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Japanese Title: 続 『刀剣乱舞 花丸』

Summary

The second season of Touken Ranbu -Hanamaru-. It is based on a video game called Touken Ranbu and its main idea is that historical swords can be turned into beautiful men by their Saniwa. In the game, the swords can be collected like cards and you have to fuse and improve them to get better swords.

Impressions

The sword boys are back! As this is the second season, I expect that most people who watch the first episode are already fans of the series. Unlike the more dramatic Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu, which aired in Summer 2017, Hanamaru is a more light-hearted approach to the sword gijinka browser game Touken Ranbu -ONLINE-. The genre of this anime is iyashi-kei (relaxing), or as I like to say, Cute Swords Doing Cute Things. Just like the season before, Zoku Touken Ranbu Hanamaru is a collection of stories revolving around the peaceful days at the Citadel and the Touken Danshi (Sword Boys) who live there. The first episode of the second season had the very first Hanamaru-version of Konnosuke, the in-game pipe fox who acts as the player’s guide. Although this is some very useless information, Konnosuke is voiced by an up-and-coming voice actor named Yuki Shin. I have been following him for a while as he voices a character in an arcade game I love (Dream Festival R, if any of you are interested) and he has a lovely speaking and singing voice. Ganbare, Shin! The first episode also features two fan-favorites, the brothers Higekiri and Hizamaru, voiced by Hanae Natsuki and Nobuhiko Okamoto, respectively. Although they appeared in Katsugeki, this was their first Hanamaru appearance and I am stoked! I absolutely love these two (especially Higekiri and his voice). Episode 1 also has an action scene where the two brothers ever so conveniently start to lose their clothes (the same thing happens in the original game). The action scenes in Hanamaru are also meant to be a lot of fun, and often make references to the original game. If you are thinking about picking up the series, rest assured that you don’t need to be a fan of the original game, although I do recommend watching Season 1 first. If you are looking for a cute relaxing moe anime with male characters, then Zoku Touken Ranbu Hanamaru may be the anime for you!

Asie

If you must know, I quickly fell into Touken Ranbu hell ever since the first season of Hanamaru aired. Take note that I’ve only ever heard of it on social media. Unfortunately, I still have never gotten a chance to play the actual game (since I can’t read Japanese nor am I in Japan), so I’m quite grateful that I can enjoy even a bit of the Saniwa life through the anime. And I’m especially more grateful that we’ve got a second season of the anime that relieved me of my stress every week! True enough, the first episode of Zoku Touken Ranbu Hanamaru was super pure and fun like before, albeit with a tinge of sadness because Kashuu has to wait for Yamatonokami again (They’re my favorites, by the way – another reason why I love Hanamaru! Such awesome bros!). I’m super excited to see all the new swords, get to know the old ones more, and watch them caught up in all their hijinks! Hopefully, Yamatonokami will come back for more screentime sometime soon, and I can see the bros together in action again!