Rascal Does Not Dream is finally back in TV form with a new season, Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus. It’s been a long time coming. For context, Bunny Girl Senpai was almost seven years ago and anime viewers had only gotten three movies since then. To be fair, this couldn’t be helped. There just wasn’t enough material at the time for a full season and it makes a lot more sense for Dreaming Girl, A Sister Venturing Out, and Knapsack Kid to be adapted into movies. I’m just glad that the production committee was still willing to greenlight more after all this time. There’s still no guarantee that this anime will be a full adaptation but Rascal certainly deserves to get this far.
At the time of me originally writing this post, Dreaming Girl is the only movie available for streaming. I don’t get why A Sister Venturing Out and Knapsack Kid is still not available. Maybe Aniplex is holding off on releasing them since they’re more recent movies but it leaves fans in an odd situation where they either skip the movies or resort to an unofficial source. Fortunately, Santa Claus does start with an expanded version of the last scene of Knapsack Kid. So while not ideal, you probably can go from Dreaming Girl to Santa Claus just fine.
Knapsack Kid ends and Santa Claus begins with Shoko (Inori Minase) confiding to Sakuta (Kaito Ishikawa) about Touko Kirishima, a singer who did not exist in the previous timelines from Shoko’s time traveling. Santa Claus continues where the scene originally leaves off, with Sakuta assuring Shoko that Touko’s existence might not necessarily mean anything and they should continue on with their lives for the time being. The show then performs a one year time skip, implying that Sakuta very much followed his own advice and the thought of Touko hasn’t crossed his mind since Shoko brought it up. You’d think Sakuta would be a little cautious since he had already heard about Touko from a parallel version of himself but I guess not. To be fair, Sakuta has had to put up with so much surreal crap that I can’t blame him for not wanting to touch this plot thread with a ten foot pole.
At this point in the story, Sakuta has graduated from high school. He now studies Statistical Science at Yokohama City University, the same school as Mai (Asami Seto), Nodoka (Maaya Uchida), and Uzuki (Sora Amamiya). I’m guessing Sakuta picked stats after his many chats with Rio (Atsumi Tanezaki) about all the bizarre shenanigans he ran into. Sakuta and Mai still run into the issue of their schedules barely aligning though they continue to make their relationship work. Outside of classes, Sakuta continues his part-time job at the diner and has also started working alongside Rio (Atsumi Tanezaki) as a tutor in a cram school.
I admit that it does feel like the show is going to great lengths to ensure that everyone is still around in spite of the change in setting. Like, Sakuta and Mai being in the same school I get. They’re the OTP of this show. They better stay together. Nodoka and Uzuki also being there feels rather convenient, more so with Uzuki as she happens to be studying Statical Science as well. Sakuta’s new job at the cram school means he can still ask Rio for help. The diner still being present means Tomoe (Nao Tōyama) can still show up. Kaede is also still able to make an appearance since the university is close to the apartment and Kaede now also works at the diner. It seems like the only character the show has truly retired is Shoko (and to be fair, Shoko absolutely deserves a break). On one hand, it’s nice to know that Sakuta’s friends are still around and I get that someone as helpful as Rio has to stick around. On the other, it currently makes the shift to university a bit moot. I figured there’d be a huge shakeup but it does feel like all that is happening is a fresh coat of paint.
You’d think since it was established at the beginning that the next focal character would be Touko and she is brought up again later in the episode. There’s a scene where Sakuta hangs out with his new college buddy, Takumi Fukuyama (Mutsuki Iwanak) and Touko comes up during the conversation. Apparently, there’s a rumor going around that Touko is an alias of Mai’s. Being Mai’s boyfriend, Sakuta knows this can’t be true but it is an interesting implication to consider, in light of the message left by Sakuta’s parallel self during Knapsack Kid. I figured this would prompt Sakuta to finally looking into this mystery girl but once again, the show sort of puts it aside.
Episode 1 actually alternates between a bunch of different setups. During an icebreaker event, Sakuta meets and befriends an International Business student named Miori Mitou (Manaka Iwami). Miori appears to be really interested in Sakuta. Whether or not it’s romantic is a bit unclear though if that’s the case, Miori seems to not care that Sakuta is already in a relationship. More peculiar than that is Miori appearing to have knowledge of Adolescence Syndrome. I suppose she learned about it from the internet but one has to wonder why she’d bring it up to Sakuta. That has to be on purpose.
Surprisingly, Miori is also not the next focal character. That honor appears to go to Uzuki. Apparently, Sweet Bullet is doing so well that its individual members are receiving a bunch of offers and opportunities. This however leaves the group divided on whether they should continue their careers together or go solo, with Nodoka and Uzuki already clashing on the subject on one occasion. Nodoka attempts to reconcile with Uzuki and both her and Sakuta notice that something seems off about Uzuki. Normally, Uzuki is a bit of an airhead but in this moment, she’s able to “read the room”, being extremely considerate of Nodoka’s feelings and the role she played in their previous argument. Nodoka and Sakuta suspect that Uzuki has been struck with Adolescence Syndrome. Kind of funny that we’re still calling it that when almost everyone is now an adult but I guess no one has an alternative to pitch. I’m really looking forward to see Uzuki at the forefront. It makes more sense now why she received a larger role in A Sister Venturing Out. In that movie, it felt like Uzuki ought to have dealt with Adolescence Syndrome when she was struggling with school. Since that panned out just fine, I’m curious how her actual case with the phenomenon will play out.
Despite the show being titled Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus, the actual Santa Claus arc apparently happens way later, presumably being the last novel adapted in the season. That said, the titular Santa does make a couple cameos in this episode, appearing right before Sakuta can get a good look at her. It’s reminiscent to Sakuta’s first encounter with Mai. I’m guessing this character is Touko but there’s currently not a lot of information to work with so I could be entirely wrong. My only concern for now is that Santa might continue to make cameo appearances throughout this season and that could get old very quickly.
Watch Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus on Crunchyroll
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