Aishen Qiaokeli-ing...II

(For the sake of compactness, I will be talking about both season 1 and 2 in this review.)
As someone who has watched almost every ecchi harem anime, I was interested to see the chinese attempt this format back in 2015. I watched the first episode but I started it again 5 years later. So here is my breakdown of both seasons.

S1 Story: 8/10
For an Ecchi Harem anime, the plot is executed quite well and I thought the concept was unique. It caught me off guard that it also included a lot of drama. There was a lot of dilemmas and the story rarely felt like ... it slowed down. However, there were a few problems, for example in the first episode he claims he had never talked to Zitong yet in a flashback he is handing the cake to the main girls, all in the same room, which is impossible because later on in the anime the girls interact between each other as if they had met each other for the first time. Another contradiction is that the MC says he's something along the lines of a boring average student who will become a bin man or something. Yet we learn that he is well trained in kung-fu, the smartest student in the school and has a very strong moral compass. My favourite arc in the whole anime was the Lin Yuan arc. Fuck me that ending made me tear up.

S2 Story: 4/10
Similar problems to S1 except the MC feels like a complete Gary Stu now and there are more inconsistencies in the story. What else didn't help is that Lin Yuan, Tang Xuan and Mei Tata got way less screen time in exchange for Zitong (who did basically nothing during that screentime), Xueli (who I don't mind because she's best girl and actually has decent character development) and the new character Sandy. I did not give a shit about Sandy or her arc and she just felt like she was shoehorned at the last minute. Her personality is non-existant and her arc is just BORING. It had some good moments but it just felt like S2 was trying to be too many genres at one time. Also it got old how the MC would find the girls father (or father figure) and teach them a lesson with some good old words (that don't vary with any of the dads).

Sound: 6/10 (combining both seasons here)
When talking about sound as in voice acting and sound quality, this is what almost turned me off this show. Despite looking like the show had quite a big budget the mic quality was probably the same as OVAs from tiny studios. As for the actual voice acting, it was serviceable, but most of the time the tone was melodramatic when it shouldn't have been.

Now onto the music perspective. The opening and ending music and animation is one of the lowest budget OP and EDs I have ever seen, most of it is static images and the first season didn't even have lyrics in the opening. As for the actual soundtrack in the show, I'm pretty sure it was all royalty free but where the music was placed fitted well in my opinion.

S1 Characters: 7/10
As I mentioned before, I loved Lin Yuan's arc and the characters involved in it. It really portrayed the MC in a wholesome light that didn't seem superficial. Zitong at the beginning was pretty nice but she eventually got more bland. Tang Xuan was your typical big-breasted tsundere who I grew to enjoy in her arc but sometimes afterwards It seemed as if that had never occurred and she went back to her tsundere self. Xueli barely had any screen time and Mei was alright

S2 Characters: 3/10
My god what a colossal fuck-up. To avoid repeating myself, i'll put it simple. Every character had either shit character development or no development at all. Especially Sandy, and the MC's cousin that appeared for like the last 2 episode and did nothing of note. I'm guessing this means that they're planning on a season 3 sometime soon as I don't see why they would just introduce a love interest for 2 episodes

S1 Art: 8/10
I was actually really impressed at the artstyle and animation of the first few episodes, The animation was smooth and vibrant with colour. Not really much else to say

S2 Art: 5/10
The art and animation got noticeably more simple and jankier as the series went on. They used less flowing animation and they reused old backgrounds a lot more. The art was still fine, but it was no way near the standard the first season set.

Enjoyment (Overall): 8/10
It was easy to watch and was quite funny but also did have its sad moments. It's easy to binge both seasons.

S1 Overall: 8/10
S2 Overall: 5/10

Conclusion: If you have watched the first season but haven't watched the second, you won't lose any sleep not watching the second season. Unless they announce season 3. Personally I would just not watch S2 or skim watch it

After enjoyable first season that ended with sequel teaser, I had pretty high hopes for this one. And while it kept the “freshness” resulting (probably) from being chinese anime, I’m generally disappointed.
I felt like this season was considerably weaker than previous one. Without going into overly detailed comparison, I’ll just focus on the most noticeable points, both good and bad:
Bad drama. Too much and too over the top. Villains were just cheap and cheesy. I actually liked how girls problems were shown and solved in first season, but here it wasn’t fun to watch.
Useless and forgotten elements in story. Without spoiling too much, I mean ... things like Hayoi’s arm being broken at the very beginning just to be perfectly healthy a scene later, or two new characters introduced and doing some stuff that never led to any consequences. While the latter might be a setup for sequel, it doesn’t excuse the way it was executed.
Good harem members interactions. What I mean here is that, the dynamics between girls change and they notice others and their feelings. Too many harems (especially visible in VN adaptations that mix routes) fail at this and reduce girls’ interactions only to comedic bickering.
Characters’ main selling points were ignored for the most part, wasting a lot of their screen time. Old cast (Zitong being main offender) got too much focus, despite not getting any real development.
Overall anime kept some of the things I liked, but general quality of story feels much lower.

When it comes to art/music, it also doesn’t look that great. Or rather it “looks” pretty bad.
Animation had a lot of bad moments. Characters walking as a static element just jumping up and down and moving through screen. Hentai-level movement details. Reused scenes. Yeah, it looked cheap.
Overuse of special effects to hide flaws in art. Sparkles, leaves flying through whole screen and such. They sure are pretty, but sometimes it just got too sparkly.
And what’s up with their clothes? I understand character design, but seeing them having same outfit in every situation, especially considering how unusual they are, looks really out of place.
Music used during some scenes worked really well. I love when anime changes BGM to fit tone of a scene.
What music is missing, is variety. We got a singer heroine, but all her singing is just “la la la” and when she finally gets to sing it’s… opening song. Pretty disappointing. And why all of them have the same ringtone?

It might look like I’m just complaining and throw in some positives here and there. Don’t misunderstand. It’s still a fun anime and absolutely worth watching if you liked first season. The above are just my observations as a fan of harem anime who also happened to have soft spot for this specific title.

Past girls who were fleshed out in the first season are all but abandoned and become husks that appear as Jealous mannequins.
While MC retains the information about the relationship prior to the magic disbanding from the Cupid Chocolate in season 2 he acts like he only remembers one girls relationship and more specifically he doesnt remember the erasure of his kids after a beautiful send off to end season 1. All past girls with the exception of the Yandere have limited screen time and when they do appear they aren't consistent.

Pink haired girl gets the majority of this screentime but does nothing and once ... again acts like a husk who only has dialogue that equates to 'I love MC but how does he feel' and while MC states that he doesn't love this Pink haired girl to other characters, later episodes and treatment of her don't reflect this, especially when it comes at the cost of the other characters & their screen time.

The new character sandy starts off the season and ends up being boring as she doesnt interact with any character other than the MC. At the end the day, her arc was pointless as she offered nothing in terms of interactions with the harem characters and simply leaves for the remaining 10 or so episodes.

The Yandere childhood friend gets the focus for a majority of the season even though she didnt eat any of the Cupid chocolate which is weird because that's MC's focus but her Arc was rather nice and she surprisingly gets development and put in her place by another character. Her Yandere nature dies down after being put in her place by best girl but that being said after a dramatic episode and pretty dark one at that, she reverts back to normal once again making prior episodes pointless.

The last girl introduced once again did not eat the Chocalte. She was introduced in the final two episodes and is basically Sandy with one fun interaction with the Harem and then leaves the show.

Thankfully this had short episodes compared to other Harem anime and its superior japanese varient the world god only knows because it lacked comedy, consistency and joy. The best part of this series was Lin Yuan and the handling of their relationship & children. It would have been made better if the arc about MC's past, family & connection to the police was explored in the first season prior to Lin Yan's introduction as, MC's attitude during her Arcs later stages would make more sense and add to the drama/payoff.

Regardless, I don't think season 2 of this Chinese harem is worth watching even if you're looking for something to kill time. Season 1 definitely but not the second season.