After seven years of being in limbo, Grand Blue Dreaming is back with a vengeance. Its second season is still as dude bro as ever, with its “beer and tits” style of slapstick littering practically every frame. You can almost imagine being in the frat house as you're watching it, with the room reeking of the pisswater smell of Natty Ice as the dull drone of the Red Hot Chili Peppers blares in the back for the millionth time. Grand Blue Dreaming's sophomore season is as stupid as ever, and it proudly wears its idiocy on its sleeve. Oddly enough, I can't help but applaud it.

Having failed his diver's license test last season, Iori Kitahari is still living at his uncle's seaside shack, the eponymous Grand Blue, hoping to make the best out of his college life. He partakes in underage drinking, spends time with a harem of anime babes, and still goes about the usual wacky rigamarole with his otaku friend Kohei and the other members of the diving club. More girls enter and exit Grand Blue, including his little sister Shiori. If you are even the slightest bit familiar with the manscapades of Grand Blue Dreaming's first season, then you know the drill.

And holy crow, does this second season get ever stupid. Iori partakes in drunken tomfoolery, Kohei can't hide his otaku tendencies, Horny Harem HijinksTM ensue, maid cafes are turned inside out, and there's a giant machine made to sock guys one in the nuts. It's juvenile, for sure, and I'd probably turn my nose up at it if it weren't for the art and direction. The style of the show has exactly the right amount of frantic, intense visual hyperbole I'd expect a dumb anime like this to have. Characters strip and scream their way through gag after gag, accompanied by the usual speedlines for some additional comedy zaniness. The animation is detailed as hell, with every character looking as alive and energetic as ever, even as they are subjected to idiotic brofoonery. The folks at Zero-G and Liber clearly love Attack on Titan, since they transmogrify Iori and Kohei's faces into those of the anime's monstrous, long-haired titans. The art style is incredibly lush, and the seaside environments they occupy are places I would love to spend a good weekend beach-cation at; watching this made me miss the California beaches I aimlessly wandered through before and after Anime Expo.

One thing I did notice, however, is how gag-heavy this second season is. This is a given, since this is a seinen comedy where the gags are supposed to come at you a mile a minute. But compared to the first season, Grand Blue Dreaming's second season is more structured like a sketch comedy show, going from one bit or another. Some are short and sweet and to the point, while some take up an entire half of an episode. Not that Grand Blue Dreaming's first season didn't delight itself with its juvenile jokes, but there was still a quasi-layered, if not utterly ridiculous, story unfolding with Iori acclimating to his new college life and the people who occupy it. There is some character development that happens here in season two, as well as a few tender moments where the comedy gets to slow down to let in some cheesy melodrama, but it feels a bit tacked on and doesn't shine the way it should. These moments linger in the background and serve as window dressing. It also doesn't help that Iori finally gets his diver's license in the second season's second episode. It was a huge plot point in the first season, and something I would have liked to see have more of an arc here in the second season, but it's resolved too quickly to develop some narrative legs.

Another complaint I have: since Grand Blue Dreaming fancies itself a comedy made for the bros, a lot of bits come back to the same punchline. Alcohol! Tits! Dicks! Waifus! More alcohol! Some diving, maybe. And then we're back to waifus again! Rinse, repeat. Don't get me wrong, I did like the style of it all, especially when it came time for Iori to dress up as a maid for the maid cafe. I mean, what type of jokes was I supposed to expect from this kind of anime? A cavalcade of clever puns relating to the films of Luis Buñuel? Maybe some cracking jokes that satirize our current socio-political zeitgeist? There's nothing about Grand Blue Dreaming's humor that elevates it to the level of Jonathan Swift, and it's not supposed to. Comedy's job is to be funny first and foremost, no matter the circumstances, and Grand Blue Dreaming does just that, regardless of its male gaze lunacy. I just wish there were just a bit more variety. It becomes redundant to the point where I'm willing to bet you could rearrange some of the bits and have some episodes' structure and pacing remain intact.

I will never forget seeing Grand Blue Dreaming's second season promoted at the NBCUniversal panel and AnimeExpo. I remember distinctly the couple of young men in the audience who summed the series up thusly: “Peak Cinema! Best Waifus!” These words hadn't ceased to reverberate throughout my ear canal, and they grew louder and louder with every episode of Grand Blue Dreaming that I watched. Having watched all of Grand Blue Dreaming, I now know. Does it have the best waifus? Is it peak cinema? Certainly. That is, if you're into harem anime whose humor is the equivalent of that of a Happy Madison production. Grand Blue Dreaming is muy stupidoso, yes, but an honest and good one nonetheless. Color me a bit excited for season three on the horizon.