. What use is it for him to love her, really? He’s dead. They can’t grow old together – he can’t can’t even follow her in growing up. Her answer – and she’s come prepared – is to let Aoi go back to the world of the living and stay behind with Hanako. He’s deeply moved by this, clearly. But as he surely must, Hanako makes it absolutely clear what that would mean for Nene. They can’t just hang out and do puzzles together forever. In the Boundary, she must become an apparition herself if she’s to avoid fading away (and resist the lure of going to the Far Shore).

That kiss was a long time coming, to be sure. That Hanako can give Nene, at least – a little part of her fantasy, and it’s a part of his too. What he can’t give her is a future, and at this point Tsukasa arrives to remind him of that. As always, Amane-kun is thrown off his game when Tsukasa-kun is around. Is Tsukasa, when all is said and done, still trying to engineer wishes to help his big brother be happy? Destroy the yashiro of all seven wonders, it seems, and a Kami will grant Hanako a wish – and a wish from a God seems like the only way Amane and Nene could ever have a future together.

The whole Broadcasting Club cabal is arriving on the scene, in fact. Shinigami tries to give Kou the chance to withdraw, citing his distaste for torturing kids. Kou is full of resistance and surprises, but even after running Shinigami through with his own blade Kou is not Number Six’ equal. Natsuhiko arrives, it seems, just in time to save Kou’s life. It’s yet another one with their own agenda, different from everyone else’s, and Shinigami is the main obstacle in his way. Kou has been useful to him in achieving his goal, that’s for certain.

The tea leaves here seem to paint the picture that in fact, it’s Tsukasa who’s been pulling the strings of the other two, and not the other way around. Is his goal simply to make his brother happy as his sociopathic mind sees it, or is there yet another agenda hidden under that? And is that agenda to “go outside”, as he tells Sakura they can do once all seven yashiro are destroyed? This may be a finale with no continuation in sight, but it offers no clarity about the future – everything is in limbo (no pun intended).

What a truly superb thing Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun is. A magnificent manga with a complex story full of pathos and a gorgeous and unique visual aesthetic. And an adaptation which does justice to it, led by a superb cast and a production delivering the goods in every way. Characters this interesting inhabiting a world this enchanting and absorbing, playing out a story of great depth and subtlety – that’s a unicorn if ever there was one. We’re lucky to be able to experience a series as good as Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun, and I’ll be counting the days until the anime returns.