Last up this Saturday is a pair of mismatched sequels; one to a fun sports show that I expect is going to make up the middle of a three-show sports power triad, and the sequel to one of the most spectacularly derailed, NTR-rich plots I’ve ever known.

White Album 2 had a heavy cross to bear, being a very tangential sequel to a series of very questionable quality.* But I’ve seen that sort of crazy audible work before. Albeit with Takayuki Hirao’s talent helping out. Knowing that the two directors sharing the credits for this show have one helm spot on Total Eclipse between them made it very much a wild card. While it may have been teasing some funny business with the shot framing in the first couple of minutes, the visual sense of the show is nice and the characters feel more than organic enough. And the soundtrack was fine stuff, as expected from a music-based anime. I’m ready to do that thing where I drop my guard so it can punch me in the solar plexus. But seriously, at least for the immediate future, I’m looking forward to more of this show. Hell, it was my favorite episode of a day that included Hajime no Ippo. 3 more episodes for this one. And bottoms up.

Kuroko’s second season handled its character re-introductions a lot more smoothly than Infinite Stratos earlier in the week, packing the monologues into 3 minutes and juxtaposing it with actual action. It was a very business-as-usual start, immediately getting into basketball and developing rivalries for the winter cup. And seeing Kagami getting friendly in America just made me want to go back and watch Linsanity highlights.** No real surprises here, I knew this series was going to be worth a lot most of the time.

*I have complicated feelings about White Album classic. The first 13 episodes, directed by Akira Yoshimura, were a slow-paced exploration of a bunch of depressed characters living very much in the 1990s that I couldn’t get enough of. The second 13 episodes swapped in director Taizo Yoshida and immediately became a trainwreak rivaling anything that came out of Guilty Crown’s second half. Since myanimelist lets me rate them separately, the first season is a 10 and the second season is a 4, the second-biggest score difference between shows in the same franchise on my list.

**Make that the entire Linsanity movie after I realized it was available on demand. I should probably lay off the sports.***

***Naaah.