The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Season 2

Episode 15

Harem anime are evergreen, but there's another trend that came to parallel prominence in eras earlier: maids. Before moe, magical high schools, and isekai, these cute caretakers defined so many slices of anime appeal that they still staff cafes to this day, catering to the most specific of otaku needs. So since 100 Girlfriends is only looking to check every single box off the list of harem necessities (they now have two tsunderes), it stands to reason they'd make space for a maid in there as well. Or rather, reveal that she had been there all along.

Leading up to that, as it so often does with 100 girlfriends, requires an additional tangential fetish or two. Hahari was added to the gaggle of girlfriends relatively late in this show's first season, so the mommy GF hasn't had a huge chance to shine as part of the harem. And that continues in this episode's first segment, which doesn't star Hahari so much as it allows insight into her via her daughter Hakari getting a taste of her own momly medicine. Or Hakari's the only one who doesn't take the medicine—look, this metaphor's falling apart the more I try to force it to happen.

The important thing is that almost all the girlfriends wind up going all Muppet Babies so Rentaro and Hakari can take care of them. Hilarity ensues, and all that. This kind of idealized domestic life is what Hakari has always wanted to pursue with Rentaro, after all, but she finds that the pitter-patter of little feet isn't quite what she imagined, especially when the tykes are her fellow polycule members including, you know, her mother. This whole segment is necessarily A Lot, including Kurumi and Karane thirsting after Hakari's mommy milkers (complete with Hakari making an oblique reference to her and Karane's own aside goings-on). There is something inherently amusing about the sight of dueling baby tsunderes. And there is a lesson at the end of it all, Hakari coming to better understand her mom's lot in life, and why she might act the way she does now that she's re-experiencing the joy of romantic relationships. It might have been nice to give both mother and daughter a moment to shine in providing insight into them like this, but it's all funny enough, and most importantly, the baby girlfriends are very, very cute.

Then it's time to arrive at that maid business, because 100 Girlfriends must stick to the dutiful schedule of continuing to introduce new partners for Rentaro. Points to the anime for obfuscating this particular reveal, anyway, as the improbably appropriately named Meido isn't among the girlfriends shown off in this season's opening or ending. It seems they wanted this one to be something of a surprise, starting innocuously as it does with a conversation about eye color, before motioning to this maid that's always been around accompanying Hahari, and just hasn't had much attention called to her.

The thing is, once the issue of Meido opening her eyes is highlighted, and remembering how things went down with Hahari, that does make it easy to guess where this is going. Not that it's a major issue, but this isn't a series that prides itself on cleverly calculated plot twists. 100 Girlfriends is a wacky comedy, and the jokes around the gang's attempts to make Meido open up run the goofy gamut. Shizuka's effort at startling her is positively adorable, while Nano cutting straight to friggin' stabbing her is utterly sputter-worthy. It all works as this weird sidetrack the team just ended up going down, as tends to happen with close-knit groups. It's all silly, but it's one more way of selling the Rentaro Family as a family.

Honestly, all the little background, and incidental details during this bit might be more entertaining than the central eye-opening conundrum. Stuff like a sequence of Kusuri playing fetch with Kurumi, or Kurumi and Karane popping up to offer stereo tsundere commentary work to make use of the show's obligated ballooning cast. Even as they've surreptitiously slid this maid across the table, I expect they'll continue to use her and everybody else well. I hope we get a bit more actual insight into Meido in the next episode after they spent so much time goofing around leading up to her reveal here, but I have faith. This episode showed the series isn't even close to running out of new or old ideas.

Please enjoy a wallet-worthy collection of girlfriend baby pictures as alternative images for this review.

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The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

Chris has watched at least 100 anime, and really really really really really thought most of them were at least okay. You can peruse his thoughts on those and other subjects over on his blog, or see which cartoon girlfriends he's reposting art of over on his BlueSky.