One Room 2nd Season

One Room 2nd Season

One Room 2nd Season anime cover art featuring Yui, Minori, and Mashiro
One Room 2nd Season Cover Art

Overview

One Room 2nd Season is the second season of the anime One Room (spoiler). If you haven’t heard of this anime before today, I don’t blame you (except you should have heard of it because I previously reviewed the first season back in January).

Rather than being a full-length anime, One Room 2nd season, like the first, is made up of episodes which are only four minutes long. In my review of the first season, I mentioned that the short length of the episodes was actually to the anime’s benefit, but that’s no longer the case.

This time around, I found myself wanting more content by the end of each episode, which is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it means I enjoyed what I watched, which is honestly the most important thing for any form of entertainment. On the other hand, it means I didn’t leave each episode satisfied.

However, leaving the viewers wanting more is a great way to create anticipation for any future installments to a series, so maybe we’ll get a third season some day.

Now, for those who aren’t aware, One Room is considered a “VR” anime because the viewer experiences the content from a first-person point of view (usually). Not every shot is from the first-person point of view, and this second season seemed to have even less of it.

Since we are the protagonist in this series, the protagonist has no dialogue. Instead, all of the dialogue of each episode falls on the single other character, whatever girl we happen to be with.

Just like in the first season, this second season follows three different girls, each of whom stars in four episodes (Yui has a special episode 0 as well). While this formula doesn’t change from the first season, the “plot” does, which makes the different arcs feel less cohesive.

No, there’s not really an overarching plot in One Room, but the first season all took place in the same apartment and it was implied that we were seeing everything from the same protagonist’s point of view. However, the second season doesn’t appear to follow a single protagonist.

In the second season, each girls’ arc ends with us proposing to her in some way, implying that we’re going to marry her. This, coupled with the change in scenery for each arc, leads me to believe that this season we’re actually seeing the stories of three different protagonists.

Either that’s the case, or my conspiracy theory about us ditching each girl for the next one after we agree to marry them isn’t so crazy after all.

Characters

Yui Hanasaka is the only girl from the first season who was carried over to the second. At the end of the first season, she was the girl who was chosen to be our girlfriend. I’m pretty sure she originally lived in the apartment next to us, but it’s been a while.

Her arc focuses on life together after the we start dating. Over the course of the arc, we apparently spend less and less time with Yui, and more and more time at work, which she takes to mean that we don’t like her anymore.

However, it’s revealed, predictably, that the reason we were working so much was so that we could afford an engagement ring for her. While this seemingly wraps up Yui’s arc, since she appears to be the main girl of the series, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her again if there’s a third season.

Minori Nanahashi is the second girl of the season, and was originally my pick for best girl, until the final girl was introduced. Minori is voiced by Rie Takahashi who you may be familiar with from a variety of roles such as Megumin from KonoSuba or Emilia from Re:ZERO.

Her arc takes place in the bathhouse and apartment above it which are both owned by her family. Minori hopes to one day run the bathhouse just like her grandfather, but he tells her that as a woman she can’t run it by herself.

While this definitely seems sexist, he also mentions that public bathhouses are going out of style and so it will likely shut down before she’s old enough to take over anyway. However, Minori has a foolproof plan; if she marries us, then we can help her run the bathhouse.

Mashiro Amatsuki is the final and undisputed best girl of the season. She’s voiced by Inori Minase who has previously voiced other fan-favorites such as Hestia from DanMachi and Rem from Re:ZERO.

Despite being the oldest of the three girls this season, her appearance would have you believe that she’s the youngest. Mashiro is a retired gymnast who’s having trouble finding a new job because although she’s confident, she’s not exactly good at anything other than gymnastics.

In the end, Mashiro gets some job she applied for after we help her practice interviewing. While we never actually see ourselves proposing to her like the other two girls, it’s implied that this still happened. I wouldn’t be mad about Mashiro making a return in the future.

Mashiro Amatsuki holding an eggplant pillow from the anime One Room 2nd Season
Mashiro Amatsuki

Conclusion

Since I enjoyed watching One Room 2nd Season, that automatically puts it above a 5. However, the fact that the episodes are only four minutes long was actually a detriment this season when compared to last, and so I don’t feel that I can give it a 7 or higher.

So, in the end, One Room 2nd Season is a 6/10 just like the first season, but for slightly different reasons. If you watched the first season, I highly recommend checking this one out regardless of how you felt about it because although I gave them the same rating, this season was a definite improvement.

If you haven’t seen this series before, I still recommend it if you’re looking for something with cute girls that doesn’t involve a large time commitment. I also just found out that there’s a spin-off with cute boys instead of cute girls, called Room Mate, so if that’s more your thing, maybe check that one out instead.

The preview (PV) for One Room 2nd Season is available here.

Let me know in the comments which girl was your favorite, and while you’re down there, be sure to click the like button if you enjoyed this post. If you don’t want to miss out on new uploads, I suggest following me on Twitter because I tweet out a link every time a new post goes live.

My review of the One Room 2nd Season Special is available here. And my review of the 3rd Season is available here.

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