Rikei 2nd Season | Anime Review: Disappointment.

Following the events of their trip to Okinawa, Saitama University graduate students Shinya Yukimura and Ayame Himuro have failed to obtain the data necessary to scientifically prove their love for each other. Unable to replicate the exact conditions of the trip, the two stubborn scientists decide to seek help from elsewhere in the university—the Biological Sciences department.
Assisted by fellow graduate students and longtime couple Chris Floret and Suiu Fujiwara, Yukimura and Himuro begin to quantify their feelings by measuring their output of oxytocin in various romantic situations. The two scientists soon find that their feelings for each other are nothing compared to that of a mature couple. It is here that Chris poses a question to both Yukimura and Himuro: what will they do if their “affection” is proven not to be love after all?
Desperate to find a scientific rationale for the discrepancy, Yukimura puts everything on the line to prove that their “love” is real.

It’s that time again, where I find my final thoughts on an anime I’ve finished. Today’s blog post will be about Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita. Heart (Rikei) for short. Let me tell you, it’s been one rough ride.

Rikei has been a multitude of things and a disappointment is one of them. I wasn’t a fan of the second season, which is a shame because I did enjoy the first season. Which is something I knew would’ve happened because there will always be anime that fall way short regarding the overall enjoyment and expectations set by the first season. For me, that was the downfall for the second episode of Rikei. It just wasn’t good enough.

**Also for the record, I understand that I’m posting this review prior to the anime’s conclusion, but I feel like I’ve seen enough**.

If we were to compare this season to the one that came before, Rikei 2nd Season felt like it lacked a clear direction. What I mean by that was, the first season was all about determining whether or not Yukimura and Himuro liked each other in the most scientific way possible. Simple but straightforward, this made the first season easy to follow and enjoy. While the second season was still primarily about Yukimura and Himuro there were a bunch of little ‘side quests’ the characters went on.

All these various side quests went on for long periods of time. For me, this made each episode feel very cut up and segmented. Nothing about the episodes really flowed, besides everyone a part of the lab helping in the Yukimura and Himuro experiment. There wasn’t really anything that linked the episodes together.

Secondly, I thought the episode was a little too focused on the whole science aspect of things. Through the character Rikekuma (a science bear stuffed animal), large chucks of various episodes are dedicated to him explaining science facts and terminology. Which is great and all if you’re into that kind of stuff, but for me, I found none of that to be remotely interesting. Furthermore, while I understand that Rikekuma‘s purpose was to make the science side of the anime easier to understand but for someone as dumb as myself. It was still too complicated to understand and I found myself skipping through those presentations more often than not. Was there a benefit to having Rikekuma there? Yes. But it just wasn’t it for me.

Furthermore, I thought the latter episodes were subpar and I think that has to do with the quality of the supporting cast. In previous blogs, I mentioned how I would like to see more involvement from them because Yukimura and Himuro can only go so far. However, how the anime went about implementing them into the wider story wasn’t how I thought it would be. The regular involvement and development of the supporting cast has been minimal and extraordinarily weak. So when it came down to letting them have the spotlight, (Kanade, Kosuke, Ibarada) our supporting cast felt like they were just thrown into the deep end in the hopes that they’d float and swim on their own.

There was an attempt to establish that connection between character and viewer but at that point, we only had like five episodes left and there’s only so much character progression you can fit into that timeframe. Let alone establish any sort of emotion to set the mood. It felt like something thrown in because Rikei 2nd Season ran out of content for Yukimura and Himuro, so they thought letting the supporting cast have a go was their best bet. For me, unfortunately it wasn’t.

When you add up all these issues, the end result is a poor showing. There were more unenjoyable parts than there were enjoyable. I think that Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita. Heart as a whole carried a lot more cringe moments that would make the viewer uncomfortable simply because of how bad it was.

Did I expect more? Yes. Was this anime a disappointment? Yes, I think so. If you do pick up this series, I’ll only recommend the first season because I found it more entertaining than its successor. Sorry to say, but Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita. Heart was a disappointment.