Review of Is the Order a Rabbit??

I did not embrace this season too heavily at all, since I only moderately enjoyed the first. But, MAN, did this succeed my expectations by far. It almost convinced me to write a full-fledged review on it, but it still did not heavily expand upon its first concept in a significant enough way to justify for this. However, it succeeded in a lot more ways. Story: 7/10 Now, THIS caught me off guard. Normally, as I said in my review of the prior season, anime comedies usually never have good story to them unless they are either mainstream ones or are a comedy and a drama. However,this season unexpectedly brought forth some notable elements and some really good back-stories that were highly enjoyable. Most of it is rather short, but the small doses you take in have a very potent affect.

One thing I forgot to mention in the previous review was that the last season did have a back-story on Chino's grandpa, but it was nothing major. Well, besides making you realize that Cocoa should know the answer to whether or not the barista is a rabbit, given she laid the curse on him.

Art: 8/10

Well it is still mostly the buildings, they did the quality improve on them quite dramatically. Only for those that are really keen enough to notice this kind of difference, it is still quite staggering to me. I thought the buildings and a few other things looked a lot nicer, but that is a fair trait to have when an anime gets renewed, as I know a lot of comedies usually do not. So, I imagine they gave it their all here.

Sound: 6/10

It offered up a few new pieces that were enjoyable, but nothing too significant.

Character 9/10

I said it once in my last review, but I will say it again: the characters are what made the last anime so enjoyable and this one unexpectedly revamped a lot of their personalities to a more enjoyable degree.

Cocoa, right away, has a lot of her more notably bad traits absent here, but they still come and go. However, they made her comedy switch around to where she equally annoys and satisfies her friends now, rather than one side being heavier than the other. Lastly, towards the end, she matures a bit, actually. However, if there is one thing I was rather annoyed about, it is that they could not once give her a serious scene that did not end on an awkward, comedic note that "feels Cocoa" to the other characters. It is basically a slap in the face that she is not to be taken seriously a lot, but I guess that is fair because of the way she is. As the result of her light improvements, she is a more enjoyable character.

Oh, I actually did forget to mention that in the last review, but one thing I disliked about Cocoa a lot, enough where I only mentioned her cause she was the main character, was that whole personality switch she had during her serious scenes where nothing could ever truly be "serious" with her. That happened more often in the prior season where, just as soon as she was serious, it went to comedy. With this season, they did it some more, but at least had a better balance with it that I enjoyed more.

Chino, well, she did not change a lot. I suppose they just made her a bit more outgoing in a few areas, something that a lot of anime comedies always do where a shy character tries to "step out of their boundaries" though the moments that she had were cute.

Rize is also heavily improved, no longer being a sociopath...to a heavy degree, anyway. They successfully capitalized on the character development she had in the prior season and now she actually invites people to her house this time, though she has a rather extremely unfitting moment of character where she...well, I best not say it, but it will make you feel confused.

Chiya, oh boy, did they IMPROVE her. She was already my favorite character in the last season, though now she is only my second favorite. Okay, that sounds negative, but I will get back to that later. Anyway, her sadistic comedy takes a turn for the best and she is noticeably funnier here than she was before. Every scene with her will almost always leave you laughing now, though like Cocoa, she was subjected to a few more dramatic scenes as well and we also see one of her relatives this time around. Of which, we can judge how Chiya got her sense of comedy from.

Syaro was a character that I said in my prior review on how she was a basic character, but she got the biggest revamp out of all the other protagonists. I do not remember if they even mentioned this, or had an experience with it in the prior season, but Syaro can legitimately get drunk on caffeine. Like, she is drunk like you would be when you, well, drink, but she also has the energy and diligence of the caffeine effect. The end result is that she becomes a combined mix of Rize's outgoing nature and Chiya's comedy at times, which can leave hilarious results on the scene. One memorable scene with Syaro had nothing to do with her being the one to get fixated on an energy high after drinking it; rather, Cocoa snatching it from her and doubling up on Syaro's energy as she proceeds to drag her away so fast that she is in absolute shock over the sheer speed of Cocoa after her already energetic state was just increased further.

I do not want to go on too much here regarding the characters in fear I will take up my whole review on it, even though I pretty much did on the last one as well and even worse here. But, one character that heavily stood out to me in the side characters was Megu; bringing me back to why Chiya was demoted. Do not worry, it had nothing to do with Chiya worsening, but just that someone one upped her in my book due to the very breakout nature that Megu had.

Even though she was only a side character in the last season and had a few good moments, Megu is by far my favorite in general now because her style, voice and everything about her is highly enjoyable in this one. She sounds like she would have an annoying voice after hearing her talk more often, but it does not come off to me that way at all. Her personality is unforgettable and I enjoyed every scene she appeared in. In this season, she is heavily fleshed out in comparison to the last one and some of the comedy scenes revolving around her were far more enjoyable than the main ones revolving around Chiya; especially during the semi-last episode. Speaking of, at one point in the anime, she is paired up with Chiya for a comedy bit and it is a PERFECT duo of characters, so look forward to it.

Enjoyment: 9/10

I am not one to up my opinion on an anime based on one key factor and it takes quite a bit to shoot me up from thinking one is okay to great in just a season, and this one heavily delivered on the goods this time around. It is a notable improvement from the last season, something that even veterans would enjoy and I highly recommend it.

It still has a good amount of the bad elements from the first season, but it does slow incremental work on some of those bad parts by balancing it more properly this time. It delivers less cringe-worthy moments and will leave you satisfied after finishing it to the point where you will actually genuinely miss the characters this time around. If anything, I hope they have an OVA one day that explains the central plot of the anime more someday. Perhaps, they might, given they just recently aired another season.

(SPOILER START)

The semi-last episode is what really struck out to me the most, though, and perfectly structured out the comedy so well that I wish I could write my own review on that alone. The way the characters all developed by this point, up to where Chino seemed like the child in comparison to Cocoa here (no joke), was what really got my attention here. I actually found myself laughing at almost every scene, the serious moments were genuine and even Cocoa had one that perfectly made sense for her.

(SPOILER END)

So, again, just give this one a go. I almost want to say you should skip the first season altogether to get right to this, but it is more enjoyable to see how the characters developed from season one.