Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT: A

Yeah, I thought it was about that good too.

So we've had a lot of sequels lately, and some have been good and some have been not so good.  Haganai season 2 falls into the 'really excellent' category, the kind of sequel that improves its parent series through its existence.

Season 1 of Haganai introduced us to the characters as their roles in the neighbors club: Yozora was the clever, possessive but shy and maladjusted leader, Sena was her rival/sidekick who usually got the short end of the stick, Kobato and Maria were also engaged in a rather brutal hate/rivalry relationship, Rika is a lascivious genius pervert constantly trying to get Kodaka to have sex with her and being rebuffed, and Yukimura is a boy being made to dress like a girl both to make him 'more manly' and because Yozora is a bully.  Of course, Kodaka is our straight man in this crowd, the guy who actually just wants to make friends and winds up at the center of a complex romantic web which he appears to be ignorant of.

Season 2 of Haganai takes every single one of these roles and turns them on their respective ears: situations change, we learn new things about each of the characters and they learn new things about each other, we explore what makes each of them do what they do, their motivations and what the Neighbor's club in general and its members in particular mean to them, developing their relationships and injecting the stress that comes of deepening relationships.  The series manages to take its original concept and grow it into an intelligent commentary on friendship, progress in relationships and fear of commitment.

Even more amazing is that it manages to do it while remaining humorous, silly and full of fan service.

Haganai's second season makes the series as a whole, pretty much the best series with harem elements I've ever seen, mostly because it becomes a meta-commentary on the idea of having a bunch of girls in love with one guy, and also because it avoids the pitfall of story stasis.  While the second season does not wrap things up, it ends in such a way that the situation has not only irrevocably changed, but that change has been accepted by the cast as a whole, and THAT is what makes it unique.

This series really cements my general theory that the less new characters are introduced in a sequel, the better the sequel will be.  We have 3 new named characters this time around; all of them have minor roles and one of them doesn't even have dialogue until the very last episode.

If you liked Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Season 1, Season 2 is a blast.  If you want to see a winkingly naughty exploration of romance, friendship and difficulties of finding your place while remaining yourself, Haganai is both funny and moving.  Pretty much the only people who won't like Haganai are those who can't stand people being creepy, awkward, rude or cruel (though almost universally played for laughs) to people who are (though they might not admit it) their friends.