Imagine an after-school club comprised of no members with shared interests whatsoever; not sports, not academics, not music or video games, absolutely nothing in common with one another… that is, except for the fact that none of them has friends. Such is the plot of Haganai NEXT, where a couple of outcasts band together and form an organization to help them and other misfits improve their social standing. The results are middling but thankfully hilarious.

With ‘NEXT’ being the second season of this series, I first had to watch and understand the character dynamics set forth in season one. Each student brings a different flavor of solitude to the club; for example, one character is shunned by classmates because they believe his physical appearance is indicative of a violent personality, while his actually quite popular younger sister refuses to make friends, instead choosing to immerse herself in her fascination with a fictional vampire. My localization consequently took special care to ensure that each character elicited different sympathies from viewers while still keeping the club’s comedic absurdity intact.