Back in 1998, Class Reunion was made, and it was unexpectedly one of the best hentai I’ve ever seen.  But it ended with some loose threads and Tatsuya never learning who his real crush was.  Well, 4 years later, Class Reunion Again was made, and it… does nothing to solve that problem.

Before we continue on, I just want to take the time to point out that Class Reunion Again was actually one of the earliest titles I remember wanting to get but never got around to.  I first saw it in an anime catalog, and the description piqued my interest.  But it wasn’t until now that I finally have it.  And if the fact that I first saw it in a CATALOG doesn’t tip you off to how long ago this was, Class Reunion Again has one episode per DVD.

This was also during an era where companies felt they had to pack DVDs with extras, even if they were completely worthless.  In this case, one of the extras was a “bonus episode” from an extremely low-budget hentai that has nothing to do with Class Reunion at all.  I can only assume the publisher bought the rights for it, realized there was no market for it, and decided it to randomly shove it into one of their other titles just ’cause.  Another extra was the “photo gallery.”  Now, I actually do take some interest in photo gallery extras in anime titles (hentai or no hentai) because they do sometimes include some neat promo art.  Not this time.  It consisted entirely of screencaps from the episode set to background music.

On the upside…

Anyway, on to the actual anime.

The tennis club is in their 20’s, and they’re having another reunion.

Mizuho is the last member to arrive at the reunion, and as she rushes to the party, she says “it’s been so long since I saw him!”  Yeah, she’s REALLY excited to see her crush Tatsuya again… and that’s the only time in the episode we hear about how she had a crush on him in middle school.

So far, everything seems fine.  I mean, everyone looks freaking different, but they’re all vaguely familiar, and Ayu and Tatsuya are teasing each other as usual.

And then THIS happens:

Yeah, I was confused too.  At first I thought maybe Tatsuya and Ayu broke up in the years between Class Reunion and Class Reunion Again, but no.  They were never involved.  No one in the club got romantically involved with anyone else in the club.  And in Class Reunion, Makoto just turned 19.  Everyone’s now in their 20’s.  So Class Reunion somehow takes place after the events of Class Reunion, except the events of Class Reunion NEVER HAPPENED.

So… if this isn’t a sequel, WHY was this made?

Anyway, the gang spontaneously decides to go to Mizuho’s mother’s lodge for a ski trip.

Okay, terrible animation aside, there is ONE good point to this… whatever it is since it’s clearly not a sequel.  That one good point?  Correcting a mistake of the original and making sure EVERY girl gets nude.

Naturally, as with any onsen scene, the guys are obligated to peek.

For some reason, Midori turns his rage against ALL the boys, including Ryusuke, who didn’t peek and may or may not have gotten laid at an onsen, and Susumu, who also didn’t peek and STILL hasn’t gotten laid period.

But the hijinks stop there, as Mizuho’s mother falls ill.

Interestingly, Mizuho herself NEVER falls ill.  I suppose it’s possible her body got a lot healthier in the last few years, but it’s also entirely possible whoever wrote this just didn’t want to bother putting in old character-defining details.

Well, it was a worthless one, but still.

Okay, the last perspective error was pretty minor, but this… MIZUHO’S HAND AND HALF OF HER ARM… I, I can’t even…

If Sailor Moon Crystal ever gets that bad, I’m done.

Now if we can all just take a second… and appreciate that I’m paying this much attention to the non-sex animation of a hentai… Okay.

Moving on.

Mizuho wants her friends to keep on having fun without her, so she still has that martyr complex going on, but Tatsuya stays behind to help her out with the chores.

Tatsuya and Mizuho kinda have a bunch of moments together and have fun doing chores in what is probably the laziest sequence I’ve seen intended to show two people forming a connection.  They’ve known each other for years, don’t see each other for long amounts of time, and it’s one day of doing chores together that makes Tatsuya see Mizuho as a love interest.

Fuck daisies.

Anyway, Mizuho is asked to stay at the lodge to take care of her mother and the lodge instead of, I dunno, living wherever she lives in the city, but she doesn’t want to leave her friends behind, especially Tatsuya.  Y’know, the boy she likes and HASN’T SEEN IN A LONG TIME.  Am I supposed to care about her sacrificing her ability to see Tatsuya when she never sees him in the first place?

Tatsuya’s response?

Yes, in Class Reunion Again, Tatsuya has no discernible character outside of an incessant need to back down whenever he’s faced with the prospect of getting a girlfriend.

So, Mizuho is disappointed and prepares to move in with her mother.  But Tatsuya gets into an accident, and Mizuho rushes to his side.

So uh… Tatsuya was never in any serious condition, which would explain why none of his closer friends like Ayu was around.  And he’s confused about why she’s there, so he clearly didn’t call Mizuho.  But whatever.  It gives them a reason to be in the same room, and Mizuho asks Tatsuya to go places with her for reasons.

While walking together, Mizuho kinda confesses by saying she wanted him to convince her to stay.  Then she says her goodbye and leaves forever… to her family lodge that’s… I dunno, pretty far away, I guess?

But then the ENTIRE GANG confronts Tatsuya about bringing Mizuho back even though there’s no real reason for them to all be in one place right now, and why the hell do they even know about Tatsuya and Mizuho being important to each other?

So, Tatsuya realizes that she loves Mizuho… y’know, not like his friends totally bullied him into it or anything… and he goes running off after her.

I should point out that up to now, the subtitlers have refused to translate honorifics or which name is actually being said.  So, the moment where Mizuho starts calling him “Tatsuya” instead of “Kubo-kun” turns into this:

So, the two have a four-minute-long sex scene that actually includes genitalia, bodily fluids, and hymen-breaking.  Oh yeah, that’s another change: Class Reunion Again isn’t softcore.  Though I fail to see why turning hardcore necessitates having a dumber plot when the same amount of time is dedicated to the sex.

So uh… Mizuho learns a lesson about love and strength, and she stays at the lodge to wait for Tatsuya to come get her…  Okay.

Um… hooray?  I appreciate that Mizuho finally gets to have sex with Tatsuya, but… not even one mention of the daisies, her crush that lasted since middle school, or any of her rivals having something to say about it?  Oh wait, her rivals ENCOURAGED Tatsuya to go to her.  Even Makoto… who not once even gives him a loving glance and just seems to be there… Hell, why was she even there?!  In most of the original series, she’s conveniently away because she has supermodel gigs.  But in this series she seems to have enough time on her hands to randomly show up with the rest of the gang to encourage Tatsuya to go to Mizuho?  Wasn’t Makoto like EXTREMELY JEALOUS of Mizuho?

Okay… not going to vent.  There’s still one more episode.  Give it a chance.

The second episode is called “All About Ayu.”  Y’know, as opposed to Mizuho.  Now, in the first episode, Tatsuya clearly chose Mizuho, so I don’t know what direction we’re going with here…

The episode starts off with… Wait, the reunion again?

Oh hey, I think I just got the meaning behind the title.

The first three minutes play out almost exactly the same as in the first episode, only with slightly less focus on Mizuho.  She still arrives late, of course, but we don’t see her running to the party.  After her introduction, the focus is on Ayu.  Strangely enough, what Tatsuya says to elicit Ayu’s teasing is completely different.  Oh, and this time everyone tells Ayu and Tatsuya that they totally act like an old married couple and should admit their feelings for each other.  Well, at least we didn’t have to go through 20 minutes for that scene.

We skip to the next morning, which is NOT a ski trip, and we see that Ayu and Tatsuya’s rooms are connected by a totally-not-dangerous ladder between their windows.

Ayu and Tatsuya have their regular waking-up routine, but today’s special.  It’s New Years, and they’ve got celebration stuff planned.  Out of the blue, Ayu’s cousin Mamoru that no one’s heard of shows up.

Mamoru is perfect and attractive, which makes Tatsuya jealous and push Ayu towards him because he’s a defeatist little wuss.

But then Mamoru offers to date Ayu because… uh… drama?

Ayu runs off to her room and wonders what to do.  On the one hand, she loves Tatsuya.  But on the other hand, Mamoru asked her out.

Drama.

The next 15 minutes is pretty much Ayu and Tatsuya not speaking to each other and asking themselves what they should do about their relationship.  Oh, and Midori doing this:

For the record, she does that to try to distract Tatsuya out of fighting with Ayu, but it doesn’t work.

W-w-wha?

Okay, let’s see if we got this straight.  The series starts off with the New Years Eve party.  Then this episode happens.  Then the ski trip happens?  Okay then, problem solved.  Tatsuya drives Ayu to Mamoru, he hits things off with Mizuho, everyone’s happy.

Except no.

So it seems this episode is actually PARALLEL to the Mizuho episode, kind of like a visual novel.  Problem is, I’ve found no evidence that Class Reunion is based on a visual novel of any sort, which means this is just a gimmick.  And I’m totally okay with that.  But then this gimmick is utterly wasted by making a WORSE Ayu route and not giving us a Makoto route.

Anyway, Mamoru has a talk with Tatsuya, basically telling him he’s given up on Ayu.  Tatsuya completely misunderstands Mamoru and thinks Mamoru is telling him to give up on Ayu.

Drama.

Tatsuya and Ayu have fun together at an amusement park (which Tatsuya believes is his last chance to be friends with Ayu, because drama) and then Ayu reminds Tatsuya that they promised to marry each other when they were kids.

So uh… yeah, fuck daisies.

What follows is a 5-minute long sex scene that is quite possibly the best sex scene out of both episodes AND the original Class Reunion, and for some reason I feel compelled to mention that oral is involved (the original being a softcore, oral was completely out of the question).

And then they get married.

And just in case you were feeling good about this ending…

That’s right.  It was Mamoru’s plan all along to bring Ayu and Tatsuya together by wedging them apart so they realize how much they love each other.

Fuck Mamoru.

Wankability: 4
Well, everything else was terrible, so at least they tried to make up for it with better sex scenes.

Pleasure Rating: I Can’t Believe I Watched the Whole Thing
Had loads of potential both by following an amazing hentai with solid characters and drama already built up and by employing a multiple route gimmick and utterly wasting BOTH of those tools by producing something painfully mediocre.

Rewatchability: 3
I mean, at least the sex scenes aren’t bad.  You can totally rewatch those.

Music: Forgettable

Marketability: 1
The character designs actually have much less heart to them than the original.  Somehow, they managed to make them look MORE generic.

Class Reunion Again was just bad, bad, bad.  By itself it’s just below mediocre, but when you have to compare it to Class Reunion, it’s an utter disappointment.  It spits in the face of everything that made Class Reunion unique and seems to want to be its own thing.  Well y’know what?  It can totally do that by BEING ITS OWN THING!  Just… change all the characters and give them different names and designs!  That was pretty much halfway done already anyway.  Both episodes pretty much focused on Tatsuya and his love interest, with other members of the club being relegated to 2-3 lines.  They’re just there in the background and don’t seem to have lives of their own.  And I feel I have to reiterate: ESPECIALLY Makoto.  Hell, I don’t even think they mention ONCE that they were a tennis club.  At least in the original Class Reunion, they ACTUALLY PLAYED TENNIS during their reunion.

This didn’t appeal to anyone who enjoys a coherent plot, which is fine for a hentai.  But why make a sequel when you have no intention of appealing to fans of the original?  It wouldn’t have taken all that much effort, really!  Just finish the original story!  All the elements are in there!  And when you add the multiple routes thing Again uses, there are loads of possibilities!  This really could have been a great, unique thing, but instead it comes off as a scam to trick fans of Class Reunion into spending money on a different hentai with a sort of Class Reunion paint job.

The really funny thing is, another hentai anime that uses the multiple paths approach doesn’t come along until the Kansen series in 2009.  It’s a sort of zombie series that involves a virus that spread throughout the world.  The virus pretty much just turns everyone it spreads to into sex-starved maniacs instead of zombies.  It’s pretty dark.  Point is, despite the appeal and potential of a multiple path series, it’s not something that gets used often, and it’s a shame that the gimmick is wasted on the likes of Class Reunion Again.

And the frustrating part is that even though it feels like the property sold itself out to be more like the other hentai anime coming out in the era, it doesn’t sell itself out ENOUGH.  There are women in the series that don’t get sex scenes.  That’s just a waste.  If you’re going to spit on the standards set by the original, then by all means just… just put Midori, Kanoko, Makoto and Shizuka into random sex scenes.  Hell, make them all have sex with EACH OTHER.  At the same time.  THAT… still wouldn’t have saved Class Reunion Again, but it would have made it worthwhile.