Attack Attack!

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro 2nd Attack is the 2nd season of the Nagatoro anime series. And, I have to say I’m not a huge fan of this season’s title. It feels like there’s something missing. It needs an exclamation point.

Don’t you think “Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro 2nd Attack!” looks better? Or, maybe “Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro! 2nd Attack” is best because the exclamation point separates the title and subtitle. In either case, the title just doesn’t feel complete without the exclamation mark.

But, what if we take the Japanese title into consideration? Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san 2nd Attack (イジらないで、長瀞さん 2nd Attack) also feels like it’s missing something. But, here, I’d put the exclamation point at the very end. The difference in language already separates the title and subtitle here.

Now that I’ve stalled for a bit, I guess I should actually write about the anime. The thing is, there’s not all that much to say about this season of Nagatoro. If you’ve seen the first season, you already know what the series is about. And this season isn’t very different from that one.

Of course, there are some differences. For example, Nagatoro’s toying is much more like flirting and less like bullying. But, that’s not really even unique to this season. We saw that shift happen throughout Season 1. Nagatoro’s toying was only true bullying in the first episode of that season.

By the time we were halfway through the season, I wouldn’t say she was a bully. And that’s still where things stand in Season 2. Partway through the episode, Naoto also starts wearing contacts. So, that’s a difference. Other than that, the only things new here are the new characters.

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New Characters

There are 3 new characters in this season. The first is Misaki Nagatoro, Hayase Nagatoro’s older sister. Just by looking at Misaki, you can tell she’s related to Hayase. She does have a lighter complexion than her younger sister. But, we know Hayase’s tan is from her being on the swim team.

Misaki’s personality is also similar to Nagatoro’s. She teases Naoto when she first meets him. But, the person she likes teasing the most is her sister. She enjoys embarrassing Hayase, such as by showing baby photos of Hayase to Naoto. She’s also the one who tells Naoto Hayase’s first name.

The second new character is Hana Sunomiya. She’s the younger cousin of Sana Sunomiya, the previous president of the art club. Hana went to the same middle school as Naoto. And so, when she starts high school, she joins the art club as his kouhai.

Hana is a pretty different character from Sana. We know Sana likes to strip and paint nude portraits of herself. Hana isn’t like that — though she did attempt to strip once. Instead, Hana is very interested in Naoto and Hayase’s relationship. She wants them to become a couple.

The final new character is Orihara. We don’t know what her first name is, but it also doesn’t really matter. Orihara isn’t an important character, by any means. However, if we end up getting a third season — which seems likely — she’ll probably show up more.

Orihara is Hayase’s old judo rival. When they were kids, Hayase was the superior judo-ist (I don’t know what you call people who do judo). But, as they got older, Orihara surpassed Hayase, which led Hayase to quit the sport. I guess Hayase’s competitive nature evaporates once someone’s better than she is.

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We’ve Seen It All Before

I know this is probably going to come as a big shock, but Don’t Toy with me, Miss Nagatoro 2nd Attack isn’t very good. It’s not a bad anime. But, it’s also not a good anime and I rated it lower than the first season.

It looks like most viewers rated it higher than the first season. However, they only rated it slightly higher — 7.53 compared to 7.32. Still, compared to my ratings, those scores are way too high. Nagatoro is a fine anime. That’s all it’s ever going to be.

So, what’s the biggest issue with this season? It doesn’t do anything new. What it needed was for the new characters to actually shake things up. They didn’t do that. Hana is a good addition to the series. But, I still felt that it was stale any time she wasn’t around.

Another issue this season has is that it continues to use stale gags. The example of this I noticed the most is when the characters say something like “that aside.” They do this when they’re changing the conversation. And, every time, they do a specific motion with their hands, as well.

In the first episode that they did this in, it didn’t bother me. Though, even in that one episode, they did it a lot. But, it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t a one-episode gag. Oh no. They continued to use this same gag over and over again throughout the season.

I also want to be very clear that I’m using a very loose definition of the word “gag.” At no point, even the first time it was done, was this funny. Very few things in this series are funny anyway. But, it’s obvious that the author must have loved this.

Conclusion

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro 2nd Attack is a 5/10. I don’t care if this is your favorite anime. You’ll have to come to terms with the fact that you like mediocre series. And that’s fine. I like bad anime.

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Series Overview

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro (Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san / イジらないで、長瀞さん) is your standard slice-of-life rom-com anime. Well, maybe “standard” isn’t exactly the right designation. It’s actually part of the relatively new sub-genre featuring a girl who teases the male protagonist.

I’ll get more into the controversy surrounding that sub-genre and Nagatoro specifically later on in this review. But, similar anime are Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san, which I think is the best one, and Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!

So, the premise of this series is quite simple. A first-year student named Nagatoro likes to bully and tease her upperclassmen crush because he’s a loser. But she actually does it because she secretly likes him.

There’s no complex plot here. The appeal of the show is just in seeing how Nagatoro and Naoto (apparently that’s his name) interact with each other. It’s definitely not a series for everyone. Some people will think it’s boring, others don’t like the bullying aspect, etc. Just keep in mind that it’s not that serious.

Now, one thing I’m going to suggest regarding this series is that if you decide to give the anime a shot, watch at least two episodes. The reason I say that is because how Nagatoro acts in Episode 1 is very different from how she acts in the other 11 episodes.

This isn’t to say that you’re guaranteed to enjoy the show more by Episode 2. But I did see a lot of criticism from people who only watched the first episode or parts of the first episode. And generally, their criticisms only applied to that episode.

Also, even I’ll admit that the first episode was probably the worst of the series. It serves as an introduction to the characters, but I think it could have been altered due to how different it is from everything after it.

Characters

Let’s start this section off with Naoto Hachiouji, the protagonist. Until I looked him up for this review, I honestly didn’t know he had a name. I just assumed he was “Senpai.” Anyway, he’s a second-year loser with no friends who’s also effectively the sole member of the school’s art club.

Hayase Nagatoro is the titular female lead of the series. In the first episode, she’s pretty brutal with her bullying. But after that, she’s a lot tamer. Nagatoro is also the opposite of Naoto in almost every way, such as that she’s both athletic and popular.

Maki Gamou is one of Nagatoro’s friends. She’s the delinquent character of the series, and as such, enjoys bullying not only her senpai but also Nagatoro. Maki knows Nagatoro is protective of Naoto, and so she takes advantage of that.

Yoshi is my least favorite of Nagatoro’s friends. I don’t particularly like Maki, but I find Yoshi to be annoying. She’s the follower of the group. 90% of the time, she’s just following and parroting Maki. She’s also very cat-like for no real reason.

Sakura is my favorite character. She’s not as prominent as Maki and Yoshi are, but she’s still within Nagatoro’s friend group. Generally speaking, Sakura is probably the nicest of the girls. But she uses her kindness to bend other people, specifically male students, to her will.

And the final character of the series (yes, there are only six) is Sana Sunomiya. Sana is a third-year student and president of the art club Naoto is a member of. She’s not around much because she’s busy studying for college entrance exams. Sana also specializes in painting erotic, nude self-portraits.

Anime Controversy

In case you hadn’t heard, there was a lot of controversy surrounding Nagatoro ever since the anime was first announced. But, none of that controversy seems to have existed when it was just a manga. Why? Because it’s all just people being outraged for no reason.

I guess I’ll start with Nagatoro’s personality and actions in the first episode since I’ve already touched on it. People thought her bullying went too far. It’s an anime. Calm down. And if it really bothers you that much, nothing else in the series ever comes close to that again.

However, the controversies didn’t start with the first episode of the anime. When it was first announced, there was a vocal group of people who were claiming that Nagatoro was whitewashed because her skin isn’t very dark.

I hate to break this to everyone who thinks that, but Nagatoro isn’t black. If you actually look at the manga, this is obvious. She’s tanner than the protagonist and other characters. But her skin tone is no lighter in the anime than it is in the manga.

Additionally, her skin isn’t even naturally tan. There are many times throughout the manga and anime when we see her tan lines from being on the swim team. Her skin that’s normally covered by her bathing suit is actually just about as light as any other character’s.

So, no, the anime hasn’t whitewashed Nagatoro. She’s just a Japanese girl who happens to have a tan because she’s constantly outside in a bathing suit as a member of the swim team. This outrage is just as unfounded as when people said Uzaki-chan was a loli.

I’m not entirely sure why this subgenre of rom-com gets so much unfounded hate. Nagatoro’s character in the first episode is understandable if you don’t realize that’s not the whole series. But most of the hate originates from demonstrably false claims.

Conclusion

It may have seemed like I was defending Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro a lot in this review, but at the end of the day, I think it’s a 6/10. I don’t think it deserves all the hate it gets, but it’s not a great anime by any means. It was enjoyable, but that’s about it.

I’d actually highly recommend Takagi-san over Nagatoro. It’s better in every way. It’s more wholesome, has better supporting characters, is funnier, and has better OPs.

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My review of the second season is available now.