Da Capo Second Season 1
First of all, if you haven't seen Da Capo before I'd recommend you go over to Animesuki and grab it and watch. Or go read Satoshi's summaries of the first season. Da Capo Second Season is a sequel so you will be somewhat lost if you don't know what went on in Da Capo. Now, with that out of the way ;)
Two years after the end of Da Capo, we're back on Hatsunejima. We start off with Nemu (voice only) reading a letter to her "Nii-san", Jun'ichi. She thanks him for everything he's done, and wants him to remember her if he can once in a while. And, "nii-san"... someone is in Jun'ichi's bed, saying "nii-san", trying to wake him up. It's Miharu! But Jun'ichi won't wake up... she pulls the cover off and notices something. It's a banana, Jun'ichi says. Miharu's 大好物 are bananas, so she wants to eat it and lunges forward... only problem is... it ain't no banana (^^;;)
Jun'ichi (with a black eye given to him by Miharu) walks to school with Miharu and Mako comes to join them on way. As a reward for Miharu taking care of waking Jun'ichi up she's got... yup, some bananas. Miharu runs away in terror... Suginami eventually shows up, the same as we remember him, along with Kudo-kun, and a few other new faces: a meganekko who's an aspiring mangaka, Nanako, a seemingly pretty quiet girl, Alice, and Tamaki, who calls Jun'ichi "Asakura-sama". All of the gang is up on the roof for lunch, where Mako gives Jun'ichi a bentou she made as usual. Her and Suginami have a bit of a fight which Nanako hurries to record -- but it seems everybody is there to support Jun'ichi when he needs them.
After playing some basketball, Jun'ichi, Kudo, and Suginami take a break. Kudo notices that a button on Jun'ichi's shirt is loose, so he says that he should get Nemu-san to... apparently speaking of Nemu is off limits... Suginami suggests Jun'ichi should get her to do it -- who? Kotori's standing nearby.
Kotori and Jun'ichi go shopping together then head to the beach, looking almost like a couple... At what was the big sakura tree, Utamaru bounds up as cloaked girl comes... A sudden downpour comes and soaks Kotori and Jun'ichi, forcing them to take shelter. Kotori wipes his face off.. he thanks her for taking care of him everyday since that happened. He's picked himself back up and is okay now. He'll be grateful to her for his whole life, and one day he'll return the favor with his body... Kotori hears "whole life" and "body" and gets red thinking of what that could mean, and Jun'ichi the same. Jun'ichi reaches out, seemingly to grab her... but he was just keeping her dry from a car that drove by ;)
They make a run for it back to Jun'ichi's house, and Kotori opens it up with the key that was under the cactus plant. They're both soaked, so Jun'ichi suggest Kotori take a bath. Jun'ichi sneezes, so Kotori asks if he wants to get in together (and all the guys watching said "Heck yeah!"). Too bad, was a joke ;) After Kotori gets in the bath Jun'ichi remembers that he forgot to give her a towel, so he carefully goes into the bathroom, careful not to look, to set the towel down. However.. he gets a look at Kotori's clothes lying in the basket and hijinks ensue as he trips and falls trying to get out. Kotori doesn't help things that much ;) The doorbell rings so Jun'ichi runs out to answer.. it's Utamaru and that cloaked girl. She falls down into Jun'ichi's arms...
I believe we got more service in this one episode than just about all of Da Capo. The Miharu and the "banana" thing is sure to be remembered like Miharu's "My first experience with a banana!" line from Da Capo. Well, the Da Capo staff was mostly female, the Da Capo Second Season staff mostly male. Go figure ;) Da Capo had its share of silliness at the beginning of the show so no huge changes here, though with the added service it makes it feel more like your usual girl-game-turned-anime. Nothing wrong with that, however, at least for now. I assume we'll get our share of drama and such later on.
The big question for now is "Where is Nemu?"? Seems like she's far away somewhere by what she wrote in the letter, and since bringing her name up seems to be taboo perhaps something happened to her... the ending teases us with an image of a grown-up Jun'ichi with someone looking over his shoulder.
After Nemu left Hatsunejima, it seems Kotori took her place in Jun'ichi's life, along with all his other friends supporting him. It looks like Kotori hasn't given up on Jun'ichi from how she's acting around him. So it seems we'll be concentrating on Kotori this time, along with the girl that stumbled into Jun'ichi's house at the end this time, Aisia. According to her character description, she's a magic user like Jun'ichi's grandmother and Sakura. So we'll see what she's there for (her character description says more but I'll leave it at that)...
Technically, everything looks good so far in Da Capo Second Season. Animation seems perhaps better than Da Capo and the music seems to be sounding as good as Da Capo with Hikaru Nanase back. I'm a Nemu/Sakura fan, so of course I'd like to see one or both of them show up sometime, but Kotori as the main character ain't a bad thing, and Aisia seems to be interesting as well. So I'll keep on watching and continue blogging :)
It was a good solid first episode. I wasn't a big Nemu fan during the 2nd half of the first season, so with her not being there I am happy. As I am a big Kotori fan, I am glad the focus looks to be on her. Still got to get used to that design for Junichi though. Something tells me Tamaki is going to take a shot at trying to be with Junichi. Will Mako try as well since trying in the first season? That last image in the ending to me was not good. I didn't like them putting that image because now I am going to be thinking in my mind that I already think what is going to happen. But still a good episode and a good write up Matthew. Great stuff.
Watched it myself and enjoyed it quite a bit. Personally I won't be missing Nemu or Sakura since I was never a big fan of either of them anyway. Still to each their own.
Oh and the character page, http://www.hatsunejima.com/character/index.html , on the series website shows that the "Cloaked Girl's" name is spelled "Aisia". I definitely like how they provided the names in english on the site. It's a very nice touch.
Shuten: I've changed the spelling to line up with what's on the site, though the "Aishia" spelling looks better than "Aisia" to me. Anyways ;) Surprised that they spelled "character" correctly on the site, usually it's "charactor" or something, lol :)
Well accuracy aside I do agree that "Aishia" does look much nicer than Aisia. Still I'm waiting to see how her name is pronounced in the show before passing final judgement on it. ^^;
The first episode made me wanting to eat banana...
Nicely done first episode, especially the animation and the detailed background. But somehow I think they made the characters (character design) look less cuter than the first season of the anime.
(take a look at the "garelly" page on the official website) :)
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Interestingly, when I was downloading the chinese scans of Mahou Sensei Negima, bundled up along with the entire 92 chapters are a couple of chapters of Da Capo manga called Da Capo: Second Graduation, or D.C.S.G (I'm not entirely sure if there's a first manga). The time line of the manga is the same as the anime and the characters appear to be the same, with the exception of Nemu, she is around in the manga, in fact, the first chapter has her going to school with Jun'ichi'.
I think they are in the second year of high school now (Da Capo was in final year of middle school?), a few questions that the manga raised but wasn't explained yet, it however might give a clue as to where Nemu is, in the anime.
If you are interested, a brief storyline from the first chapter is provided below. It might or might not be a bit of a spoiler, but I'm not sure if they are going to have the same storyline as the anime.
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The first page of the scan (minus the translator thoughts page) has a scene of a girl in a wedding dress (she looks like Nemu, but you can't see the face, hair style is pretty close but not exactly). You'll find out its Jun'ichi's dream, to be exact, he's wondering if it is someone else's dream, and he thinks the bride looks familiar, but can't quite place it. Then you get the basic introduction to the island, and the next page, Nemu appears, walking to school with Jun'ichi'. Both of them are in uniform, but Jun'ichi' asked her why she's in uniform since she no longer needs to. She said even though she's not a student, she's still related (to the school?).... and she really wants to try wearing it... Jun'ichi' goes "Thats your main purpose!". The usual casts appear, Miharu etc, and class starts. Skipping forward, you find Jun'ichi' in the Nurse Office, and it was explained that Nemu graduated from Nursing School and returned to school as a training school nurse and apparently will get the full license after the trial period. Skipping a little ahead, you find that Sakura had became a teacher in the school, apparently, even though it was known that Sakura had skipped grade to graduate from university, in actual fact, she had even obtained the education and license as a teacher. Skipping a little ahead, Nemu and Jun'ichi' are back home, and Jun'ichi' welcomes Nemu back once again. They decided to celebrate and Jun'ichi' suggested to go for Special Grade Eel but Nemu said she's cooking dinner tonight (everyone remembers Nemu's cooking skills?) and Jun'ichi' gives a fearful look. "It looks good and even smells delicious, maybe, it might even taste good?" Jun'ichi' thinks to himself. "I'm sorry for doubting you Nemu", Jun'ichi' was thinking to himself as he tucks into the food. Next instant, Jun'ichi' was on the floor, foaming at the mouth. Apparently, Nemu managed to make the food look good, but its a killer. :D Final page of the first chapter has a girl in cloak appear, its Aisia but its not known yet.
The composer is Hikaru Nanase, not Kou Nanase.