Soap Opera II: Wind Calling

Soap Opera II: Wind Calling is a sequel anime to Soap Opera, supervised by the creator of the original show, and produced by Kyoto Animation. The title is an obvious nod to the recurring in-universe film series, "Wind Calling."

Unlike the movie, which took place in an alternate universe, this series serves as the direct continuation to the show's timeline. It was released 10 years after the initial run's conclusion, and is set 21 years after the original series' finale.

Much like the original, the series would end its run with 34 episodes, leaving the overall franchise at 68 total.

List of Episodes
See Soap Opera II: Wind Calling/List of Episodes

Animation
Soap Opera II is noted for having a much more refined/polished style than the former series, due to the animation now being done by Kyoto. This allowed for more fluidity and personality in the characters' movements.

Format
The revival picks up directly where "season 1" left off. "Directly," meaning it starts back up at the thirty-fifth overall episode. Instead of doing seasons, or flat-out abandoning the very concept, the show airs 6-12 episodes over three-month periods called "cours." An exec on the show even stated "It's still us. And we still hate seasons."

Finale
The series essentially ended in a similar fashion to how it began. That being Takashi and Ayumi chatting in a room, alone. The fourth and final cour serves as a prequel for a majority of its run, finally solving every mystery of what can now be called "the first season," and three out of the ten episodes were devoted to continuing and ending the story of the current series.

Film
A second movie, titled "Soap Opera Film 2: Wind Calling - 'Til We Meet Again," was originally planned as the theatrical finale of the first cour. However, it was scrapped in favor of a 1-hour special episode.

Takashi Miyake
Takashi is a 50 year-old family man, living with his wife Ayumi and his three daughters; Hiromi, Ami, and Haruka. Not in a studio apartment, but a full-blown house! He currently works on the writing staff at Bernard and Mana's film studio, Soup. Most notably, their two thousand episode anime series, "Wind Calling: A Soap Opera." As of the second cour, he becomes a film director, and, feeling that his life has only begun, he finds it hard to face the reality of retirement.

Ayumi Yamazaki-Miyake
49 year-old mother of three, and famous mangaka since the age of 20. In her time as an author/artist, she has produced three series that each ran for about ten years, each being collected into 50 volumes. By cour 2, she has retired and the toxically high expectations from her readers have been put on her eldest daughter.

Hiromi Miyake
Eldest daughter of the Miyakes, and indie webcomic artist. In the wake of her mother's retirement, she now has much bigger shoes to fill, and sets out on a quest to find her true self.

Haruka Miyake
Middle child, who would eventually make it big doing acting and voiceover work.

Ami Miyake
Youngest of the three sisters, and implied to be the least successful. She initially did commissioned artwork when she was 13 years old, and swore to not touch digital art for a long time after getting caught. This sends her on a long journey through different mediums and determining what does and doesn't work for her.

Bernard
Still wacky as ever, getting himself into zany, cartoonish scenarios. What grounds him this time around is his long-running anime series, 'Wind Calling,' based on his old indie films, and co-created by his wife/partner Mana.