Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Well it’s been a while since I’m looked at a romcom so what’s a good one to review?
*Nitsuj spins the romcom and it stops on The 100 Girlfriends Who Really (x5) Love You*
The wheel has spoken. on The 100 Girlfriends Who Really (x5) Love You series isn’t what I would consider the best romcom out there, but it was funny, cute, and has an interesting premise. A guy gets 100 girlfriends as his soulmate and has to love all of them or disaster will strike them. Not wanting to see any harm come to them, he decides to date them all and they’re all okay with this arrangement. It’s a setting that honestly sounds like the start of a hentai or h-game, but the author does a good job of making it wholesome, the main character likable, and giving each girl a unique personality or trope we’ve seen before to give us a good laugh. After the success of the first season, a second season came out at the start of 2025. Done once again by Bibury Animation Studios, fans were excited to watch the romcom and see it return. Was it as good as the first season? Let’s find out. This is The 100 Girlfriends Who Really (x5) Love You S2.
Opening and Ending Theme
The opening is “Arigato, Daisuki ni Natte Kurete” by the Female VAs. Once again, they gave the anime a personal touch by having the VAs sing the opening which I’m always a fan of. It’s actually impressive. Not only do they have the originals from the first season singing, but they also add in the new VAs for this season. That’s like five new voices and they all do a good job harmonizing with each other and getting a line that matches their character. I do think the first opening is better but this one is still good and I think all the VAs do a great job here.
The ending is “Unmei?” by the Female VAs. Well they took my advice from the first season and let the VAs sing the ending as well. This ending only uses the new VAs introduced this season. The song is sweet, catchy, and like how each girl gets their own part while expressing their love for Rentaro. In their eyes he’s their prince and the best boyfriend ever.
Episodes 1-4
So the season starts on a good laugh with a Your Name/Freaky Friday parody. Thanks to Kusuri’s drug, the girls have switched bodies with each other and in order to get back to their real bodies Rentaro has to kiss them to extract their souls (it’s not scientific but when has that been an issue in anime?). It is funny seeing the different personalities in each body. We get a tsundere Hahari, a motherly Kusuri, a cool Shizuka, a childish Hakari, a shy Karane, and a deredere Eiai (scene here: https://youtu.be/IXJrHTVMmhg?si=IdxKU2-N3peYLEGk). In the second half, we get our first new girlfriend of this season, Kurumi voiced by Amane Shindō, a middle schooler with a big appetite. She has a high metabolism, so she gets hungry a lot quicker than the normal person. Because of this she gets cranky and scares her classmates when she’s hungry (she hangry). Rentaro shares his lunch with her and after cooking her a meal she asks him to be her boyfriend (wow, she almost broke Kusuri’s record. Scene here: https://youtu.be/qztMPa7WnnA?si=OhK–_Vw_E99z0A9).
In episode 2 the Rentaro family enter an eating contest in the hopes of winning this gelato ice cream and getting closer to Kurumi who is still distancing herself from the others. We get a few funny moments here and there as well as romantic ones with the Rentaro family winning in the end. Kurumi becomes friendly with the others and even kisses Rentaro at the end.
The first half of episode 3 sees another one of Kusuri’s experiments go wild (the author is getting a lot of mileage out of this character). Kusuri turns everyone into babies except for Rentaro and Hakari (https://youtu.be/sn6jKGVxTbk?si=7AKJ9se3qj9cawJ4). While they have the medicine to change them back, they have to wait an hour to administer to the others, so they’re stuck being parents (wow, six girls. You have quite the stamina Rentaro). There’s not much to say here other than the fact that Rentaro will be a good dad when he’s older and Hakari has a better understanding of her mom and why she acts the way she acts (Hahari became a mom too early and missed out on her youth. She forced herself to become an adult too early and never got a chance to experience youth. Rentaro and the others have given her that chance. Scene here: https://youtu.be/I0CsI050xdc?si=mpB7XtUNtb6cU3I4). In the second half, Rentaro finds his next girlfriend, Meido, the maid in service to Hahari (scene here: https://youtu.be/Jawr6zPYgVw?si=LtZalRF_5lfX5d5I. First the daughter, then the mom, and now the maid. Should I be worried about the aunt if there is one?).
The maid route begins in episode 4. Meido (hey that sounds like maid. I just got it) voiced by Suzuko Mimori, becomes Rentaro’s maid for a day. In order to get to know her better they have a picnic in the park where he has a hard time getting Meido to be selfish. She’s spent her life serving others that she doesn’t know how to indulge herself (the only thing that gives her substance is serving others). It takes him some time but he manages to form a connection with her and get her to be a little selfish. In the second half, we get some good fanservice with the girls having a water gun fight dressed as maids.
Episodes 5-8
In the first half of episode 5 the girls have gained weight (*remembers episode 2* not surprising). The only ones who are safe are Kurumi because of her fast metabolism and Meido who didn’t participate in the tournament. As the girls hold their own meetings to fix this, Rentaro meets his 9th girlfriend Iku voiced by Rie Takahashi (Megumin from Konosuba), a member of the women’s baseball team (wouldn’t it be softball then?) and a possible masochist (99% sure she’s a masochist. With a 1% margin of error). While the other baseball members journeyed to America to study baseball, Iku stayed behind to keep the club from closing, but with only one member it’s not enough, and unless she can find eight more players she’ll be forced to shut down. So she tries desperately to recruit people while also practicing. Rentaro helps her practice a little and she actually confesses to him. At first, he says no because he figured out her kink and wanted to help her experience the pain of heartbreak (okay, I am now 100% sure she’s a masochist). However, in truth he wants to make her his girlfriend. So he introduces her to the others (it gets more awkward each time) who accept her and agree to join her baseball team. Even though Hahari, Kurumi, and Meido can’t officially join, they can still participate in the practices. Iku continues to go overboard and collapses from exhaustion but she’s determined to win the upcoming game and protect her club (scene here: https://youtu.be/eJResc0bfGo?si=t8qjNrq5psHyA7nB). Motivated by this the rest of the girls decide to step up and stay extra hours even after practice is done.
It’s game day in episode 6 as the Rentaro family (yes, Kurumi, Hahari, and Meido got roped into playing the game) takes on Jurassic School (are those dinosaur girls? Man, we will turn anything into a girl). So the anime turns into Captain Tsubasa/Ace of Diamond as the Rentaro Family struggles to get hits. On defense, they get carried by Iku’s pitching, but when her hand gets injured and Eiai starts pitching the Jurassic girls go on a run. However, they make a huge mistake when they trash talk Shizuka (you have made a very big mistake) and awaken the protected nature in the others (scene here: https://youtu.be/_ysofR91AUw?si=OmdeG4SPvrFBsF9n). This allows them to avoid mercy and at the bottom of the 9th they’re down 3 (oh yeah, I know baseball terms. I may be a basketball player but I know a few things about other sports). Kusuri and Hahari make it to base and even Shizuka makes it as well leaving it all up to Iku to win it for them. After ripping off Shaolin Soccer (it’s a real movie), Iku does the rare but still amazing walk-off grand slam to get the win and both teams celebrate by going out to eat BBQ (oh come on, go to KFC. Celebrate. Scene here: https://youtu.be/1reKQwNd-BE?si=eLJAgc6RKY39lf2l).
In episode 7 we get a karaoke episode as Shizuku blows everyone away with her cuteness (scene here: https://youtu.be/Wbq1bAxsQos?si=vweeu5627ZKGXjio, death by cuteness). After that, we meet our next girlfriend, Mimimi voiced by Lynn (Hibana from Fire Force) and she is a narcissist. While she accepts Rentaro as her boyfriend, she wants to fix his appearance so he can match her beauty. He gets a makeover (the white hair and red eyes are nice) and they go on a small date. Mimimi is just brimming with confidence in her beauty. Everything she does and eats is for the sole purpose of making herself even more beautiful. She openly agrees to be Rentaro’s girlfriend after seeing him in action (the rizz is strong with this one. Scene here: https://youtu.be/-UBxkH1zxOo?si=Ajl8GE8uRoPXt5A3). There is just one problem, Eiai. Yep, it turns out Eiai is the only girl to ever surpass Mimimi’s beauty and humiliated her. Mimimi refuses to be a part of anything involving Eiai and challenges her to a beauty contest where the loser leaves the family.
The battle between Eiai and Mimimi begins in episode 8. We start with a beauty contest in the past where Eiai won. However, this was back before she met Rentaro so she was still in her robot phase (something a lot of teens pretend to be in today) which means this whole contest meant nothing to her and neither did Mimimi who extended the hand of friendship to her. Returning to the present the battle between Eiai and Mimimi will be determining the beautiful traits of the Rentaro family with Rentaro as the judge. The score gets tied and they come to the final category which is Rentaro (which means he gets to decide. Who’s gonna be in the harem?). Rentaro intentionally sabotages himself in the final round to make sure it ends in a draw. Mimimi refuses to tie with Eiai and chooses to leave the family but Eiai stops her apologizing for the way she treated Mimimi in the past and wants to be friends with her. Mimimi accepts the apology and joins the family (good. The family could use more beautiful girls. Too many cute ones. We need to balance things out. Scene here: https://youtu.be/Z2eZQGE5X6Y?si=WeCCiZkiGosk1rO5). In the second half the girls each get a turn to kiss Rentaro in an effort to become more beautiful. The reaction from the kiss starts off normal only to keep escalating and getting crazier with each girl (Rentaro’s lips are lethal weapons. Next time let’s add the tongue and see what happens).
Episodes 9-12
Well episode 9 was an acid trip. Moving on.
Episode 10 gives us our next girlfriend, Meme (hey! She wasn’t advertised in this season’s lineup) a shy beauty voiced by Kanon Takao. Not shy in the way of Shizuka who won’t speak, but shy in the way that she can make herself vanish in the blink of an eye. It’s called misdirection and just like Kuroko from Kuroko’s Basketball she excels at it. Despite being beautiful and someone who could easily stand out and get the attention of everyone, Meme literally goes out of her way to stay hidden and fade into the background (an NPC who wants to be an NPC). However, this all changes when she meets Rentaro who saves her from a sign (thanks divine wind). At first, she tries to avoid him, but when she finally confesses that she’s in love with him she doubles down on avoiding him as she feels no one as shy as her can be loved. However, Rentaro’s tenacity knows no bounds and he manages to find her and accept her as his girlfriend (scene here: https://youtu.be/5z42jbhMcE8?si=GESx0i5DdQG_wvOM). In the second half, they all play hide and seek as a way to make Meme feel more comfortable in the group and the winner gets a kiss from Rentaro. Naturally, Meme wins and receives her kiss from Rentaro (which as we established is lethal).
In the final two episodes we focus on Karane. After having a nightmare about Rentaro dumping her because of her tsundere personality (that alone is crazy. The man will literally die before he breaks up with any of you), Karane takes one of Kusuri’s drugs to remove her tsundere trait so that she can be more honest about her feelings for him and everyone else. At first, everyone likes the cute and honest Karane (you lack personality) but realize that the original is the best (if you can’t be yourself then you can’t be happy). At first, Karane says no but Rentaro goes on a walk with her where he reveals that her tsundere personality is what made him fall in love with her. She was strong-willed but kind, crude but honest, and even though she had a hard time saying what she felt she showed it through her actions (and actions always speak louder than words). This convinces her to return to the Karane that Rentaro fell in love with but Kusuri’s drug doesn’t work on her. Later on, Hakari and Rentaro try to provoke a tsundere response out of her at Hakari’s mansion but has no luck. However, Rentaro gets the idea to harvest tsundere energy from all the years and transfer it to Karane (he’s trying to create the spirit bomb. So there’s a 33% chance this will work. (Mira): 33? (Nitsuj): Vegeta, failed. Frieza, failed. Buu, succeeded. And we didn’t bother using it on Cell, so that technically counts as a fail, so really there’s only a 25% chance this will work). So all the girls act tsundere towards Rentaro to give him their tsundere energy. After gathering enough tsundere energy, Rentaro shoots the ball to Karane who is able to absorb it and return to normal. We then wrap up the season with each girl telling Rentaro how much they love him and he returns the favor in a long winded speech to end the season.
Final Thoughts
This season continues to keep the laughs and romances coming. Overall, I do think the girls from the first season are better than the girls we got this season. They’re not bad just not as impactful as the ones in the first season and we don’t get enough time to explore them or see their interactions with Rentaro that results in them changing all that much like we got in the first season. If I have to pick the new girl I like this season it would have to be Meme. She’s cute, I like her design, and her shy nature is unique and something you don’t see all that much in anime girls today. Not much improvement on the animation and the music continues to be a hit or miss with me.
Final Score
My final score for the second season of The 100 Girlfriends Who Really (x5) Love You is 5.5/10. Not as good as the first season, but a decent follow-up. Hopefully, the third season will be better and pull me in like the first season. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
