Review of Sugar Apple Fairy Tale Part 2

Great season 2. When picking up this anime, I never expected to cry as much as I did. In fact, with the adorable artwork, theme and name I didn't expect to cry at all. The world of the anime is a cruel one, but we follow the story and intertwining paths of wholesome individuals, which still makes it a pleasant and mostly lighthearted watch. With the graveness of the reality looming behind, the matters and dangers of the plot seem more serious (than just crushed dreams and sad feelings). I love the showcasing of the differing treatment of slaves-servants-masters-lovers. The author explores a myriad oflevels of grey on how the humans and faeries, including "their" faeries interact. From being tortured and used worse than slaves, to feeling genuine love, or respect and loyalty for the human or fairy for differing reasons, all of these were exciting to see. The real world isn't black and white either. Seeing a genuine fairy do things out of love for her master despite not agreeing with him is a realistic kind of dilemma many of us are often put in front of, and similarly seeing the relationship of the main characters where Challe rescinds his freedom TWICE for the sake of his love (honestly imo twice was maybe a bit too much, but still). The complexity of being forced to do things against your will and how to treat a loved one who may have done horrible things are also somewhat interesting.

Many of the characters were dynamic (younger ones to a bigger extent than the older ones, which is also very realistic and wholesome), the motif of having freedom to choose and change your future was ever-present and nicely executed, though I hoped Anne (who has grown an entire year since last season) would've changed a bit more since then too.

Them not really getting anywhere romantic-relationship-wise during the year that was skipped is kind of consistent with them not getting much farther this time around, however I'm tired of the "almost-kiss but got randomly interrupted" scene trope that was used here several times. It's cheap and somehow sours the advancements that do actually arrive.

I hoped that by the end of the season we'd see a scene where she asks for something back when making a contract, showing us she learned from the advice and experience.

I also feel like it's a little too male-dominated. I know the craft is usually only done by males, but there's a lack of female fairies, female sisters, female mothers, female friends and interesting female characters in general that could hold different roles in the story. Out of families, other than the queen, we only see or hear about fathers. When every new character introduced that had any depth was a male (even though they could've passed design-wise as a female), it was getting a bit tiring.

A twist that was strongly unexpected but actually quite pleasant was, how the Bridget girl didn't end up joining them in making sugar (right away), but started changing her personality and other smaller things and parts of her life first. Seemed realistic, wholesome and didn't feel like her ending was unsatisfactory.

Overall it was an amazing bingeworthy anime for any soul who loves beautiful things accompanied by a pleasant story. And there are so many characters that are truly beautiful inside or/and out.

One last wholesome thing is their love, which is a gentle, honest and sweet one, (albeit slow), rather than the pouty faces, pretending to dislike each other and obvious misunderstandings and miscomunications.