Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out! Season 2

Episode 6

While this episode was another step towards our two leads finally crossing the line of getting together, it was a smaller step than I had hoped. We continue to play into the mother of all coincidences, with Sakurai becoming friends with Uzaki's dad before he realizes that's who he is speaking to. Still, now we have the added irony of the dad describing Uzaki's romantic quandary in the presence of the very guy that is arguably responsible for it. I will admit, all the arrows constantly poking Sakurai during that exchange were rather funny. With all the setup these episodes have been doing so far to firmly establish everyone's inevitable freak-out when the penny finally drops, I can only hope the payoff is adequately worth it.

I like that the show kind of goes out of its way to establishing that a sign of liking somebody doesn't mean that you immediately give in to your instincts and do whatever. I like that Sakurai explains that from his perspective, he wouldn't take advantage of anybody he deeply cared about, and it gives some context to why the relationship might be at a standstill. While Uzaki does seem frustrated that Sakurai isn't pushing any boundaries, there's a good chance that he might not, even if he was aware of his feelings for her. While Uzaki seems to be growing more aware of her feelings and current circumstances despite constantly trying to be dishonest about them, Sakurai is honest but doesn't realize what's happening just yet.

The fact that the show is going out of its way to get rid of any needless distractions by having him work out and be more focused on these types of romantically charged conversations leads me to think that we are going to get a situation where he won't have anything he can rely on to misunderstand the current situation. We already have a solid idea of how everybody will react if they finally get together. Still, I am most curious how Sakurai will respond when something inevitably happens that pushes these two together. We already got a glimpse of that from the fortune-telling episode and how it's clear he's not good at dealing with those types of situations, but Uzaki allowed him to sidestep it. We're about halfway through the season, and I'd like to know when we'll take that step toward finally getting into the real meat of these romantic developments.

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Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out! Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.