Time travel becomes an excuse for slapstick instead of the plot, and that's exactly the point. SHAFT's visual chaos wraps around comedy that lands because it commits fully to absurdity, then pulls you sideways with genuine affection between characters who have no reason to care about each other. The show knows it's lighter than Season 1, it leans into that, abandoning mystery for the messier, funnier work of watching a ghost and her linked boy navigate summer the way anyone else would, except with supernatural slapstick and a best friend watching from the sidelines with increasingly dubious expressions.

Yasaka Hajime's summer continues, and so does his bond with Arashiyama Sayoko, the ghost of a young woman from the World War II era who is linked to him. At the Hakobune Café, two newer staff members, Fushimi Yayoi and Yamazaki Kanako, are ghosts from that same period, and they settle in quickly, making the already strange days at work even livelier. The ghost girls and their linked partners keep having adventures, getting to know one another better and using their supernatural connection to move through time. Hajime still hopes his feelings for Sayoko will go somewhere, while a friend his own age, a girl passing herself off as a boy, wants his attention too. His happiness takes a blow when he learns that Sayoko may vanish once summer ends. The result is a blend of comedy, fantasy and romance.