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Dated 4 March 2019: W'z is the Hand Shakers sequel I never knew I wanted

Yukiya
Totally normal background.

To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure I want a Hand Shakers sequel, and I'm already nine episodes into it. In any case, nobody else seemed to know ahead of time that W'z was going to be a sequel until after the first episode aired. Even now, it's unclear to me whether GoHands specifically hid this information or were just really bad at promoting the show. I suppose I could have guessed, since W'z shares the extremely garish 3DCG style found in Hand Shakers, although I find it much less visually jarring now than I did in winter of 2017. Whether this is because the franchise's aesthetic has improved or whether I've just developed a tolerance for it, I have no idea. The way the show looks is pretty much the only reason why I'm watching it, incidentally. I certainly don't care for the setting or the plot or the characters.

Haruka
You are way overreacting, Haruka.

In fact, there's not even much of a cohesive plot to speak of through nine episode. There are some unifying themes, and a number of points that the show continues to re-emphasize, but nothing I consider engaging. The characters are about what you ought to expect, if you remember how they were in Hand Shakers, although there are some semi-amusing changes to a few of them that occurred during the timeskip between the two shows. As far as the new characters go, well, Haruka is doing nothing to make herself endearing. The dumb side plot about her unspoken feelings for Potato-kun is crap and does W'z no favors. She's been entirely dead weight. I'm watching W'z so you don't have to, but if you're at all curious about what this, uh, visually arresting show is like, absolutely start by watching Hand Shakers first. It might be WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS but at least it doesn't have Haruka.