Akatsuki and Yukina's relationship stops pretending to be subplot and becomes the reason you care about anything that happens. The show finally lets the romance breathe instead of burying it under action sequences, and every moment between them hits because you've spent two seasons watching them orbit each other. This is what happens when an ecchi action series stops apologizing for wanting you to feel something real about two people who refuse to admit how much they need each other.

Strike the Blood returns for a second season as an eight-episode OVA released in 2016. It adapts three story arcs drawn from the ninth, eleventh and twelfth volumes of the light novels. The franchise centers on Akatsuki Kojou, the Fourth Primogenitor, a vampire of legendary power, and Himegari Yukina, an apprentice Sword Shaman sent to Itogami City's Demon District to keep watch over him. Expect action, fantasy and supernatural battles, with a helping of ecchi.