Oregairu 1.1

I cannot believe anime this good exists. Claymore was good, Bebop and Champloo were better, Eva is about the best, but Oregairu is right up there. It leaves almost all the anime I've seen far behind. I am still in shock and awe. So much so that I'm going to write on every episode. Can this be real? How can anime writing be this good? And so on proceed my thoughts as I'm watching.

Oregairu understands and explores alienation, insecurity, social cruelty, fear, and how these all intertwine in relationships - and it does this better than anything I've seen in a long, long time; it probes the ways we project ourselves and seek to dominate, or self-efface, retreat and hide, raising shields and walls against the hostile other, all with one common denominator: to fly genuine human connection. Oregairu enfleshes what it is to be a lonely, smart, social outcast; and it points the way out. It's never preachy (something I can't abide in art) but it will often say the truth in such simple ways that you're staggered, such as when Hikigaya describes the behavior of a bright, extroverted, very pretty, fun girl - every man's dream - as an armored shell designed to ward people off; or when he describes the ways lonely boys so easily mistake the kind attentions of nice girls for romantic interest. Simple, clear enlightenment.

Again and again the fear of genuine relation appears throughout the series. Eva dwelt on that at length, in excruciating, horrific detail; likewise, Oregairu presents it as a problem in a way that Clannad never did. Notably, there are no role models for flourishing human relationships, which is odd, since those are precisely that which above all make life worth living. Children have no relationships with their parents (or if they do, with one exception, they are awful, destructive relationships), nobody is depicted in love, and those who struggle for friendship have a tendency rip the other apart as often as they show them love - even more so as romance becomes a possibility within a friendship. The potential for relational destruction seems infinite - and it is. Since human relationality is a necessary corollary to the rational nature of man, to avoid it seems to be a rejection of who we are and were meant to be. Such rejections are never made from a place of reasoned detachment, only from past pain. What can equal the pain of being ripped apart by someone you thought a close friend? the rejecting contempt of someone you loved and thought loved you? Those are the sorts of experiences that raise the interior wall of Jericho, and Oregairu explores how one might lower them. 

The pilot opens with an cynical, contemptuous monologue, in which truth and falsehood are (by the writers) ingeniously wound together. The monologue's author, Hachiman Hikigaya, has a penetrating gaze, and sees a lot of the falsity that lies behind a life of celebrating youth; the mindless seeking of varied experiences instead of wisdom (he singles out lies, secrets, sins, and failures), of heedlessly accepting failure ("the hallmark of being young!") while refusing to think through the more sinister implications: "If failure is the hallmark of being young, then someone who has failed to make friends [i.e. Hachiman Hikigaya himself] must be at the peak of his youth." A blithe, saccharine, "I'm-okay-you're-okay, yolo" seems to be something like what he's excoriating. He despises mindlessness, and his school seems to exemplify mindlessness. 

Just because it illuminates a few truths about high school society, however, does not make it a masterpiece. It is a sneering, contemptuous piece of suffered alienation (like Holden's conversations in Catcher in the Rye) and his teacher, not wrongly, shreds it as "worthless drivel." This launches him into his meeting with Yukino Yukinoshita, who seems to be his immediate, albeit complementary rather than mathematical, equal in intellect, wit, and loneliness.

Like him, she has no friends, though being an attractive girl, gets plenty of unwanted male attention. She takes immediate delight in sparring with Hikigaya, and is as ruthless as possible in said matches. She uses words as venomous weapons and enjoys using them to rip people apart, especially since much of what she says is completely true. A perfect example of loveless truth. Both of them have articulate views of the world; according to Yukino, "The human race is weak, ugly, jealous, and hate those with more than them," which she has amply experienced by being pretty, and thus the frequent object of male lust and envy-inspired female hostility. She is clearly intelligent, and argues that "the talented (i.e. herself) "have it rough." She is not content to retreat from all things, but wants to "change the world and everyone in it." What that means exactly I don't know, and I doubt she does either, since she holds the world in just as much contempt as Hikigaya. They see themselves as superior, outside observers with clear sight. 

Her attitude clearly wins (and fast!) Hikigaya's respect: he seems to admire honesty, and judges that she never lies to herself; by extension, she will not lie to him either. She appears intrinsically honest and straightforward, which immediately begins to strip away the elaborate hostile defenses he builds for himself. His refused offer of friendship gets them right back where they were, but it is surprising how quickly they came down when he found another a) like him and b) honest. He is not the hardened cynic, the world-weary champion, that he makes himself out to be. 

Into this duo comes Yui Yuigahama, who is almost everything Hikigaya and Yukino are not - energetic, part of a popular clique, a bit of an airhead, and someone dedicated to social conformity. It would seem that they have nothing in common, especially since Yui seems to be kindhearted and generous, while the other two are more like solitary, angry porcupines. Their articulate, black views of the world are just true enough to give them the pleasure of feeling right, as if they are knowers of the truth, and they are young enough that they do not realize being intelligent is not the same as being wise. For all the grief she gives Hikigaya about unwillingness to change, Yukino sees no reason for herself to change, though she is just as alone as he is, in just as much need of interior transformation.

Both Hikigaya and Yukino fear human connection, and Yui does not; rather, her longing for it is what causes her to do and say whatever necessary to fit in any social circle, including this one; she is unwilling to establish her own identity, seeing it as an obstacle to friendship; she changes everything whereas the other two are unwilling change anything; thus Yui has everybody but little of herself, and Hikigaya/Yukino have nobody but themselves. Paradoxically, because she is so attracted to Yukino's advice of establishing yourself and refusing social conformity (and it does not hurt that this advice is actually true and useful), Yui's tendency to conform will purge itself, and may allow her to develop as a human quicker than the emotional solipsism of Hikigaya and Yukino.