A boy and a girl communicate almost entirely through arcade games, and somehow that becomes the most honest love story anime has ever told. The joke is that they never say what they actually mean, but the show understands every unsaid word. By the end, you realize the games were never the point, they were just the only language two people terrified of rejection could actually speak.

In 1996, Haruo Yaguchi, Akira Oono and Koharu Hidaka are second-year high school students, and video games still matter to them as much as they did five years earlier. The arcade rivalry and friendship that first brought them together have grown into something more. As the three try to make sense of feelings they do not yet understand, they lean on friends, deal with high school life, and find that a good game is still there for them when things get hard. Romance simmers beneath the surface as their connection moves beyond the joystick. The season continues the franchise's blend of comedy, drama and romance.