Himawari! is a series with a lot of weird escalation going on. Another entry on the list of things from the 2000s nobody remembers, this particular one is especially cursed to be forgotten given it’s about a ninja named Himawari and therefore doomed to SEO oblivion at the hands of Boruto’s Dad’s daughter. The first season is alright, with the cast mostly just engaging in some low stakes shenanigans around their ninja school. And then season 2 escalates everything wildly.

After the reveal in the first season’s stringer of a Giant Ninja Airship that had somehow secretly been observing the cast the entire time, the second season opens with the sudden destruction of the boy’s ninja school and unexpectedly turns into a boss rush against a series of super powered evil ninjas. It’s a pretty drastic change of pace for a series which while not exactly grounded previously didn’t feel particularly over the top. The sudden change in stakes combined with the weirdly specific powersets of the enemy ninjas give the entire second season a strange feel. This is probably encapsulated best by one of the later episodes where Himeji is abducted by a band of “micro-ninjas” who then astrally project into her brain in order to burn away her memories with a sunlight powered laser beam. This show is weird.

The fact that this is all treated extremely matter of factly is definitely what sells it though. Nobody stops to question how absurd this all is and everyone astrally projects into the brain to fight the micro-ninjas, because of course they do. Once that’s dealt with the entire incident is never mentioned again.

This commitment to just rolling with the weirdness gives the show a flavour that definitely makes it more memorable than it otherwise would be. It’s solid enough as it is but I absolutely have to respect a series that can just pull micro-ninjas out of nowhere. There’s also a girl who constantly makes forced animal comparisons so that’s fun.