The Rascal Doesn't Dream series (青春ブタ野郎) returns with a new TV anime in July of 2025, Rascal Doesn't Dream of Santa Claus. Before watching it there is a 12 episode original TV series and 3 separate theatrical movies that came before. Its a highly suggested to watch all of those before diving in, but movies 2 and 3 are not exactly available in English. What follows is an overview of the story up to the point the new TV series begins.
It goes without saying, there are going to be some significant spoilers! Be warned and turn back if you don't want things spoiled.
Perhaps to convince you not to spoil things, the first movie has the most shocking thing I can remember experiencing in any anime...so if you've not seen it, maybe
click on this link instead?
Rascal Doesn't Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai is a 13 episode TV series from 2018 that's split into 5 different arcs. Each arc covers the contents of a different light novel.
Episodes 1-3, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai arc, light novel volume 1.
We are introduced to our protagonist and narrative character Azusagawa Sakuta. He is a second year student at Minegahara High School and mostly keeps to himself. He encounters a strange sight at the public library, an upper class-man dressed in a revealing bunny girl costume, trying to get peoples attention. He's the only one that sees her, which she figures out and leaves after briefly exchanging words. The girl is the nationally recognized and famous child actor Sakurajima Mai. The following day he sees her on the way to school and asks his friend Kunimi Yuma, who confirms that he can see her. After intervening in some casual harassment at the train station, Mai opens up to Sakuta about what shes been struggling with. She has been on hiatus from work due to personal reasons, which his kept her out of the public eye. She started school late and was unable to form any friend groups, partially due to her celebrity status,. Lately these circumstances has been leading to people around her having a difficult time perceiving her existence.
Sakuta sympathizes with her strange situation. He refers to it as adolescent syndrome. He experienced a similar situation with his younger sister, Kaede. Two years earlier, she had succumbed to adolescent syndrome due to bullying at school. The mental anguish manifested its self in bruises covering her body. Frustrated about his inability to help her, Sakuta became stricken with adolescent syndrome as well, developing what can only be described as, fresh claw marks from a bear across his chest. The strain of the problem with no clear resolution, pushes their mother into hysteria. In order to help her heal, Sakuta convinces their father to let he and Kaede live on their own while everyone heals, moving to a nearby town. Kaede has physically recovered but has become agoraphobic in the process and spends her days at home.
Sakuta promises Mai he will do everything he can to help her overcome her problem. He begins to consult his only other friend, Futaba Rio, about the problem. She is level headed and extremely intelligent and does her best to explain Mai's super natural circumstances from a scientific perspective. She offers suggestions for how to tackles the problem, even if shes not convinced its real. In the end, everyone continues to forget that Mai exists. After spending a sleepless night in a hotel, far from their home, Sakuta fears that he will forget her the next time he wakes, given Rio, the only other person who acknowledges her, did just that. Without telling Mai that he has no solution, he forces himself to remain awake for many days in a row. Mai realizes whats going on and what it represents, caring more for his health, hoping that in his heart he will remember her again. She slips him sleeping medicine during a study session and when he wakes the next morning he does not remember Mai. All the remains is a notebook of his experiences from the past month, with Mai's identity blurred out. A sudden sense of familiarity brings the memories of her flooding back, Fearing that hes too late he decides the best way to reverse the damage is to force everyone at school to acknowledge her existence. During exams he runs out to the sports field and proclaims his love for Mai to the astonished student body at the top of his lungs. His ploy works and his love for her shocks everyone out of their stupor. Mai once again can be seen by those around them.
Episodes 4-6, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Petite Devil Kohai arc, light novel volume 2.
A month after Sakutas' love saved Mai from disappearing, they are having lunch together and he has reached her deadline to ask her to go out with him. She didn't want to be swayed by emotion on the day she was saved and gave him a cooling off period. When he presses her for her answer she sheepishly accepts his love and they become an official couple. But then he wakes up and repeats the day again. When he asks Rio about it, she brings up the idea of Laplace's demon, where someone is consciously resetting the world for an unknown reason. He quickly zeroes in on an underclassman named Koga Tomoe. She seems to be avoiding a senior on the basketball team from asking her out. On one of the loops, when confronting Tomoe about it, his lunch plans with Mai are altered and instead both she and the senior find Sakuta and Tomoe in an awkward situation. Sakuta's hopes of repeating the day and erasing this problem are dashed when he finally wakes up to the following day.
Tomoe suggests that they pretend to date to protect her from the upper class-man and as a way to prevent more loops. The leader of her friend group has a crush on him, she does not, and struggles to prevent any turmoil with her friend over the boy. Sakuta reluctantly agrees, but struggles with how to talk to Mai about, given how upset she is with him at the moment. She approaches him first and is more mad that he wasn't willing to talk to her about everything at first. When he explains the plan as a way to help her overcome adolescent syndrome, she reluctantly agrees to go along with the fake relationship, given its only supposed to be until Summer break.
Tomoe and Sakuta work hard to convince everyone they really are going out. Summer arrives and they spend one last fake date together, parting ways as friends. But Sakuta wakes up to redo the same day again and again and again. After conferring with Rio again he is determined to make Tomoe tell him the truth, hoping to break this loop of regret that has dug in. She admits that she has fallen in love with him and wanted to work at making him fall in love with her. He convinces her that it will never happen and he wants to be friends, breaking the spell and setting them both back all the way to the first day of the time loop, the day he asks Mai to date him. Mai agrees to his request and live moves forward as it should. But there is trouble brewing when they encounter a young girl named Makinohara Shoko and Sakuta offers to care for an abandoned kitten she has.
Episodes 7 & 8, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Logical Witch arc, light novel volume 3.
Sakuta agrees to take care of the kitten until Shoko can get permission to adopt it from her parents, leading the girl to visit his house often. The problem is that an older girl, who was there for Sakuta at his lowest moment during his adolescent syndrome, shares the young girls name and appearance. Mai, who knows the story, is concerned that this girl may be a link to her boyfriends first love, a connection deeper with him than the one she currently has. She is concerned that he would leave her if this older Shoko turned up, just as her love for him is settling in. That problem is pushed to the side as a more pressing matter presents its self. In an effort to figure out whats going on with a younger version of his first love, he reaches out to Rio again for help. Unfortunately Rio is occupied with her own problem, in the form of a doppelganger. Rio has been avoiding her clone by staying away from home, fearful of what may happen if they interact, suspecting something akin to matter meeting anti-matter. Instead of letting her stay in seedy manga cafes, Sakuta invites her to stay at his place while they work through her adolescent syndrome. This leads Mai to also stay at his place, not exactly trusting him with Rio. Side note, Mai lives across the street from Sakuta and Kaede.
As he struggles to understand the reason behind the appearance of a second Rio, Yuma's girlfriend Kamisato Saki, approaches Sakuta about some concerns. This takes him by surprise, as Saki has nothing but contempt and hatred for her boyfriends friend...due to his own status in school affecting her status. She has stumbled upon a concerning social media profile that appears to be Rio, where she is posting progressively explicit photos of her body. Saki also wants to understand what Rio's relationship with Yuma is, sensing its far more than friends. Sakuta brushes off the accusations of Rio liking Yuma, which is true, and focuses on what Rio is doing online, thanking his mortal enemy for the help. He confronts both versions of Rio about the posts. Rio admits that she began it in middle school but has only begun recently posting the more provocative images. Rio is a serious and studios person who developed earlier and drew a lot of unwanted attention from the boys in school and in public, due to her...mature physique. She admits that beginning the account and posting the images is a form of self hatred and self harm, as she struggles with her own image and the unwanted attention. Her assumption of anonymity is shattered when someone direct messages her, explaining how he knows what area she lives in and offers to meet up. This spookes her and forces Sakuta to stay with her in her empty home while she calms down.
While the 'real' Rio is staying at his house, he is trying to comfort the copy. He learns that Rio has lead a mostly isolated life, with her parents never home and really not being cut out to be parents. Rio is struggling with being left alone again since he and Yuma both have girlfriends. She is also struggling with her feelings for Yuma, something she took too long to act on and avoided for fear of ruining their friendship. In order to prove that nothings changed between the three of them he calls Yuma in the middle of the night and tells him to meet them asap. While there is no immediate emergency, Yuma is far from angry and the three friends set of fireworks at the beach and watch the sun rise, promising to come back to watch fireworks during the summer festival. Content that her uncertainty is currently pacified, he has the two Rio's talk to each other on the phone, breaking the syndrome and resetting them into one whole.
Episodes 9 & 10, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Siscon Idol arc, light novel volume 4.
The summer ends and so does Sakuta's ability to spend time with his girlfriend. When her agency learns of his existence, they forbid her from being seen in public with him. Things go from bad to worse on the first day of the new semester when he runs into Mai and she acts like she doesn't know him. In fact, it not Mai at all. Instead its her half sister, aspiring pop idol, Toyohama Nodoka. Before things become messy, the real Mai arrives, inside of Nodoka's body. Nodoka ran away from home and decided to stay with her estranged older sister. She wasn't prepared for adolescent syndrome to rear its ugly head and complicate her situation. Mai's parents divorced when she was very young, with her father marrying the woman he was cheating with and soon Nodoka was born. Mai's mother, who eventually became her agent, used her daughters fame as a way to attack her father for his betrayal. Nodoka's mother decided to force the younger half sibling into the spot light as a way to exact revenge. The girls have struggled with being pawns in the bitter struggle ever since.
The strained relationship has led to them not exactly being like sisters, with Nodoka's mother pushing her to compete against Mai, who has achieved an enviable level of fame and success. When Mai retired in middle school, Nodoka though it would finally be her turn to shine, since her mother couldn't compare her to the older girl. She has found middling success as part of an idol group called Sweet Bullet. When Mai announced that she would be resuming her career the strain on Nodoka returned and the stress lead to their current predicament. Unsure what it will take to reverse the problem or how long it will take, Mai concocts a plan for them to take on the duties of the other for the time being. This means a grueling rehearsal schedule for Mai to be able to perform the choreography and singing for an upcoming Sweet Bullet concert. Nodoka only has a commercial shoot of Mai's to contend with so her stress should be less. Unfortunately, Nodoka is not prepared to take on the enormous and hidden responsibility that her sister handles with grace.
Nodoka struggles with the commercial shoot while Mai pours everything into perfecting the routine for the upcoming concert. The problem is still unresolved and when Mai outperforms her, earning glowing praise from her mother, Nodoka reaches a breaking point. Mai has been dropping hints to Sakuta about what might be the cause of the switch and fearing that Nodoka might take drastic measures with the body of the girl he loves, he decides to step in once and for all. In a last ditch effort to assure her that Mai does not hate her, he shows her a box containing all of the fan letters Nodoka has sent over the years. The sisters connect in a way they never have before, admitting their deep love and respect for each other. This snaps the syndrome and they return to their true selves. Nodoka confronts her mother and decides to move in with Mai for the time being, so she can refocus her efforts on her own career, for herself.
Episodes 11-13, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Home Alone arc, light novel volume 5.
Unfortunately Mai and Sakuta's relationship is leaked to the press and Mai has to admit it publicly during a press conference for an upcoming movie she is in. She asks the public to be respectful of her boyfriends privacy and in a twist, the internet rallies behind her, working to fight any unbecoming behavior. This inspires Kaede to begin working on improving her own situation. She puts together a to-do list of steps that she hopes will help her rejoin the outside world. Sakuta, Mai and Nodoka encourage and support her as much as they can, while working hard to not push her too hard. Her situation is fragile as she is struggling with the guilt of being closed off from society for the past few years. The struggle is momentous for her, as the trauma from middle school haunts her, making interacting with others almost impossible.
Little by little Kaede achieves her goals, eventually making it outside and halfway to her school, with her brothers patient help. The four of them take a trip to the beach but their progress recedes when Kaede's childhood friend Kano Kotomi runs into them. This encounter causes Kaede to shut down and leave everyone bewildered and saddened. Sakuta reveals the truth about Kaede to Mai, Nodoka and Kotomi. Kaede's adolescent syndrome never truly went away. The trauma from the experience caused her to have dissociative amnesia. The Kaede they see before them is not the same Kaede from before the incident. It is a secret that Sakuta has regrettably kept from Mai this entire time. While in the hospital, Kaede woke up one day and didn't know who she was or who her family was. The shock of the amnesia drove their mother to her break down, leading Sakuta to move away and care for his sister the best he could. Uncertain if her memory would ever return, Sakuta set out to make this new Kaede feel loved and welcomed, creating the strong bond we see between them.
Kotomi returns a book the old Kaede had loaned her, a note in it triggers something in Kaede and causes panic, resulting in some of her lost memories to return. Kaede pushes on, trying to return to school, but an attempt to enter the school its self fails when she panics upon encountering other girls in the same uniform. In order to prevent regression, Sakuta takes her on a trip to Ueno zoo to see the panda exhibit, encouraging her to keep fighting. As they return home in the evening he tricks her and they arrive at the empty school building. She builds up the courage to continue and is determined to succeed in another attempt in the morning. But that morning never comes for Kaede as when she wakes up all of her memories have returned and the past two years as the new version of her are only a gap in time and memory.
Kaede goes to the hospital for an examination and their father arrives to work with the doctors on whats next for her healing. The weight of the sudden change crushes down on Sakuta as he morns the loss of the new Kaede. His old scar reopens and he collapses in the hospital. As if summoned by his great need, the older Shoko appears and nurses him at home. While he recovers in the bath she reads a diary that the new Shoko had been keeping as a way to establish her existence. Shoko leaves the Sakuta, leaving him a good bye note. Mai, unable to be there due to work, finds him recovering in the morning. But storms out when she reads the note left by the older Shoko. Still recovering from his episode, he chases after her, following her hours away to the location shes filming at, spending the last moments of her birthday with her, apologizing for not leaning on her in his time of need. After saving his relationship, he returns to Kaede, knowing the old Kaede is going to need as much help from him as the new Kaede did.
First Movie, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl & Rascal Does Not Dream of His First Love arcs, light novels volume 6 and volume 7.
Mai is still upset with Sakuta about the sudden reappearance of his first love, the older Shoko. Kaede continues to check into the hospital due to the reversal of her amnesia, during one visit Sakuta learns that the younger Shoko has been battling a congenital heart defect her entire life. Young Shoko is beginning to fail and needs a transplant as soon as possible. Sakuta figures out that his wound and older Shoko are tied and seem to be manifesting from adolescent syndrome the younger Shoko is experiencing. He deduces that the older Shoko is a future version of her, who survived after receiving a transplant. When he confronts her about this, she admits that the heart she received is his. He was killed in a traffic accident on Christmas Eve while he was meeting with Mai for a date.
Unable to break the horrible truth to Mai, he tries to prevent this from happening, only to have Mai take his place in the accident. She learned of his plan and took it upon herself to prevent his death, not wanting to face a world without him. The loss of Mai in his place utterly devastates Sakuta. Rio and Yuma come to his rescue as the media has figured out where he lives and public opinion is switching to blaming him for the death of their beloved Mai. Before all hell can break out at his apartment building they spirit him away to hide in Rio's house. Sakuta is a shell, unfeeling, unobservant. Until he is snapped out of his catatonia during the broadcast of Mai's public memorial. It breaks him further and he refuses to believe that she is dead, fleeing into the outside world, desperate for something to hold onto to make it better. In his desperation, older Shoko finds him and comforts him as best she can, admitting to him that she has the ability to time travel. He begs her to send him back so that he can make it right, restore Mai to her rightful place on the planet. She agrees, sadly understanding the outcome.
Sakuta finds himself back to Christmas Eve, but is unstuck from reality. No one can see him and he can't interact with anything to any real degree. He decides to take a chapter from the Sakurajima Mai playbook and dons a crazy bunny costume, hoping that such an obvious outfit will cause someone in the world to see him, to acknowledge he exists. His efforts almost fail until an unexpected friend see's him...Tomoe. He rushes to Mai, over come with joy that she is still alive and tells her about what happened. They struggle to come up with a plan that will save Shoko without either of them dying. Sakuta is faced with having to choose who loves between Shoko or Mai, something he's unwilling to do. Before the fateful night they realize a plan. Older Shoko returns and tells Sakuta that she understands what's going on and has come up with a way to save everyone but it will mean everything changes with their past and the circumstances behind Mai and Sakuta meeting will not take place. They agree, firm in the belief that their love will overcome time and space its self.
The change happens many years earlier, a young Mai decides to turn down a role in a horror film, choosing instead to take a role in a story about a young girl in need of a transplant. The success of the movie encourages a surge in people becoming organ donors. This influx of donors leads to Shoko getting the heart she needs without Sakuta or Mai needing to die. Their bond survives the change and they find each other once again, returning to their proper place, deeply in love and looking ahead to a bright future. They encounter young Shoko, who is healthy and happy and recognize a deep connection with the girl, even though Shoko is the only one who knows the trials they all went through.
Second Movie, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out, light novel volume 8.
Kaede is working hard to return to society. Everything has been overwhelming for her since she returned. She needed to be reintroduced to all of the people that have gathered around Sakuta since they moved away from home. In turn they all need to learn about the version of Kaede who they did not know. Even though she has not been able to attend school, her final year of middle school is rapidly approaching and she needs to decide what she will do moving forward. She is adamant about enrolling in Minegahara high school, the same as Sakuta. But her guidance counselor is not sure if that is the correct choice for her. Kaede is still unable to attend school and rarely ventures out of the safety of their apartment.
After Mai's graduation, she digs into Sakuta to begin studying hard for his college entrance exam. They have agreed to enroll in the same school, with Mai taking a year off. Even though shes taking a year off she is taking her entrance exam early to get it out of the way. She also wants this to be encouragement for Sakuta , who is less than studious. Seeing this, Kaede's confidence builds and Mai, Sakuta and Nodoka all take turns tutoring her. Kaede's guidance counselor has Sakuta join her at a seminar for a remote high school, not convinced Kaede should force herself to attend Minegahara. At the seminar he realizes that one of the students during a testimonial is a member of the idol group Sweet Bullet. Sakuta feels this is a better option for his sister but only wants to encourage her in what she wants.
She succeeds at taking the entrance exam for high school but midway through she panics and retreats to the safety of the nurses office until he is called to pick her up. She is upset that she let everyone down and was unable to complete the exam, throwing away her chance to achieve her goals. As she breaks down she begins to accuse everyone of wanting the new Kaede instead of her. Sakuta realizes that she has been reading the diary kept by that version of herself and is trying to become the other Kaede. The stress she is placing on her self is causing her adolescent syndrome bruises to return. He tries to reassure her that she and the other her are the same person, even if she can't remember that point in time. He encourages her to try and go for the remote school instead of Minegahara. He fears that she will be unnecessarily punishing herself, trying to fulfill the desires of the new Kaede, instead of following her own goals.
Sakuta arranges for Kaede to meet with Nodoka's band mate, Hirokawa Uzuki, the girl from the testimonial. Zukky takes to them immediately and explains that she was shut off from her peer group due to her idol work and her inability to read the room. It caused her to stop going to school for a long time, with her only support network being the rest of the idol group. She is grateful that her mother found the online school and encourages Kaede to enroll, saying it's a great environment for people like her. Before she can decide what to do she learns that she passed the exam for Minegahara, largely due to so many kids pulling their applications afterwards due to fear of failing to enroll. Facing with a choice suddenly, she decides to enroll in the online school and work at being outside at her own pace.
Third movie, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Knapsack Girl, light novel volume 9.
Sakuta dreams of an elementary school version of Mai, a figment he saw once before, on the day of her graduation. Upon waking he discovers a scar he did not previously have, leading from his belly button to his side. One evening while Mai is tutoring him, she produces a marriage certificate and has him sign it. She signs it as well and tells him she will hold onto it until its time to turn it in. She is using it as a carrot to dangle before him so that he studies harder. Before she leaves, he shows her the new scar. The following day he consults Rio about it. He wonders if he is in an alternate timeline again, similar to what he experienced when he was helping Shoko. After he saved her and time changed, he did not experience the traumatic wounds and bleeding, which were linked to her heart transplant. This new scar has him worried another form of adolescent syndrome is taking hold.
He receives a call from his father who tells him that their mother is well enough and would like to have dinner with them. They agree and the siblings heads off to see their mother for the first time in years. Their parents had moved into a different apartment so everything feels unfamiliar. The meal is warming and Kaede and their mother instantly repair the bond that was severed when she suffered amnesia. Kaede spends the night but Sakuta heads back home, using needing to care for the cat as an excuse. The next day while in school he realizes that no one perceives him. Panicked, he tries to contact Mai, but the phone does not respond to his efforts. He once again finds himself in a situation where he is not connected to the world and tries to repeat things that have worked in the past. he travels back to his parents house only to be ignored by his mother and Kaede as they go shopping. He stands in the apartment, a ghost, as the rest of the family remains oblivious to his presence. He looks through his mothers diary and realizes he is absent from it, only mentioning a family of three people.
Distraught, understanding he no longer has a place in the world, he returns home and finds himself at the beach. Once again he comes face to face with the elementary school version of Mai. She tells him that she can help him return to his home and they board a train. When he wakes he is back in his childhood bedroom with Kaede waking him up for school. He finds himself in a world where nothing bad happened and everything good is still happening. Kaede was able to overcome her bullying in middle school. Sakuta, even though he's still at home, enrolled at Minegahara. Yet one thing concerns him. A fellow student from middle school is in his class, the old class rep Akagi Ikumi. This snaps him out of the dream and he knows he doesn't belong in this perfect world. He isn't the one that made it so he shouldn't reap its rewards. He returns to the beach, finding young Mai again and asks her to return him to his world.
Back in his proper place, with all of the problems, he still needs to rebuild his connection to everyone around him. He notices a message in his journal from what he deduces is the version of him from the other world, telling him to straighten out his live before its too late. In a final attempt to connect with the one person that he matters to, he slips a letter into Mai's mailbox. When she returns home from filming she finds the letter and comes to him in his apartment, reassuring him that he is here and he is loved by those around him. The next morning he returns to his parents apartment and visits his mother in the hospital. Something sparks and she suddenly recognizes him, allowing him to reform his bond with her and fully return to the world.
And that's pretty much where we leave off, leading into the college arc that begins with the tenth volume of the light novel series, Rascal Does Not Dream of a Lost Singer. This part of the story will be picked up with the second TV series, beginning in July of 2025. A year has passed and Sakuta has graduated, is attending college with Mai in Yokohama, while still living in Fujisawa with Kaede. Kaede is gradually able to venture into the outside world and is doing well with remote learning in her new high school. But there is concern lurking in the background. There is a woman who has been gaining popularity through music videos she is uploading to the net. The music is haunting and has gained a lot of popularity. The woman is known as Kirishima Toko and Sakuta feels there is some connection with her. He has been introduced to her music a few times since Shoko reset the world, leading him to think her rise in popularity is tied to them rewriting the past.
The length of the second season is unknown at the time or writing. I suspect it will be 12 or 13 episodes and might possibly cover all of the college arch. The light novel series concluded with the 15th volume, the of which 14 and 15 are not yet available in English. It is likely that if the TV series does not cover all of it we will receive at least one last movie. Enjoy the journey and read the light novels as well as absorb the anime.
