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Sunday, October 15, 2017

Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W (2013)


Haiyore!  Nyaruko-san W is the second season based on the light novel of the same name, once again spanning 12 episodes (with two OVAs after it).  The series focuses on Mahiro, a school boy who met Nyaruko, short for Nyarlathotep.  Nyaruko takes on the form of a silver haired girl.  She explains that all the creatures from H.P. Lovecraft's works are in actuality, races of aliens, who find Earth attractive for all its media entertainment (i.e. manga, anime, films) and resources (e.g. slavery).  Coupled with Kuko and Hasuda, they continue their adventures which are basically Mahiro's everyday life but with aliens and space wackiness thrown in.


No new recurring characters are introduced, rather, there are a lot of random characters that only appear for an episode or two before they are regulated to the background or never seen again.  The biggest new character is Kuko's cousin, Kune, who apparently had Kuko promise her that they'll marry when they were younger.  As if Kuko's love for Nyaruko wasn't enough, it becomes worse with Kune's appearance.  All in all, the anime mostly sticks to Mahiro, Nyaruko and Kuko as the main characters.  The inspiration from Lovecraft's works only really goes as far as the naming of the characters and their basic backgrounds.


Apart from the character's names based on Lovecraft's works, it's your typical anime personalities and style, and doesn't really dive deep into the lore or does anything with the rich source material.  Once again, the plot is all over the place but its main focus is on the romantic relationship between Mahiro and Nyaruko.  Or rather, Nyaruko's continued quest to get Mahiro to admit his feelings for her and accept her.  The humor is definitely the anime's strongest point, with heaps of references against other anime, games and books.  Nyaruko-san W is basically a heap of stupid fun.


With that being said, the amount of sexual innuendos goes through the roof, as Nyaruko constantly advances onto Mahiro with her declarations of love, framing him, or spouting blatant lies about their activities.  Nyaruko constantly corners him but Mahiro isn't without his defense, being that he's great at using forks as weapons...  On the other side, Kuko continues with her conquest with Nyaruko and Hasuda is just kind of passive.  There are many scenes where the anime goes past suggestive words and gestures and quite nearly goes all the way.  The whole season basically provides fan service every chance that it gets, and uses every excuse in the book.  Poolside?  Accidentally falling over?  Yup and yup.  As a result, it can sometimes feel pretty random.


You'll come to realize that weird things keep happening to the characters, yet everyone just goes along with it.  There are various times where the fourth wall is broken.  Characters, particular Nyaruko, have exaggerated reactions and dialogue, with over the top action scenes.  The characters remain overpowered, easily obliterating every enemy in their way.  Although it seems regulated to the background most of the time, Nyaruko, Kuko and Hasuda are actually part of a space police force situated on Earth to protect it from illegal aliens residing or causing havoc.  As the season continues, Nyaruko gets more serious but is also getting jealous a lot more.  On the other hand, Mahiro is obviously coming to terms with his affections for Nyaruko, with his feelings growing stronger and stronger.


However, the characters' personalities are so intense, being dialed up significantly compared to the first season, that it can be overbearing.  The plots of some of the episodes are also quite cliched, such as chocolates that make each other fall in love, Nyaruko getting sick and an alien taking over the school via mind control.  These episodes become predictable to a certain degree.  Overall, Haiyore!  Nyaruko-san W is not only more of what you liked about the first season, but actually goes beyond that and increases it in spades.  It can become overbearing and too much at times, but manages to stay funny and true to the characters, plus, the multiple ending themes help keep it fresh.

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