Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus (青春ブタ野郎はサンタクロースの夢を見ない) is a 13 episode continuation of the Rascal Does Not Dream light novel series by . The series covers light novels volume 9 through 13 and aired during the Summer of 2025.
Azusagawa Sakuta has begun his perfect college life with his older girlfriend Sakurajima Mai, one of Japans most beloved actors. As they enter into adulthood they struggle to escape the complicated world of adolescence. Right away strange things begin to occur around him, evidence of people he meets suffering from adolescent syndrome, a supernatural manifestation of internal stresses around growing up. Unlike the issues he dealt with in high school, the new problems he works to solve seem to be centering around a strange woman dressed in a mini skirt Santa outfit calling herself Kirishima Touko. In the past year, Kirishima has been uploading haunting songs on the internet that have been gaining traction. Sakuta is the only one who can see the mini skirt Santa, a form of adolescent syndrome he suspects is similar to what Mai went through when they first met. She tells him that she is handing out presents to everyone around him, various forms of adolescence syndrome, that deeply concern the compassionate Sakuta.
As Sakuta works through the new cases of stress and uncertainty around the new people he comes into contact with, elements from his past return to warn him of a threat to the most important thing in his life, Mai. A version of him from a more idyllic reality, warns him that unless he is able to stop Kirishima, Mai is in danger. As he helps resolve each related adolescent syndrome he digs deeper into the psyche of the mysterious woman who threatens his love and happiness. Could the unidentifiable songstress have a strong enough jealousy over Mai that she is able to super charge the stresses of those she comes into contact with? An internet phenomenon around prophetic dreams begins to reveal to extent of the threat to Mai and other around him as he tries to get Kirishima to open up to him about her motivations.
The 'long awaited' continuation of the Rascal Doesn't Dream franchise does not disappoint. With the exception of one thing...the bungled release in North America. The original 12 episode series was followed by three theatrical releases, all of which cover the first eight light novels. The story is progressive and interconnected and the second and third movies were not available legally for English speaking audiences until a few episodes into the broadcast of the second series. This means that most audiences, who missed the opportunity over a two day period over a year earlier to see those movies in the theater, were missing vital contextual information. Events specifically in the third movie directly relate to a lot of the central plot of the Santa Claus series, particularly the existence and Sakuta's interaction with the other version of his world. Fortunately, those movies were eventually made available for streaming, so people who had not seen them before nor read the light novels, could catch up with what was going on.
The mistake and issues for English speaking audiences aside, this series does exactly what we should expect. With out a change to the aesthetics or delivery it flawlessly continues the story of Sakuta and his efforts to help those around him overcome their misgiving and hesitations. The story does a good job of translating what appears in the light novels, as it has done in the previous adaptations. The only real complaint is...were not done. There are still two light novels that needs to be animated and Santa Claus ends in a bit of a cliff hanger. As we have seen in the past, it will probably be a while for those to more than likely be turned into at least one movie...and then become available for English speaking audiences. The only resolution is for everyone to at least jump into the light novel series for those last two parts of the story. Though...its a great idea for fans of the anime to read all of the light novels as there are aspects of the story that are interesting that they had to omit from the anime, for understandable reasons. For more details on that, check out the series of review on the Rascal Doesn't Dream light novels. Either way, I am very pleased with the results so far and eagerly await the finale of this story being animated!
The series is available on Crunchyroll.
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