Another loner is introduced, Kawasaki. Unlike Yukino and Hachiman, however, she simply seems private, reserved, and intense, not raising barriers against other people out isolation and fear. She often stays out till 5am, making her brother afraid she's getting into trouble. Getting close to her is next to impossible, especially when your method is to say, "You need to change now. Change this way exactly, please." Yes, Yukino thinks this strategy will work, and yes, she is sorely mistaken. It is up to Hachiman again, who inadvertently winds up exposing her brother Taisha's worries about her as much ado about nothing - she's just working to help pay for summer school and college. Voila, Crisis averted.
Other than the above minor familial reveals, this episode would be kind of a dead note if it weren't for the final scenes. Komachi tells Hachiman in passing that Yui owns the dog he saved - probably assuming he already knew that and has talked about it with her. We know of course, that he had no idea. Now he thinks over all of Yui's kindness to him, and assumes it must be because she feels guilty his saving of the dog got him hospitalized. He makes this assumption because the alternative is untenable for him right now. It's probably wasn't hard to figure out, however, that Yui was not being nice to him out of guilt, since her eyes immediately flood with tears and she runs away with a bitter, "baka!" (meaning 'idiot' 'fool', 'jerk,' 'stupid' or all of the above) on her lips.
Of course, this is the safe way out, i.e. the way out that does not risk genuine connection. Misunderstand someone's intentions and therefore alienate them. One of the surest ways to get and stay on someone's bad side is to misunderstand their motives, especially when you choose to misunderstand them. That's probably what happened here with Hachiman and Yui; he chooses to look at her behavior as coming from guilt, instead of her human goodness or (even worse) because she is beginning to love him. He does this mostly because she's a nice girl, and nice girls are dangerous; it is easy to read romantic interest in their casual encounters with you if you're not careful. His snafu with Yui was simply a resolve to not make that mistake again.
His experience with this phenomenon prompts another glorious Hachiman Monologue: "I hate nice girls. Just exchanging pleasantries with them makes me curious, and texting each other makes me restless. If I get a call, for the rest of the day I'll keep checking my call history with a stupid grin on my face. But I know the truth. They're just being nice. Anyone nice to me is nice to others too. But I always find myself on the verge of forgetting that. If the truth is a cruel mistress, then a lie must be a nice girl. And so niceness is a lie. I would always hold expectations. I would always misunderstand. At some point I stopped hoping. An experienced loner never falls for the same trap twice. A lone warrior, surviving hundreds of battles. When it comes to losing, I'm the strongest. That's why, no matter what happens, I will always hate nice girls."
It's like being sledgehammered with the truth. Almost all of what he says is absolutely true. Once again, Oregairu shows that it knows what it means to be young and alone. This is exactly the effect nice girls have on intelligent, rather isolated young men! Hachiman's clarity here is astonishing. On the other hand, his monologue is completely self-centered and selfish, in the service of justifying alienating behavior. The problem is not with Yui being nice to Hachiman, the problem is with Hachiman! Either she was simply being nice to him because -newsflash- Yui is a kind and generous person by nature, or because Yui is becoming drawn to him. He doesn't want to risk the rejection and humiliation of the latter possibility, but the former will tend to make him think the latter is real, so he figures it's safer for him to hurt her so that she avoids him. And all the while he can call himself "a warrior surviving hundreds of battles," and feel like he did the right thing: after all, since he said Yui didn't have to be nice to him anymore out of guilt, if she avoids him after that, doesn't it prove she was acting that way out of guilt? QED, right? Wrong. Duh, Hachiman.
The way Hachiman blends concise, clear illumination on social interaction with staggering amount of self-deception is yet another reason why Oregairu is so great. His own fear and previous pain are at the heart of his defensive, nasty behavior. Within those walls, he is safe. Yui came close to sneaking into a postern gate, but he caught the potential intrusion and filled that gate up with bricks. This way, he is safe. The wall just got ten feet higher, but it's less stable than it used to be.
Along the way, a few insights into family come up, chiefly that in this series, parents are overwhelmingly absent. Hachiman's parents work all the time, as do Kawasaki and presumably Yukino's. If this is a widespread phenomenon, alarm bells should be going off all over the place. In Yukino's case, however, we discover a) her father works for the prefectural assembly (whatever that is), which grants his family a very well-to-do position. So he and his family are rich, but the parents are distant from their children. It is unlikely the Yukinoshita siblings are different, since Yukino strongly resonates with the description of siblings being "the strangers who are closest to you." It doesn't take a Nostradamus to figure out that Yukino's isolation begins at home.
Other than the above minor familial reveals, this episode would be kind of a dead note if it weren't for the final scenes. Komachi tells Hachiman in passing that Yui owns the dog he saved - probably assuming he already knew that and has talked about it with her. We know of course, that he had no idea. Now he thinks over all of Yui's kindness to him, and assumes it must be because she feels guilty his saving of the dog got him hospitalized. He makes this assumption because the alternative is untenable for him right now. It's probably wasn't hard to figure out, however, that Yui was not being nice to him out of guilt, since her eyes immediately flood with tears and she runs away with a bitter, "baka!" (meaning 'idiot' 'fool', 'jerk,' 'stupid' or all of the above) on her lips.
Of course, this is the safe way out, i.e. the way out that does not risk genuine connection. Misunderstand someone's intentions and therefore alienate them. One of the surest ways to get and stay on someone's bad side is to misunderstand their motives, especially when you choose to misunderstand them. That's probably what happened here with Hachiman and Yui; he chooses to look at her behavior as coming from guilt, instead of her human goodness or (even worse) because she is beginning to love him. He does this mostly because she's a nice girl, and nice girls are dangerous; it is easy to read romantic interest in their casual encounters with you if you're not careful. His snafu with Yui was simply a resolve to not make that mistake again.
His experience with this phenomenon prompts another glorious Hachiman Monologue: "I hate nice girls. Just exchanging pleasantries with them makes me curious, and texting each other makes me restless. If I get a call, for the rest of the day I'll keep checking my call history with a stupid grin on my face. But I know the truth. They're just being nice. Anyone nice to me is nice to others too. But I always find myself on the verge of forgetting that. If the truth is a cruel mistress, then a lie must be a nice girl. And so niceness is a lie. I would always hold expectations. I would always misunderstand. At some point I stopped hoping. An experienced loner never falls for the same trap twice. A lone warrior, surviving hundreds of battles. When it comes to losing, I'm the strongest. That's why, no matter what happens, I will always hate nice girls."
It's like being sledgehammered with the truth. Almost all of what he says is absolutely true. Once again, Oregairu shows that it knows what it means to be young and alone. This is exactly the effect nice girls have on intelligent, rather isolated young men! Hachiman's clarity here is astonishing. On the other hand, his monologue is completely self-centered and selfish, in the service of justifying alienating behavior. The problem is not with Yui being nice to Hachiman, the problem is with Hachiman! Either she was simply being nice to him because -newsflash- Yui is a kind and generous person by nature, or because Yui is becoming drawn to him. He doesn't want to risk the rejection and humiliation of the latter possibility, but the former will tend to make him think the latter is real, so he figures it's safer for him to hurt her so that she avoids him. And all the while he can call himself "a warrior surviving hundreds of battles," and feel like he did the right thing: after all, since he said Yui didn't have to be nice to him anymore out of guilt, if she avoids him after that, doesn't it prove she was acting that way out of guilt? QED, right? Wrong. Duh, Hachiman.
The way Hachiman blends concise, clear illumination on social interaction with staggering amount of self-deception is yet another reason why Oregairu is so great. His own fear and previous pain are at the heart of his defensive, nasty behavior. Within those walls, he is safe. Yui came close to sneaking into a postern gate, but he caught the potential intrusion and filled that gate up with bricks. This way, he is safe. The wall just got ten feet higher, but it's less stable than it used to be.
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