To paraphrase George Costanza, I could use the break.

First off, no – we didn’t get an official Season 2 announcement here. So technically this post should have been labeled as a “Finale and Series Review”. But we all know it’s going to happen. Ao no Hako is a commercial hit and a WSJ property, and those don’t just stop. This season used roughly 80 of  the current 181 chapters, so there’s plenty of material. It’s not the first time I’ve bent my rule a little on this score, but I think it’s justified. And I’ve never wound up being wrong any of the earlier times I’ve done it…

Contributing to that impression was that this episode made basically no effort to be a finale. Maybe we’ve achieved partial closure with Taiki and Hina, but apart from that there was nothing transitional or final here. The ep just stopped at the end, as if it were any other week. Even if we were getting the next season as soon as summer, I would have preferred at least some effort to acknowledge the reality. Season finales are still finales and it’s nice to feel like you’re reached a milestone.

What we got was basically the aftershocks of the Ayame-caused earthquake between Hina and Taiki. In the end this is probably better – Kyou is right that Hina should understand the reality, though his assertion that she’s “happier” is transparently wide of the mark (for now). None of that excuses Ayame whatsoever of course. She’s still completely insufferable, irresponsible, and selfish. And what makes it worse is that even after doing the bare minimum and acknowledging that she caused the pain Hina is suffering, she keeps right on meddling.

What this means for Hina and Taiki is complicated. He’s right that he can’t just say “let’s go back to being friends”. What she did forever changed the dynamic between them. And frankly if being friends was her priority, she should have respected his feelings and not pursued him romantically. I don’t think time heals all wounds, though there are instances where it dulls the pain sufficiently for people to get past them. The awkwardness between them is the price they’re going to have to pay for a while, and there are no shortcuts to get past it (if they ever do).

I have to wonder if the hangover from all this impacted Taiki when Haryuu challenged him to a game. He obviously wasn’t at his best, though he never considers the idea. And this really meant more to Haryuu than it did to Taiki. Taiki needed that win over Yusa to restore his confidence, and Haryuu needed this win over him. That Haryuu was willing to admit he was afraid of challenging Taiki is a big deal – it’s testament to how down on himself he was. He was building himself up for this moment, which took Taiki completely by surprise.

As for the main event, there are no big finale leaps forward here. It makes sense to think that if Hina is in a sense freed by knowing unambiguously that it’s not going to happen with Taiki, he’s freed by having finally settled the issue. There are still obvious and myriad reasons why he hasn’t formally confessed to Chinatsu yet, but now he has no choice but to acknowledge them and not blame it on Hina. Inviting Chinatsu to “go somewhere” on the weekend is a step forward, even if “shopping for a tracksuit” is a hilariously schoolboy follow-up suggestion. Fortunately Chinatsu is a little more tuned in and suggests something a little more appropriate as a tandem.

But that milestone – such as it is – will have to wait for next season. All in all I would say this was a very successful adaptation, in the sense that it looked great, the casting was fine, and the story flowed quite naturally. All the problems I had are ones I have with the series itself, and there was nothing the anime could do about those. Hopefully the second season comes sooner rather than later, and hopefully we lose that annoying gap week between the domestic and international releases.