Time to run away! Sort of! After the confrontation between Chitose and Asuka’s father in the final episode of the first cour, the new cour of Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle begins with the two adolescents on a train ride from Fukui to Tokyo. Are they off to help Asuka pursue her dream of being an editor? Although disguised as a day trip, Asuka and Chitose are indeed taking a step forward for the girl, as she seeks to find out if she can reasonably make her dream a reality, or if her father is right after all. Well, and to get some alone time with the boy who admires her so much.

The problem with Chitose in the Ramune Bottle—and I struggled with this, even as I enjoyed volumes and volumes of the light novel—remains here in season two, and will never go away: namely, that this series is written from such a male-oriented point of view that you can’t even pretend that it isn’t. It’s not that it’s overly fanservice-y (though there a moderate amount)—it’s that the girls are so plainly written that they have virtually zero agency and are almost one glob of personality, existing only to further Chitose’s character growth. It’s hard to distinguish them (though admittedly somewhat easier in the anime and manga adaptations with their visual elements than in the original light novels), and the problem is all the more pronounced because Chitose has wonderful subtleties to his character that make him compelling. Episode one of the new cour (episode fourteen overall) would have you believe I don’t know what I’m talking about, however, because Asuka sticks out more than the main group of girls—though it’s superficially with her short white hair and position as a nee-san and outsider. She’s also originally written as the cool, older type, but reveals herself to be helpless without Chitose by this time in the series. Ugh. Anyway, if this all doesn’t bother you as much as it does me, and if you can keep track of the girls in the main group better than I could (I literally created a spreadsheet for it, something I’ve only otherwise done with Ako and Bambi), and if you don’t roll your eyes at Chitose saving every girl around him multiple times, the series remains absorbing for its portrayal of living student life to the fullest and its often unexpectedly sensitive scenes (one in this episode involves an editor and writer). Otherwise, there are plenty of other anime romcoms to choose from that aren’t quite as frustrating as Chitose.

Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle can be streamed on Crunchyroll.