Given Movie 2: Hiiragi Mix

This movie is so disappointing.

Everything that made "given" a good anime in the first season and the first movie? This movie does the opposite of that.
Given, in my opinion, had the perfect balance between wholesome and dramatic when it came to same-sex relationships. The two main couples weren't too wholesome to the point where it was boring, but they also weren't too toxic to the point where it was disturbing. Even when *that* scene happened in the first movie with the second couple, the aftermath was handled super well. But this movie does the complete opposite of that. Forget about the slowburn innocent love of ... Mafuyu and Ritsuka. Forget about the carefully developed mature love of Akihiko and Haruki. Hiiragi and Shizusumi's relationship is, at most, a cringy Wattpad fic that is written by a 13 year old straight girl. Why dedicate a whole movie to the side side couple that is not only irrelevant to the main plot but also falls short in everything compared to other couples? I wasn't against the idea of them being together, but this was such a lackluster from start to finish. It comes almost out of nowhere, it relies solely on miscommunication and other toxic tropes, and in the end, those issues aren't even really solved. Their arc feels like an afterthought to the author, who had no idea how to conclude it, so she just made them... have sex. And all of their problems were magically solved. Character development? Consent? Nowhere to be found. Honestly, even their problems felt forced, trying to tie it all to Yuki. It also doesn't help that Shizusumi as a character is so insufferable and static that I don't see any redeeming qualities for him, unlike other flawed given characters such as Akihiko, who apologized for his actions and showed a ton of character development.

The only reason I gave this movie a 6 is because I still love the other plotlines and the main 4 characters. That's it. I can't believe this is the same author who wrote the previous arcs.