The thing I really noted is that if you take Makeine apart and analyze it, it’s mostly standard school rom-com tropes - childhood friends and “homewreckers” and a club and a couple of oddball teachers and a beach episode and a series of festival episodes and an amusement park fake date and so on - but every one of them has just enough of a spin to it to make it new and interesting and specifically relevant. And the characters are the same way - they’re each almost stereotypes, but not quite, because they have individual quirks that lift them above the stereotypes.

It’s just very well done all the way through, and with especially impressive attention to the characters.

And yeah - I’m looking forward to the new season, and cheering for Nukumizu and Yanami. They just have such comfy chemistry.