AKA: Fly Me to the Moon, Tonikaku Kawaii, トニカクカワイイ (Japanese)

Genre: Comedy / fantasy

Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 24 minutes each

Distributor: Currently streaming on crunchyroll

Content Rating: 13+ (mature situations)

Related Series: Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You (season 1), Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You (post-season 1) OAVs, Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You: High School Days (post-season 2 ONA)

Also Recommended: Hayate the Combat Butler

Notes: Based on the manga by Kenjiro Hata, currently running in Shogakukan's Weekly Shounen Sunday magazine.

Rating:

Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You (season 2)

Synopsis

Happy domestic life continues for young (ONE of them is anyway) married couple Nasa Yuzaki and and Tsukasa, as they go on a few trips, encounter some of Nasa's acquaintances (and one of Tsukasa's), and remain horribly embarrassed at the thought of being seen unclothed by each other.

Review

I really don't want to spoil too much, but I draw the line at false advertising. The opening credits this season show Tsukasa in a traditional Japanese dress swinging a sword, facing a flaming landscape and doing all manner of other exciting things. Absolutely none of this appears in, or is even MENTIONED, in this season's episodes. Instead, we just get more of the blissful (if still awkward on matters of physical intimacy), mildly comedic life of our marry-first, date-afterward odd couple. At least they're able to kiss each other now with only mild discomfort. And they can sleep in the same futon occasionally; if it's only to sleep. (I wouldn't make an issue of any of this if the show itself didn't do so.) Tsukasa, by the way, puts her hair UP when she goes to bed; I thought that was a bit unusual.

The show has basically TOLD us (at this level of reveal, it's not "hinted") that Tsukasa is an immortal of some kind; from crunchy readers there's a reported age of 1,400 years for her. It does seem inconceivable that she's never experienced ANY physical intimacy (or at least been naked) with anyone over that entire period. (There was a movie in the U.S. called The 40-Year-Old Virgin; Tsukasa's got that beat by a factor of 35.) Getting married also makes no sense for someone in her position. (As was a theme in Maquia, immortals naturally have no incentive to form lasting relationships, since they would always end up watching their partners wither and die, while they remained youthful-appearing.)

And getting married to Nasa? He's an amiable computer nerd who's still crushing so much on her that it has apparently never occurred to him to ask about certain oddities (and Freudian slips) of hers; while she, for her part, is apparently resolved to NOT tell him the full truth about herself. This season, she re-encounters an old acquaintance (in BOTH senses of that description) named Tokiko. Tsukasa doesn't want Nasa to be left alone with Tokiko. One time when this DOES occur, Tsukasa's first question to Nasa is, "She didn't tell you anything weird, did she?". I can't for the life of me figure out Tsukasa's endgame here: why she wanted to be "married", why she wanted to do it in reverse order (marriage first, getting-acquainted afterwards), when (if ever) she plans to tell him the truth...

...and how her supposed "sister" Chitose fits into all this. This season gives us some other new side characters, but except for season one friend Kaname (who runs the bath house where Tsukasa and Nasa are temporarily staying) and "newbie" Tokiko (new this SEASON, but certainly not otherwise), all the side characters, old and new, seem relegated to not much more than walk-ons. Kaname, despite her somewhat dirty mind, still seems the most sensible (and grounded in reality) of the cast.

Except for Tokiko, all the new characters are acquaintances of Nasa's. One, a Ms. Yanagi, a former teacher of Nasa's, has anxieties about getting married that are hidden somewhere in a completely nonsensical (though hilarious) tale about pickled red ginger. ("Seriously, what even IS this?", Tsukasa wonders. Like this show's mangaka's earlier effort Hayate the Combat Butler, there's some fourth-wall breaking, here mostly in the form of droll comments from Tsukasa.)

The other new characters this season include:

- Onimaru Ginga, a relative of Nasa's who certainly SEEMS like a Yakuza.

- Kagami Kyuuma, a classmate of Kaname's (though she looks younger than her), who Kaname notes is really stupid (since Kaname's sister Aya is ALSO stupid, Kaname seems pretty much surrounded by stupidity).

- Ouka Nakiri, my personal favorite among the newcomers. Ouka runs an equipment rental business, and kind of reminded me of Kanna from Tamako Market- a character whose psyche operates on a slightly different wavelength from everyone else's. I hope the show at least gives us more of her in the future.

This season does feature some really amusing segments - Ms. Yanagi's and Ouka's being my favorites- but the lack of real development in either the Yuzakis' personal relationship, and especially Tsukasa's backstory, exasperated me. I have no real knowledge of the manga, but unless Tsukasa plans on making Nasa immortal TOO, I'm afraid their relationship is inevitably doomed sooner or later. Though it might be so far in the future that even One Piece is finished. — Allen Moody

Recommended Audience: Manga fans assure me that by this point our couple HAVE been intimate with each other. I couldn't figure out exactly WHERE or WHEN this was supposed to have occurred based on what I saw in the anime, though. Certainly there's no actual nudity.