Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge

This is the continuation of everyday lives of the people under the Arakawa bridge. There's no plot direction, it only presents the comedic interactions between the characters and their everyday lives. That being said, this is not a bad anime considering it has no plot, because the everyday lives of the characters is the strongpoint as to why this anime is worth watching. In addition, there's also no significant character development from season 1. One thing to note, there are new characters that were introduced which adds a new flavor of interaction with already a good cast of characters. All in all, this is a ... Casual anime just like it's predecessor, no heavy plot just pure comedy.

I know nothing about the Anime Industry. I'm just a casual watcher. So, when a second season doesn't advance too much from the first one I do not know who to blame, the manga creator or the anime scripters.

I know the premise of the series was to be a comedy, over romance or character development.
Despite this, the first season offered us some development in the story, pointing out there was actually something else aside from the absurd idea of people living happily under a bridge.

Dad may be accepting his son is achieving something he never could. The relation between the main characters going deeply with ... both accepting they want to be with each other forever. Some very powerful mysterious guy who is interested in keeping things as they have always been under the bridge.

The second season barely explores those main arcs in order to give the comedy more importance. The thing is the comedy gets old fast and some arcs are just not that funny, you can giggle once or twice, maybe, if you are used to absurd comedy. To be honest, I think the only funny arcs were when the Amazonian woman was introduced, the Sister training system arc and the independent movie arc with P-Ko.

Nino stays the same, sadly no character development, she stays as the first season ended (If you think this is a spoiler, I'm just assuming you already watched the first season) realizing she likes Recruit for real.

When you think things are going ahead with an important announcement that could affect Nino and the rest of the cast, early in the second season, nothing happens. I don't know if they run out of manga material, but part of the rest of the season is about how they prepare for this event. And you expect the event to come out because it would make clear some of the mysteries around Nino, it never, never happens.

The second season ends, worst than the first, because it ends in the same way, meaning zero further development in the relation between the protagonists and the main arcs not being explored at all.

11 years after the second season, and 6 years after the last publication of the manga, it is pretty obvious the anime makers didn't make the best choice by not giving the series some real character and story development. Again, who to blame, the mangaka or the anime producers and scripters?

What a disappointment...

The season started off with such promise but completely faceplanted. Maybe I expected too much from the start... A deepening of Nino and Riku's relationship, clarity on Nino's current situation and her past, Riku resolving issues with his father, Riku's growth as a person through seeing different ways of living and interacting with life under the bridge, but instead we get... nothing. Just unfunny gags that run ad-infinitum. I guess it wouldn't be a problem if they show didn't tease some sort of serious plot and actual character growth then just compelely ignore it. In season one it felt like a quick pace, ... even if some gags were bad, they didn't overstay their welcome, but this season they can encompass entire episodes. We never make it to Venus, and not a Nino hair windmill to be seen (at least in the latter half of the season). Too many bad characters got too much screen time.