New Game!! – Episode 12 (END) – An Emotional Farewell, For Now.

With PECO’s development finally finished, Kou reveals her intentions that Rin is afraid about. Yes, Kou is planning to leave.

Before getting to the emotional part of the finale, there is the master build party. After Kou went on stage sharing the art direction of the new game, she introduces Aboa to come on the stage. While she is nervous, she did most of the character designs for the game after all.

Before the event even happened, Rin found out the truth from Kou and her fears have become true. Kou is actually leaving to work at a game company in France. Of course, Rin is not happy, especially the next day when she announced it. The company in question is in fact the same company where Christina’s sister is working at.

In reality, Kou is not actually leaving Eagle Jump forever. She plans to work in a French video game company to gain more experience. She feels that she isn’t getting anywhere in terms of her own skill. It’s not surprising why everyone becomes surprised since Kou is important to the company. Despite being surprised or even upset by the decision, everyone eventually accepts her decision.

After they celebrated Kou’s farewell party, the girls heads home. Meanwhile, a drunk Rin finally becomes upset and shows her true feelings. She doesn’t want Kou to go to France after all despite wanting to support her. It’s not surprising since she wants to be by her side forever.

Thankfully, Kou finally realizes that Rin looked after her all this time and she took it for granted. She makes a promise to Rin for her to continue to look after Kou in a heartwarming moment. With that, Rin should feel better now, especially since her lover is not going away forever.

A week later, Aoba comes to work early. It seems that despite thanking Kou last week, she still hasn’t say everything to her. Thankfully, Momo realizes this and encourages her to see her off. I am glad that Momo gains an initiative to do so since Aoba is able to show her true feelings.

Momo and Aoba finally arrives at the airport on time. Aoba shares her true feelings to Kou. She thinks that Kou is a selfish boss for leaving even if she is the face of the company. Aoba also asks why Kou wants to leave for France when she is already great. Thankfully, Kou reveals to Aoba that she wants to become better. After seeing Aoba work so hard, she felt that she can’t simply become complacent. This can explain why she wants to go overseas to expand her skills. Hopefully, Aoba won’t fall behind while Kou is away.

In the end, it’s nice to see everyone saying farewell at the airport to Kou before she leaves. Obviously, it’s not going to be easy for Kou because of the language barrier. I still think that she will make it since she is up for the challenge. Either way, it’s not goodbye forever as she makes a promise to everyone that she will eventually return. Either way, Rin tells Momo that she passed. Yep, Kou seems to have forgotten to tell Momo this and it’s not surprising.

Final Impressions

I have to admit that the second season of New Game is what the first season is, but many times better. The girls worked harder this time around, especially Aoba designing most of the characters and Hifumi becoming a team leader. Even Nene decides to take a career in coding, which is nice. While the new characters gave mixed reactions to some people, I eventually warmed up to them. Of course, the drama was handled nicely since game development rarely goes smoothly.

While it’s sad that there is not that many moments between Hifumi and Aoba, at least the others met expectations. Yun and Hajime in particular received the development they deserve. They not only go on one date, but two and they are almost look like a couple. Of course, Umiko and Nene receives some focus as well as they grow closer. At least everyone got some time to shine. In short, the second season is very enjoyable. While it will be awhile until a third season will come, hopefully we will see one in the future. ¶