The Summer 2025 Anime Preview Guide - A Couple of Cuckoos Season 2

Nagi, Erika, and Sachi may be just settling into their marriage-motivated rooming situation, but then Hiro decides to move herself into the house! None of them can turn down a friend in need, obviously, but the romantic entanglements, to say nothing of the space situation with the available rooms, threaten to seriously complicate the living arrangement between Nagi and all the girls. Thankfully, Hiro is willing to work her way into their good graces by tidying up and (eventually) having breakfast prepared for everybody. But it's not all happy home days on the horizon. Nagi's mysterious childhood first crush, Ai, has seemingly returned, and it remains to be seen how she can upend the mostly stable relationships Nagi had finally found with his mixed-up families.

A Couple of Cuckoos Season 2 is based on the manga series by Miki Yoshikawa. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.

Jeremy Tauber

While this is a slight improvement over the first episode, I couldn't help but feel like a lot of my time was still wasted. The new girl Ai is finally given her proper introduction only after a little backstory is given between Nagi and Hiro's relationship, which would be okay if it weren't for several things. For one, Ai's introduction is very expository in nature. Apparently, she's returned from China in order to make good on the confession of love she made to Hiro when they were just children, and this is a plot point that seems to randomly burst onto the scene to give the harem a little more drama for this season. There is no set-up, no hints, and I don't even remember a single instance from season one that foreshadows Ai's arrival.

It's just....there.

Which brings me to my second point. The reason why Ai's introduction feels so truncated and abrupt, I think, is because this new episode continues to focus with revealing more about Nagi and Hiro's history together. Like Nagi, Hiro's parents entangled her in arranged engagement that puts some strain on herself, which went against her plan to become a top student at school so no random boy could ever lure her in by being on equal footing (or even worse, better). Okay, fair enough. Yet it doesn't really change up the chemistry between her and Nagi, nor does it really reveal anything new that would give their relationship more depth. More importantly, why couldn't this have been set up during season one instead of here at the beginning of season two? I might have been able to feel a bit more towards these two characters if this plot point was unraveled earlier on, given how A) the anime had a whopping twenty-six episodes to do this and B) said season's final few episodes didn't do much other than dissolve into harem-y moeblob antics (to me, anyway). In simpler terms, it squandered an opportunity. Not that I'm expecting a series like Cuckoos to be literary and riveting like that, but if you're going to kickstart your new season with a new character like Ai, at least have the courtesy of pacing it properly so your audience can find reason to get excited for what's about to unfold. Cuckoos was never a show that put me on the edge of my seat, although I'm still hoping that the show can pick things up from here and manage its way out of the corner it's pinned itself against.

This first episode didn't introduce A Couple of Cuckoo's second season in any meaningful way but it's nice to see our gang back, and I still really like the art and designs of this show. But outside of the moe eyecandy, there's nothing else of substance. What should have properly started as a new chapter in this story feels like a waste of time—a twenty-three minute episode that could have been summed up in ten.

There is an attempt made at reintroducing our main cast. Hiro moves in with the Nagi, Sachi, and Erika and together the four of them get involved in a cavalcade of gags that don't work for me. I'll admit that I like the idea of the horror night gag, but its lackluster execution ended on a dud. Not that a lot of jokes and bits in Cuckoos' first season got big laughs from me, but it still disappoints me to see an episode where none of the comedy works.

Sandwiched between those gags are scenes recapping the bare bones plot of the show—and expository dialogue that reintroduces our characters and the dilemma of the love triangle. But since it's so expository, it doesn't go anywhere. The rom-com plotline just hangs in the background and never goes further than that. It's a shame since we have a new girl introduced at the episode's start, but because the comedy has to take over the episode here, she doesn't appear again until the very end of the episode.

The episode would have benefited by trimming the fat off itself—maybe reduce the comedy down to the first half, and then properly introduce the new girl and her background in the second half. It definitely would have added some substance and intrigue, but I guess we're going to have to wait until the next episode. I'm still here for Cuckoos, and I'm hopeful that this first episode will retrospectively read more as a prologue to the second season instead of a true proper start, but only time will tell.

Well that's two episodes that aren't going to help A Couple of Cuckoos beat the wheel-spinning allegations. Adding Segawa into the harem household certainly seemed like a strong, simple way to kick some part of the plot forward. So of course a week later the show has her moved back out, her arranged marriage unbroken, and her relationship with Nagi, Erika, and anyone else effectively unchanged. The show still hasn't even actually introduced her fiance. It's kind of a hilariously bad look that viewers can get two episodes into a new season and go "So what was the point of all that?!" but it's also just so perfectly Cuckoos.

Cuckoos is a show of bizarrely selected priorities. Nagi's quest to find Segawa and re-collect her from her mom is a brisk, sudden affair more concerned with setting up a flashback sequence than taking the characters forward in any way. Technically, the sequence seen between Nagi and Segawa in the past shows events the audience hadn't glimpsed yet. But the information itself, the story of Nagi losing in studies to Segawa and how she impressed herself on him, that's all old news. I can grasp the idea that it's here to communicate how far these characters have come, but that doesn't work when the place they're winding up is the same status quo they've been at for ages now.

Maybe I'm extra-frustrated by this because the Nagi/Segawa couple is the one I've found most worth rooting for in this show. Their point about pushing against their arranged-marriage fate is brought up once again, alongside the crumb of a new conceptual idea that Nagi specifically helped Segawa start to get over her fear of getting close to people on account of her predestined future. There are some mildly interesting color-shifting directorial choices. Plus, I do find it funny that Erika has to be the one with sensible emotional intelligence for once in bailing Nagi's ass out and trying to explain the pressures arranged marriages can bring to Segawa's mom. But when all it results in is said mom claiming she'll be more communicative about…how the arranged marriage is for the sake of Segawa's happiness? It all leaves this dog looking real shaggy.

If all this was just killing time before they formally brought new girl Ai into the picture, it doesn't feel worth it. I don't know that they needed the time with Segawa in the house to introduce the idea of Ai, since the B-plot this episode sees Sachi run into her and effectively reintroduce the same info about her that the Kokkuri-san game prompted last week. This does come alongside some new points about her, like the implication that she's working as a livestreamer of some sort and her blunt admission of how her family fell apart. I'll admit that's darkly funny, and it charts a path for her to connect with the rest of the main characters and the concept of "family" they've built up in their contrived cohabitation. Maybe once Ai finally starts properly interacting with Nagi and the others next week, she'll make things feel like they're moving again. But given it took two weeks just to walk her into the living room, and they wasted a perfectly good space for a Segawa story to do it, my inclination to give Cuckoos the benefit of the doubt has already fallen through the floor.

Refreshing a harem series for another go-around is easy enough: just add another girl in! That's what A Couple of Cuckoos does to kick off its second season here, and it sort of does it twofold. Yes, it's teasing brand-new girl Ai joining Nagi's household of hapless hanger-ons, but more immediately, Segawa also decides to move into the delightfully rent-free domicile. That's the main source of reacquainting audiences with the characters and complications of Cuckoos in this premiere, and it's…about as thrilling as this show ever managed to be before.

Adding another girl into the house is going to start overcrowding things (I don't even want to think of how cramped it'll be once the mysterious Ai inevitably moves in). The primary source of sitcom antics now is how Segawa fits in, and her dynamics change when she and the others are together full-time. It is funny to watch her expertly manipulate each member of the household into welcoming her—she is the smart one, after all, and pointedly aware of how cool and appealing she is to each of these people for her own reasons. And I'll appreciate how Cuckoos continues to recognize her as Nagi's actual Main Crush (despite Erika's Cover Girl status) and write around their relationship accordingly. Watching that develop continues to be one of the most distinctive aspects of Cuckoos, alongside any time the show pauses to reflect on the idea of family and what constitutes one in the first place.

Hence, this episode is getting a lot of mileage out of fresh domestic goofiness now that Segawa's hanging out in the household. Well, that's "mileage" by the generous standards of what this show considers riveting material. If you've been dying to watch Segawa take three hours to shave bonito flakes for breakfast or see Nagi divvy up a chore wheel for everybody, well, Cuckoos continues to provide rip-roaring entertainment. This does deliver on the idea of seeing new sides of someone when they move in, so finding out that a hypercompetent student like Segawa is capable of letting something like breakfast get away from her is at least a little bit of a distinctive development. And it leads Nagi to further reflect on this idea of sharing time and space with found family.

As only mildly amusing as it all is, I can't even accuse this episode of not having much happen in it. There's also a whole appropriately timed summer spooktacular scene of the characters playing Kokkuri-san, plus a sequence of Nagi and Sachi discussing their marital futures now that Segawa's more concretely in the picture. The Kokkuri-san scene is probably the most sauce that Cuckoos gets in this premiere, being both the one quick excuse to get Erika into cosplay and a tease of what the deal with this new Ai girl is going to be anyway (she is Nagi's actual first love from childhood, as he unlocks in a core memory). And while the anime still technically looks as cheap as it did in the latter stages of its first season, it feels like the new studio, Okuruto Noboru, has a better handle on using the limited resources effectively—the power of decent direction.

Despite attempts to stay fresh, this still felt like the most typical aspects of Cuckoos in a holding pattern as they come back. That might be good for truly devoted fans of the series, as it has been a minute between seasons. And there is, thankfully, some uptick at the very end of the episode with the apparent abduction of Segawa and the formal arrival of Ai (who's rocking some pretty serious fangs, so that's something). Getting a new lease on life after all this time means Cuckoos could have the chance to properly push its plot forward by the end of this season.

However, I'm not going to count out its reliance on sheer contrivance, especially with the brand-new childhood first love just popping into the picture. I am very much in "see where it goes" territory with this show as it returns, though this was at least an inoffensive initial look back in on the love nest of these switched-at-birth birds.

“Hiro-chan's been abducted!” Wails Erika at episode's opening. Does this dire event portend some actual plot development, or, God forbid, actual drama? Not really. It was merely the prodigal shrine maiden's mother come to retrieve her, with the aid of a group of suspicious men in black and a scary-looking car. I'm sure it's all completely normal behaviour for shrine owners. Nagi, of course, decides to butt into Hiro's family business by barging into her home with zero plan, in fact zero thoughts in his head. At all. It takes direct intervention from his fiance Erika to smooth things over with Hiro's bemused mother, who doesn't really understand what Nagi's doing there. Don't worry, Nagi himself certainly doesn't, and neither does anyone else. At least Hiro seems happy he showed her some kind of attention.

Hiro's an odd character. Much of this episode is taken up with a completely ancillary flashback explaining Hiro and Nagi's mostly one-sided academic rivalry. I'm pretty sure most of this was already covered in the first season. For some reason, Hiro seems to think that if she excels socially, in sports, and in academia, then somehow people will leave her alone? Erm… that's not how this works, dear. If you're a good, clever, sporty, reliable friend to people, then they're going to flock to you, or even become obsessed with you, like poor book-smart-but-otherwise-empty-headed Nagi. I don't feel Hiro is at all well written as a character, and her role in the story seems mainly to pile more unlikely contrivances on top of an already painfully contrived plot.

Speaking of contrivances, we finally learn Ai's deal. She's turned up out of the blue after moving away seven years previously, as her family has “dissolved.” This should probably be tragic, but she cheerily relates it as if she were listing her favorite K-pop stars. Perhaps she's mentally broken, she definitely gives off weird, slightly starey and intense vibes. Why does she also seem to have vampire fangs? At least she's honest and direct about what she actually wants, which is to reinsert herself back into Nagi's life as his beloved wife. Nagi is unprepared, but then, as we've already established, preparation is not Nagi's strong suit.

Whether this leads to any kind of actual conflict or drama remains to be seen. When Hiro was abducted, both Erika and Sachi inexplicably mourned the loss of their live-in love rival. Seriously, everyone in this show is too damned nice to create drama, which means that most “plot” developments come from external sources, rather than from the characters themselves, which feels like a pretty damning conceptual flaw to me. It's still fairly entertaining in a “what will the daft idiots do next?” kind of way, but I'm not sure this will sustain my interest unless all of Nagi's potential life partners lose their minds and start biting chunks out of one another. Bring on the bloodbath, I say, and soon!

Somewhat inexplicably, I have developed a soft spot for trashy anime romcoms. I think the rot started with Domestic Girlfriend (I even finished the manga, war crime ending and all), and endured the first two seasons of Rent-A-Girlfriend before I came to my senses and ran far away from that animated toxic waste. Spring/Summer 2022's A Couple of Cuckoos was never quite as histrionic or idiotic as either of those shows, but shared some common ground: namely, an insanely contrived premise with which to wring out even more contrived drama. It was entertaining enough, though, with female characters who weren't as toxic or manipulative as in the “girlfriend” shows. My main takeaway from the first season was that it would be immeasurably improved by ditching its dull, irritating male protagonist and having the female characters hook up with each other instead (but not those biologically related to one another. Even trash anime romcom enthusiasts must maintain some kind of standards.)

My opinion hasn't really changed much with the advent of this second season. Nagi Umino lives in an expensively posh house along with Erika Amano, the girl he is engaged to – the biological daughter of the parents who raised him, who in turn was raised by Nagi's biological parents. Because they were accidentally switched at birth, obviously, and both sets of adoptive/biological parents feel that everything would be nicely resolved if their kids could just, you know, get married and keep things in the family. Erika doesn't seem too averse to the idea, but Nagi has other potential girls on the side, including his not-actually-biological-after-all younger sister Sachi, who seems into him now that she knows they didn't share a womb in common. (The rest of their shared childhood, disturbingly, doesn't seem to count for her.) Obviously, Sachi needs to move into the house, too. And then there's Nagi's crush, Hiro Segawa, the cleverest girl in school, who in this episode randomly turns up demanding to be admitted as a resident to The House Of Romcom Contrivances because her parents also want her to be married off to their choice of husband. I suppose it's all very Shakespearean in terms of love comedy… except not as witty.

Hiro's addition to the domiciliary equation causes no end of headaches for Nagi, who, unable to fulfil his fantasies of watching her sleep (creepy…), ends up relegated to the supply room while Hiro acquires his bedroom. I don't really understand why both Erika and Sachi seem so okay with their love rival moving in, but then the first season didn't bother much with interpersonal conflict either. Their interactions here err more on the lighthearted comedy side, focusing on silly shenanigans involving household chores. Poor Hiro's attempts at making breakfast are… Sisyphean to say the least. She just has to get those bonito flakes perfect, you see, in an extended joke probably lost on most viewers without a detailed knowledge of Japanese cooking.

It's not only Hiro's presence in the home that is the episode's only complication – of course not. A Couple of Cuckoos decides now is the time to introduce another female character, this time Nagi's heretofore unmentioned first crush from childhood, the one who moved away and promised to return one day to make her confession of love to him. So she seems to turn up out of the blue, likely as another impediment to any kind of plot progression. A Couple of Cuckoos' first season was a dubious masterclass in narrative wheel-spinning, and I don't expect this second season will be much different. At least it's generally quite fun, if uninspired and fairly generic.