Well, the good news is I almost made it all the way through this episode without fast-forwarding. Not quite – the “big reveal” with Akira’s aversion to Marin dragged on way too long and I had to relent. The fact that turned out to be such a nothingburger is perfectly symbolic of this wasted season. It was one of the biggest dropoffs from a prior season in recent anime for me, and on the whole I can’t in all honesty grade it as anything but a major disappointment. It’s all but certain there will be more Bisque Doll anime (thus the title line) but I’d be shocked if I covered any of it.
The bottom line is that it’s hard to think of a recent season of anime that has any less compelling reason to exist. This would be the challenge I’d issue: step back and take a look at it as a whole. Then flash back to where the series was at the end of the first season. Has anything materially changed at all? Certainly not between Wakana and Marin – and the hilariously anti-climactic (and predictable) final scene was the cherry on top of that sundae. Does this season have any impact on the larger story? Would anything be different if it had never happened? If you don’t care about the characters or the relationships and just wanted some cosplay porn sure, it had that. But not much else.
OK, to be fair, it had very nice production values. Shinohara Keisuke’s direction was a lot of fun, and CloverWorks is now consistently performing at above replacement level in terms of production. Some of the cosplay was intermittently entertaining, and I would include the actual “Coffin” cosplay meetup (though not the buildup to it) in that. There were some funny moments surrounding Shinju’s squeamishness about the whole thing. But that’s mighty thin gruel to provide much sustenance. You got maybe 2-3 episodes of actual content out of 12, and that would be fine if the other 9-10 were substantial and the 2-3 were the change of pace. That, sadly, was not the case here.
I was looking forward to this season – S1 ranked in my #11-20 list for 202. The third, whenever it happens? Honestly, I don’t care much one way or the other. I still like Kitayama and Gojou but I despair of anything meaningful ever happening – either the mangaka doesn’t care or has no idea what to do with them. I’d heard a fair bit of feedback that the manga derails pretty hard as it progresses but hey, you want to make up your own mind about stuff like that. In this case, it seems as if the negative buzz was pretty well-earned, and that’s a real shame. There’s the core of something quite good with Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru, and we have one solid season to prove it.
