Horimiya: Piece

After watching the first season of Horimiya, despite enjoying it from start to end, I'm sure at least some of us were also left with a slight sense of incompleteness.

The nagging feeling that there were some...missing pieces, if you will.

From a visual standpoint there was nothing to complain about, the main couple was great, and it's exactly the kind of low-stakes mainly fluff romance that would normally get full marks from romance enjoyers. But even so - some pieces are bound to go missing (okayi'm sorryi'llstopnow) when the truck carrying them has a space shuttle engine in the back and is flying at a ... breakneck average speed of about 10 chapters/episode, and their absence was strongly felt by many, especially in the latter half - where dissatisfaction with the not-always-successful attempts of the adaptation to introduce the large side cast of Horimiya to the audience was fairly common.

But what's said is done, and Horimiya is over. So what could this new cour possibly bring to the table at this point? Well, it brings exactly what it says in the title.

Horimiya : The Missing Pieces is not a sequel, and it's not a remake either. It is basically a...sidequel. It goes down exactly the same road as the original - but it leaves the space shuttle truck-kun in its parking lot, and walks with us at a pleasant, leisurely pace through the daily lives of the Horimiya cast.

Now, what's the point of that, you may ask? We already know the outcome of everything. We saw the graduation. So why?

Well, this part is just my opinion of course - but this approach is exactly what allowed the greatest thing about the Horimiya manga - the amazing chemistry between each and every character and the way they all flawlessly bounce off each other - to truly shine, creating something even better in the process.

The side characters, which basically existed somewhere in a limbo between relevance and insignificance in the main show, came to life this season in the best way possible through various skits featuring them in situations mainly unrelated to the progress of their romantic relationships.
One skit focuses on a girl realizing in horror that she'll most likely have to babysit her friends for the rest of her life if she wants them to survive making breakfast, in the next two the show suddenly becomes a Cute Boys Doing Cute Things show with gay undertones, and from there we go on to showcase the dire need of the entire Hori family for professional psychological help. Each of the skits is hilarious, most of them are unhinged, a lot of them are sweet, and they have some of the absolute best character interactions I have seen in my many years of watching anime.
And of course, HoriMiya themselves don't take a backseat - both of them, often together, participate in this madness. There's plenty of sweet moments between them as a couple, and their relationships with the rest of the cast are explored in depth as well.

As for my review of the "sidequel" approach itself - while it might not have the structural fluidity of a normal 24-episode adaptation, the reality is that such an adaptation is not always possible on the production side. And as far as alternatives go, this approach, to me, is an absolutely brilliant idea which I hope gains traction for previously finished Slice of Life shows. After all, who would say no to an extra season of the daily shenanigans of the characters they love?

To sum it up, if you liked Horimiya's characters even a little bit, this is an absolute must-watch. 10/10 to the idea, and an even stronger 10/10 to its execution. Thank you to everyone involved in this for making these 3 months a genuinely more enjoyable time for me.

This new season of Horimiya is quite interesting. While the first season technically covered up to the ending of the manga, it left out a lot of content which left a lot of manga readers unhappy (for context, there are 16 volumes of the manga in total). Therefore, the purpose of this season is to adapt some of the chapters that were skipped over in order to flesh out the characters more. That being said, I have very mixed feelings on this season overall due to this approach.

Originally, I really thought this season would be a hit as it was giving more time with the ... characters that we all loved. However, because most of the chapters adapted here were slice of life, nothing of importance really happens. Outside of a few moments in the season which I found to be particularly compelling (namely episode 11), most of the rest was just fluff. While the fluff was well received at first, it became very repetitive as the season progressed and by the end of the season, I was somewhat happy it was over.

One episode in particular left me with a bad taste in my mouth which honestly should not have been included in the season to begin with. It followed a character nobody cares about and took up precious time that could have been used to adapt other chapters that are still not adapted even after this season.
 
I don't want to be too harsh on this anime though. Just like the main show, the animation and music were solid with an amazing OP that I really enjoyed watching. The characters are loveable as always and their dynamics with each other are shown more. I especially like what the season did with Iura and Sawada with the latter becoming one of my favorite characters in the series.

Overall, this whole season was somewhat of a mixed bag. While I enjoyed my time while watching it, it became clear that this was not compelling enough for me to look forward to each episode. Horimiya is still an amazing series to me but I wish that Cloverworks was allowed to make a 2-cour season in order to adapt all of this in order. That would have made the whole experience much more enjoyable and a lot of my complaints would have been null and void. It doesn't deserve to be rated too low but I don't feel comfortable rating this anything over a 7.

Wow, a few years too late but we got the continuation of Horimiya. Well, calling it a continuation may be a bit of a stretch. We have more of the character and the same title name, but I have no clue why this is called Horimya. Well, let me make a bit of a list to make it easier for everyone.
-Romance. It is dead. I think nobody forgot that the culmination of romance was in the main story and the episodes after that were just some kind of fillers that missed their train and came after the show had ended. And now we have an ... ENTIRE SEASON of leftovers. “Well, maybe they decided to wrap up other arcs for side characters?” - a good question, sadly the answer is a big fat no. The entire season has barely enough romance for one episode but spreads it on the entire season. Thats why I hesitate to call it Horimiya, as there is no real romance between the main couple. Barely anything happens, barely anything moves, when you get scraps of said romance - you just feel cheated and wasting time instead of watching something else.
-Humour. It is horrible. At best it could barely make me smile, but most of the time jokes are either completely flat and unfunny or simply inappropriately bad, the kind that makes you think “oh God why, who wrote this and who laughs at it?”
-Slice of life. Somehow 13 episodes of barely nothing are less eventful than even my own life: all of the events were straight from a “generic stuff list”, none of them had weight, they were just decorations for another stale joke. I have no clue how someone can make a generic school slice of life THIS boring, but the creators of this anime showed their expertise.
-Character progression. Kidding, there is none so let's move on.
-Well, this one is obvious from the previous points - but the PACING is horrible. Too little content, almost no important events, next to none development - and to add insult to injury - most of the scenes feel disconnected from each other, others feel stitched together. The story is simply uneven and patched. Even the pacing of some dialogues is off, with strange pauses, it almost felt like the voice actors see the script for the first time.

The biggest problem of this anime is the fact that it isn’t even a story, but “pieces” that were cut from the main story to cram it into one season. As a result, “pieces” is nothing more than filler episodes for the anime that ended ages ago and that only hardcore fans care about. If it was made as OVAs for the main story, if it was merged with the main story - we would have 2 perfectly fine seasons of Horimiya. Instead we had one rushed season and this discarded pile of trash that has no value and gives no enjoyment to viewers.