The animation jumps to HD and suddenly you're seeing every small gesture the girls make, every blink and smile landing exactly where it needs to. The non-linear storytelling doesn't obstruct the episodes, it lets you live in their ordinary moments from every angle, filling in gaps season one left behind, turning the whole thing into a living collage of what it actually feels like to be young and close to people. This is what comfort anime does when it stops pretending plot matters and just watches four girls exist together in a cramped dorm, perfectly.

Yuno has finally made it into Yamabuki Art High School and lives in the Hidamari Apartments, a small building just across from campus. She shares it with her lively classmate Miyako and two second-year students: Hiro, who is a wonderful cook, and Sae, a reliable novelist. Each episode spends a day with them, their classmates and their very excitable teachers. This second season skips a straight chronological order. Rather than simply moving past Yuno's first year, it fills in moments before, after and between the events already shown, so the whole thing builds up like a growing collage of everyday school life. Comedy and slice of life sit side by side, with plenty of quiet warmth among the friends.