The Summer 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Hana-Kimi Season 2

Mizuki Ashiya is back for another year of posing as a boy at a male boarding school for one noble reason: to meet her idol, Sano. Only now, Sano's in on her secret–and keeping it to himself–which makes matters more complicated when Nakatsu develops a crush on Mizuki! Between school trips, dances, and even a model scouting, the trio navigates the blurring lines of friendship and love.

Hana-Kimi is based on the manga series by Hisaya Nakajo. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Wednesdays.

The Hana-Kimi manga is widely considered a bona fide shojo classic, and a foundational keystone of all things high school romance manga. Such is the breadth of its influence that it's really hard to overstate how beloved and influential this series was, especially at its height. While it hasn't completely evaded adaptation over the years, an anime is something that's proven more elusive until this very adaptation. Many—myself included—saw this announcement and wondered, “This feels like a no-brainer! Why wasn't this done earlier?” But now, the question I'm instead pondering upon my wizardly orb is, “Uh, actually, do we really need this? Do we still have the receipt—can we take it back?”

What I'm getting at is that this series has proven to be such a disappointment. It's equal parts this just being a really bland adaptation, equal parts the material itself not aging well. ANN's own Caitlin Moore talked about this more in her trudge through the first season, if you ever either want to hear about this in more detail, or you want to read someone slowly (and then not-so-slowly) losing their mind over how terribly a series is turning out. In any case, it's been A Moment since I've read the manga, so you'll have to forgive me if there's anything else I haven't caught, but this episode seemed to be more of a case of the former—just, an overall blandness that's pervasive in this series. The visuals, the music, the direction—as ever, none of it really pops. The whole thing just has a lifelessness to it, that unfortunately, is still here.

As for the contents of the episode, well, following the school festival (and a lot of talk of girls, and one love confession) Nakatsu has Mizuki on the brain a lot. He's trying to come to the realization that he has feelings for Mizuki, but he's got a bit of a case of internalized homophobia getting in his way. Up until now, Nakatsu has been framed as something of a rival to Sano for Mizuki's affection, but in practice, it's felt completely one-sided. This episode got me wondering, “Even at this point in the manga, did it really feel so one-sided in Sano's favor? Or did it feel more like Nakatsu at least had a chance?” I can't quite remember, but it doesn't change the bottom line: This supposed love triangle (which is actually a love wedge symbol, but still) doesn't feel like one at all. It's good that Nakatsu finally got some time in the spotlight—maybe if that continues it'll start to feel like a proper “will they won't they, ohhhhh who is Mizuki going to pick” situation, but as it stands, this episode was less, “Nakatsu is a worthy rival in love to Sano” and more, “Oh hey, I forgot Nakatsu was here. How nice of the series to remind us.”

Normally I'd say something to the effect of, “Someone needs to tell Nakatsu about bisexuality, stat” but honestly, given his personality and, frankly, lack of smarts, I'd believe that he genuinely doesn't realize that it's even possible to be attracted to multiple genders. But even if the journey is a bit odd, he still arrived at the destination by the end of the episode: Not only is he finally ready to admit to himself that he has feelings for Mizuki, but he's bold enough that he'll just blurt it out where a bunch of his classmates can hear it. Not exactly the privacy one tends to expect from a more typical love confession, but it is what it is.

This scene really could've been a stand out with more visual or directorial oomph. Some quintessential shojo sparkles, flowers—or at least a more interesting camera angle, I don't know. As it stands, the visual dullness of this series threatens to loom over even scenes like this one, that otherwise could've been certifiable Moments. It's a huge shame.

But before all this, we also have to endure Mizuki's weird situation with the journalist who appeared in the last episode. Mizuki feels weirdly inferior to her, and decides karate and getting stronger might be the avenue toward overcoming that. And she does eventually land on deciding to go at her own pace, but not before learning that the journalist and Dr. Umeda know each other, and being given a nude photo of Dr. Umeda, from Dr. Umeda. Sometimes, in anime with older source material like this, it's easy to look at something and say, “Oh, that hasn't aged well,” but this strikes me as the kind of thing that, even at the time, should've raised some red flags. I read it so long ago that I don't remember my reaction to this scene in the manga, but I'd be curious to learn if it stuck out negatively for any manga readers who were reading this when it was at least relatively recent. This definitely feels like the kind of scene that would've done that.

Against all odds, the whole episode comes out on the other side feeling as meh as ever, despite the fact that we finally got a confession from Nakatsu to Mizuki. If that's not a massive nail in its coffin—as clear an example as you could want of how much this is floundering as an adaptation—I don't know what is. This is a high school romance—this should be a massive moment, and yet instead, it's just got this smallness to it that just ruins it. A cardinal sin in a series like this. In any case, while I guess it's something that now this is going to start resembling more of a proper romantic tug-of-war over Mizuki, and not the one-sided romance between Mizuki and Sano where Nakatsu only barely exists that we've had so far, I'm not sure the execution of this series is going to rise to the occasion. It certainly hasn't so far, after all. So in spite of everything, I just can't find it in myself to be excited to see about where this leads.

I may have been premature when I declared Hana-Kimi was cancelled at the end of the first season. I kind of wish it were though.

For all my hollering during my weekly reviews, I do not hate this show. How could I? It's a shoujo classic with a lot of gender, some genuinely memorable characters, and a dab of innocuous writing. It's a bit clumsy and clunky at times and has some outdated tropes, sure, but it has its heart in the right place most of the time. Its greatest crime is being mediocre and kind of dull to sit through. I was mad about having to watch the whole thing for work but most people don't have that issue. They can just stop.

Season 2 of Hana-Kimi picks up right where the previous one left off: with the class's victory at the sports festival. Since the series never met a climax it didn't like to undercut, the much-vaunted prize turns out to be… notebooks and pencils. And with that arc wrapped up, we move on to the next one, which looks to be focused on Nakatsu and his new girlfriend from another school.

Everything is exactly as you'd expect from Hana-Kimi. The boys are slightly rowdy. The comedy is tepid. Nakatsu is in crisis about his sexual orientation. Mizuki gets jealous over another woman giving Sano attention, not because she thinks he's attracted to her but because she's mad that she isn't allowed to pursue him openly. Dr. Umeda gives good life advice dressed up in mild snark. (That man is seriously way too good for this show.) The animation is muddy and stiff, with some truly awful moments mixed in with the normal-bad.

I'm being soft in part because I know that the worst is yet to come. If I spend all my energy getting performatively angry about Hana-Kimi getting a crummy adaptation, I won't have anything left for the truly awful shows that have yet to air. Three months away has given me perspective on how little the show actually deserves my full ire; it's just more fun to write that way.

Extra half-star for some high-quality Dr. Umeda time. That man is seriously too good for this show, and all his best qualities got time to shine this episode: his trollishness, his sardonic humor, and his genuinely good guidance for Mizuki. He has been my shining ray of hope since the first episode.

Tragically, I suspect this will be my last time encountering him, at least in his anime form. You see, I'm pretty sure that this season isn't going to get enough votes to merit weekly streaming reviews this go-round. Even if they do, surely my editor would not be so cruel as to assign me a show that I so clearly did not enjoy the first season of!

Poor Nakatsu. His arc lasted all of two episodes, and while it's great that he's finally accepted his crush on Mizuki, someone needs to sit him down and tell him that it's actually possible to like boys AND girls! Still, I'm happy for him coming to terms with himself, even if it's fake. And with that, I really am out of things to say about the story in this episode. Uhhh, what else is there to talk about?

Oh, I know! The new OP and ED! Like the first season, they have the same artist doing both, this time with Omoinotake, who also sang the spectacular opening of Horimiya: Missing Pieces. The songs are lovely, but man, I get kind of annoyed watching the theme songs because the animation just looks so much better! The colors are vivid, everything is lit and shaded so that it actually looks like the characters exist in the same world as the backgrounds, and their faces and bodies are expressive enough to convey their feelings without dialogue. I want that version of Hana-Kimi!

Anyway, I don't need this cursed anime anymore. The whole manga is now available on the Viz app, and I plan to read the whole thing there. I recommend you do the same.