Honey and Clover - Season 2

Honey and Clover's second and final season continues and resolves the various plot lines entangling its various characters, with a focus less on cute comedy and more on trying to wreck you emotionally. It almost feels like a different show. The quality of the animation and writing and character performances is the same, it just simply is no longer concerned with making you laugh. If the humor was all I liked about the first season it would be disappointing, and honestly some of the charm is missing with it being so maudlin all the time, but it's still a high quality series for the most part. You sort of wonder why some characters make the decisions they do, but people carrying feelings that they know will never be returned is sort of what the whole thing is about. There's some pretty depressing moments throughout the 13 episodes, but it still manages to do that anime thing of finding a way to seem positive after the fact. Bittersweet, I guess. The ending definitely has that in spades, and might be one of the most touching conclusions to a story I've ever seen. It's a series that really captures the feeling of unrequited longing, and it's still worth seeing for anyone interested in intelligent entertainment.