Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus (2025)
[青春ブタ野郎はサンタクロースの夢を見ない]
Director: Soichi Masui
Studio: CloverWorks
Starring: Kaito Ishikawa, Asami Seto, Sora Amamiya
Episodes: 13
Synopsis:
Sakuta has gone on to university, but he still has cases of Adolescence Syndrome to deal with, seemingly centered on a young woman who goes around dressed as Santa Claus.
Impressions:
After three films, the Aobuta franchise returns to the small screen to cover four more of the original light novels as a prelude to one more film to close things out. As much as I appreciated the first season, I wasn't all that quick to pick up the subsequent films and I didn't start watching this until it was already completed. Yes, my passion for the franchise has cooled a bit, but once I started watching this, I found myself enjoying myself. There's plenty of the nice deadpan banter that originally drew me in and I do like Sakuta and Mai's dynamic. As the cast is already fairly large, expanding it further can make things a bit unwieldy, but I was generally in favor of what the new characters brought to the table. The first arc was a bit lightweight, but each one that follows improves on the last and it's nice how they build on each other and also set up future payoffs well in advance. While the nature of the story doesn't require CloverWorks to push themselves too much, everything is presented as nicely as you would expect from them. I wouldn't quite call this a must-have, but fans of the franchise should be satisfied and I'd definitely recommend giving it a watch at the very least.
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