The Fall 2017 Anime Preview Guide

ClassicaLoid season 2

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Life goes on as always at Kanae Otowa's house – she's doing the chores while a group of reborn composers known as Classicaloids do their thing. Beethoven's making gyoza while Mozart eats chocolates and ruins his plans, Liszt is doing yoga as Chopin plays computer games, and Schubert raps his way through cleaning the toilet. But everything changes when a young boy rings the doorbell. He claims to be Wataru, Kanae's long-lost younger brother, and he's got the note from her missing mother to prove it. Thrilled with both her newfound relative and the huge amount of cash he and his pet pygmy hippo Dovo-chan have brought, Kanae welcomes Wataru with open arms and both Beethoven and Mozart's rooms. Maybe she ought to be a little more suspicious, though – after all, hasn't everyone else who's turned up at her door been something more than they've seemed? ClassicaLoid season 2 is an original anime work and streams on HIDIVE, Saturday at 7:00 AM EST.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating: 4

ClassicaLoid is back – now with bonus hippo! Well, pygmy hippo, if you want to be specific, and no one is less thrilled about it than Hachie, the resident spoonbill. Dovo-chan the hippo comes accompanying another new character, a young boy claiming to be Kanae's long-lost younger brother Wataru, and if you don't immediately suspect that there's something else going on here, you're in the same boat as Kanae, who is blinded either by the joy of discovering both new family and the fact that her missing mother is alive, or by the copious amounts of cash Wataru has brought with him. My bet's on the latter.

It doesn't take much to figure out the big reveal – Dovo-chan's actually Dvorak and Wataru is Wagner. Although it isn't stated until the end of the episode, it almost feels anti-climactic, because the show isn't trying very hard to hide it. What's more amazing is that no one else seems to catch on – Wagner is even dressed like a ClassicaLoid, wearing a mix of old-fashioned and contemporary clothing. He's also clearly in the know about the others, making not-so-veiled comments about how pathetic he thinks Beethoven and Mozart are in their present forms. He systematically goes through the house trying to make everyone who isn't Kanae miserable, and only Liszt figures it out. That's pretty par for this show's course – part of what's so much fun about ClassicaLoid is how absolutely goofy everyone is. I do feel bad for poor Schubert though – I think Wataru has triggered yet another existential crisis for the man.

Basically, ClassicaLoid 2 is simply an extension of its first season. That's in no way a bad thing, because that first season was a lot of fun. It does feel a little like parts of the finale are negated, at least in terms of character progression for Beethoven and Mozart, but I don't watch this show for its in-depth character development and stellar plot. This episode is full of what makes the series entertaining: absurdity, strangely elaborate Musik sequences (apparently Dvorak's Musik can send you off on the GE 999), and bizarre character interactions, all set to a soundtrack of remixed classical music. By this point Sousuke, feels even more like an extraneous character, and I kind of feel as if he could simply be done away with, because his purpose appears to just be another “normal” person aware of the Classicaloids’ existence, which isn't necessary this far into the story. (Of course, writing him out could be awkward.)

It looks as if the main plot this time will revolve around Wataru's connection to Kanae's missing mother – the note was definitely from her, so it seems possible that she has been doing some ClassicaLoid experiments of her own. Will her Classicaloids battle the originals created by Kanae's dad? Could we finally get the epic Mozart vs. Sousa battle we deserve? Only time will tell, but one thing seems sure: we're in for another zany ride.