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[Science Fell In Love, So I Tried To Prove It - Season 2]
AKA: 理系が恋に落ちたので証明してみた。r=1-sinθ(ハート; Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shōmei Shite Mita. r=1-sinθ (The formula generates a heart-shaped graph)
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 24 minutes each
Distributor: Currently licensed by Sentai Filmworks, also available streaming on crunchyroll.
Content Rating: PG-13 (Mature situations, extra saucy last episode.)
Related Series: Season One; a live-action film in 2019; a TV drama (4 eps) in 2018
Also Recommended: Wotakoi: Love Is Hard For Otaku
Notes: Based on manga by Alifred Yamamoto, published by Flex Comix in the magazine Comic Meteor

(The "troublesome" manga artist in the series is also named Yamamoto!)

Copyright:

2022 Arifred Yamamoto/Comic Meteor/Rikekoi Project 2
Rating:

Science Fell In Love, So I Tried To Prove It - Season 2

Synopsis

The focus begins to shift off the Yukimura-Himuro relationship itself, and onto the relationships they have with the supporting cast (including some new characters), and with the supporting cast's relationships with each other.


Review

SPOILER WARNING! Once again, I was SO disappointed with the ending of a show, or season, that I couldn't leave the readers unwarned.

So what do you do with a season of a show that's four-star quality until the VERY LAST EPISODE, and THEN it goes horribly, horribly wrong?

I guess we'll need to talk about its offensive Final Installment before we consider the more virtuous (or at least less troubling) 11 installments of this season that came before.

#12 is the only time this series has ever had to preface an episode with a Content Warning; it's very out of character for a show that's otherwise been a gentle (if eccentric) rom-com. And it's because #12 sets the scene for a gang rape.

Now, and I'm spoiling like hell here, the rape doesn't actually occur; but it nearly does. MUCH too nearly, again, for the lighthearted comedy I'd come to enjoy. From the end of Ep. #11, I expected some sort of confrontation, but I figured the potential victim would either deal with it herself, or would do so in combination with her friends, or that at least the friends would rescue her, LONG before it got THIS dark. (I'd even plotted out a conclusion in my head, based on other things established in Ep. 11.) But we'll just say that the show goes with violent insanity and vile, cheap exploitation instead. Persons who've been victims of sexual assault should NOT watch this- nor should any particularly sensitive souls for that matter. As for me, as I said, I just thought this was all alien to the tenor and spirit of the series. The show then inserts a completely facetious "rescue" and aftermath, in a clumsy attempt to restore its previous lighthearted mood, but it seemed to me that to present a horror, and then to utterly trivialize it like this, made things even worse. As they like to say in anime, It Cannot Be Forgiven.

It's a real pity, since otherwise this season isn't bad at all. Sure, we do start with a silly couple, named Chris and Sui, who are competing with Yukimura and Himuro for the title of Who's Most In Love (based on oxytocin levels, of course.) But we have some interesting developments: Yukimura ends up tutoring a girl named Haru, the slacker daughter of a famous professor, and she, with Yukimura's assistance (AND some encouragement from Himuro) might actually become a motivated student. (By the way, it really IS true that, judging from the problems in elementary physics textbooks, you'd think working physicists are mainly worried about pushing weights up inclined ramps.)

We also have SOME movement on the Kosuke/Ena front, though that one's a tough nut to crack. Supposedly childhood friends, Ena now sarcastically dismisses Kosuke (though we see that she has been actually listening to his blather); while Kosuke nearly understands that Ena is really his ideal, whether his pride will let him accept it or not. (It seems to me that "Aika", the game character he reveres, LOOKS an awful lot like Ena.) Events this season push them a little closer (literally, at one point), but there's still a Wall of Dissing between them that's pretty hard to reach through. (We get a brief glimpse of Ena's home life, which may help to explain her general cynicism. I wanted more info on that.)

But Kanade becomes a major character in the story this time, for good or ill. I know that some folks despise her. I didn't- she's at least aware that she's a hypocrite for pretending to be something she's not, even though the feud she gets into with Yukimura (who thinks she should let her freak flag fly) gets exasperating after a while. Unfortunately, Kanade's "true" nature bears an uncomfortable resemblance to that of Arashiko Yuno in MM!.

I didn't like the manic little tune in the closer, but otherwise didn't have any major issues with the music (or art.) (And did I spot Honeyworks in the show's credits?)

Oh yes, there WAS one other thing. I'm not sure how those glass bottles (not to mention the test tubes!) survived the brutality they experienced- and if they had broken, it would have given the game away instantly. Just sayin'. (A side note: up until recently I managed a chem lab, and someone wanted to borrow some test tubes from me; he was outraged when I couldn't produce any, and asked me "What kind of a chem lab IS this?" I replied, "One without test tubes." There's no LAW that really requires chem labs to have them, you know.)

This is another show that made me wish we had a 2.5 rating: the season's virtues are ill-served by a rating of only 2 stars, but Ep. #12 (especially since it's the closer, and thus the final impression of the season) certainly makes me uneasy going to 3 stars. I've said that a show's ending can make it or break it. It BROKE it here. If you DO watch this season, you may go to the end of Ep. #11 if you wish, but I'd encourage you to simply say, "Yes, she'll be OK", and STOP there. In the end, I rounded UP and went 3, but as I said, I felt guilty rating it EITHER way. Such are the trials of a reviewer.Allen Moody

Recommended Audience: We're PG-13 for mature situations (Chris and Sui are PG13-level torrid), but definitely R in the final episode. So PG-13 for Episodes 1-11, and R for Ep. 12.



Version(s) Viewed: Crunchyroll video stream
Review Status: Full (12/12)
Science Fell In Love, So I Tried To Prove It - Season 2 © 2022 Arifred Yamamoto/Comic Meteor/Rikekoi Project 2
 
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