Oregairu 2.13

The finale opens with awkwardness in the club room for the third time, but the flavor is different. The prior two times have been Hachiman acting like his earlier solipsist self, alienating his friends. Now there's a measure of trust and connection between the three, but they don't quite know how to manage friendships which, from Yui and Yukino's perspective, have begun to catch fire. 

And into this relatively normal situation comes the worst possible thing: that's right, Haruno's last scene. She is literally Satan here, combining her own ignorance, the truth, and outright lies to make her younger sister confused, unsure, and afraid. Maybe she's just testing her, but there are ways of testing that will help (see: Hiratsuka-sensei and everything she does and says); the only interpretation that comes to mind is that Haruno wants to be entertained by watching her younger sister work her way out of this test and perform something interesting to watch. This woman is an absolute monster. No, Yukino most definitely has a self, and she's rapidly becoming her own person vis a vis her mother and sister; yes she is definitely changing, and yes of course she has no idea how to act upon realizing she's in love with a friend, especially when acting on that love would almost infallibly hurt - and hurt deeply - another friend; but because Haruno is right about that, it makes it seem to Yukino as if she's right about the rest, too, all of which makes her more prone to being frozen in stasis, not less. Where is Sensei when you need her?

That scene is probably the ugliest in the entire series, and leaves a filthy taste in the mouth. Thankfully, there is Yui to the rescue, and they all go to her house, where we get one of the most beautiful glimpses at family done right: Yui and her mom. Given how Yukinoshita-san and Haruno are, it's hard to imagine how anyone, let alone Yukino, could maintain a healthy relationship with them, Hachiman muses (thank God the show explicitly recognizes that!), and Yuigahama-san illustrates the difference clearly, despite only being in frame for about ten seconds or less. In large measure, Yui is who she is - friendly, pure of heart, and excitable - because of her family, particularly her mother. I wish we saw more of her, but even what we get is enough to see how close Yui is with an adult (role models, sans Hiratsuka-sensei, are completely absent in this series) and how it's made her such a beautifully-souled, healthy human being, capable of deep love and enduring friendship. It is a deeply desirable thing, and Yukino hungers for it at once. Being a stranger in your own family is a terrible thing. She had nobody until Hachiman, Yui, and Hiratsuka-sensei came along, and Haruno is trying her best to destroy even that.

The last half of the final episode is difficult to understand. Yui asks Yukino to go out the next day, and calls Hachiman to ask the same thing - so both Hachiman and Yukino think they'll be alone with Yui, who claims she wants the three of them to enjoy a day together, but also tells Hachiman that she's not the nice girl he thinks she is (consciously or unconsciously echoing Hayama's words). And in truth, though the banter of the three is normal and enjoyable, there's a smoldering tension that makes these scenes hard to enjoy, like waiting for the other shoe to drop or expecting a crash. We don't have long to wait, because there's an adorable sign depicting the behavior of monogamous penguins. According to Yui, if each of the three realizes and articulates the way each feels, they won't be able to stay the same. So her final request is for each to "fix their problems," i.e. find a way to stay together throughout all that, even granting one or two of the three will be hurt by the outcome. 

Part of the reason Hachiman keeps quiet about all of this is because he can't see an outcome except where everything falls apart and he's left with nothing (and I can't either), but in the end he puts his foot down and insists they struggle, writhe, and look for something genuine as friends. And in that moment, threatened as they are by division (all I can see in their future is the ending of White Album 2), they are reunited, together again; the communion between the three of them is palpable. It's a mark how much each of them has grown; Yukino is freely vulnerable before her friends, Hachiman is genuine about what he wants, and Yui asserts her longings at the risk of fracturing communion. None of this would have been possible when they first met, and each of them, through Hiratsuka-sensei and each other, have accomplished a more than minor miracle. Perhaps that's enough to give hope that they'll be able to stay together in the future. 

Oregairu 2.12

The penultimate episode opens with a meeting between Haruno and Hachiman: she wants to "compare notes" about Yukino's future plans. This would be a perfect time for Hachiman to turn her own speech against herself: "Stand on your own two feet." That Haruno doesn't even know what her little sister plans to study in college speaks eloquently about the state of their relationship, and after all this time learning about her, there is no way anyone would believe she'd use that information for Yukino's good. Haruno is simply an antagonist at this point, with nothing positive to recommend for her - the closest to a villain Oregairu has to offer. 

Unfortunately, Hachiman of course is not that brazen, so Haruno goes unreprimanded. Infuriatingly, she somehow knows about Hachiman's desire for genuine relationships, and weaves truth with lies in order to paralyze everything he's been working for - honest, real friendship. Yukino trusts Hachiman quite a bit, according to Haruno - but wait no, it's not trust, but something far more sinister. She's picked up that Yukino is in love with her friend, and claims "she hasn't changed a bit." But how on earth would Haruno know that? Yukino has changed, and we through Hachiman have seen her lower her walls and be vulnerable before others. The stoic, ice queen of perfection is no more. Haruno naturally can't see that, because Haruno refuses to enflesh it. "Is anything really genuine?" she muses. Of course, her answer is probably 'no,' and not without reason. It's not something you can calculate or deductively reason out; it's not something you can prove. True friendship, like true love, requires belief in another person, analogous to the faith a believer has in his God. Given the indefinite ways we can deceive ourselves or manipulate others or drive them away (Hachiman, Iroha, and Yukino, for example), you can never be sure either you or the other is being real. But for a true friend, as for a true lover or a true believer, that is almost irrelevant. 

Part of the reason I hate Haruno so much is because she exercises such influence in this series, and because someone like that would attract me as well, if only on the superficial level. I like to think I'd cut all ties with her, but Hachiman can't resist the attentions of a smart, vivacious, intuitive, and extremely attractive girl, so he keeps talking to her - and I'd probably be no different, even though I know the flirty behavior is just a wall. Things and actions have meaning, and power, even if you know they're lies. Because she's older and furiously smart, she occupies a place of power with respect to the trio. And because all three of them are so new at this true friendship thing, they can't just shrug off her paralyzing interventions; because they've only just taken the first step, they're extremely vulnerable to exploitation, and exploitation defines Haruno.

Sensei, of course, is the precise opposite. She has never been this warm or encouraging with Hachiman before, and it's perfectly clear how proud she is of him, Yukino, and Yui. She really, really cares about them, and she's the only adult figure we've seen who does (Haruno, for obvious reasons, does not qualify). We've never seen her this gentle. Happy. Pleased. "People's perception of others gets clearer by the day. If you continue to spend time and grow with someone, you'll gradually understand them." And in response to his feeling that he and his friends haven't really grown, she hits the home run: "People don't usually look back to see how far they've come while they're still walking." She's seen their growth, recognizes it, and wants to make sure he knows she knows it. What she sees is real, and we know, because we have seen it too. With only one bizaare teacher as a guide, the three of them have discovered the joys of friendship. Parents or other authority figures have been no help, but Sensei has been there from the beginning, and guided the three of them with a steady hand. She is amazing. 

As if to emphasize the contrast, Haruno appears, and in a sneering monologue, yet again combines truth with lies, and proves yet again that she holds a disproportionate amount of influence with the three. If they were wiser, Hachiman, Yukino, and Yui would have remembered Sensei and her warm, hopeful encouragement, and then they'd be able to dismiss and forget Haruno's deceiving speech. Sure, in a sense, the older sister is right: the three of them are not being straightforward, because the girls are in love with Hachiman, and Hachiman is in love with Yukino, even though he barely recognizes, much less accepts, that himself. Haruno prefers the old Yukino, who'd speak her mind without reservation. And? So what, Haruno? That old Yukino drove everyone around her away with her practice of cruelty by means of truth, and was naturally always alone. Is choosing not to vent your passions as you experience them necessarily disingenuous? I don't think so. Moreover, that old Yukino would have never dreamed about revealing her vulnerabilities before others, let alone reach out to them for help, whereas now she does both. 

Haruno could be seen as trying to help these kids, but true help looks like Sensei: spend time with each other, and you will better understand one another. You don't need to be mocked belittled as fake and boring in order for that kind of growth to happen: the kind of friendship Sensei is pushing the three to have is self-correcting. Haruno's is self-centered, even Haruno-centered, because it would more fun for her to watch. The worst part about it all is how effective it is. It wrecks all of them. If it weren't clear before, what the three have been doing is clear to all of them now. They would have dealt with it themselves in due time, but Haruno pushed them too early, which made them paralyzed; unlike Hiratsuka-sensei, whose pushes were at the proper time, and lead to growth and good change. Now they're anxious and afraid, more ready to raise the walls again. Worse than harmful, Haruno's interventions are unnecessary in the extreme. She ought to be hated by all. 

Enter the last person we want to see, Yukino's mother. "I want you to live freely and stay true to yourself, but I'm worried you'll go down the wrong path." Pretentious vomit. She wants to control her daughter and make her a replacement Haruno. In this vision, Yukino simply has to do what's expected of her. By choosing liberal arts, she's disappointed her family (presumably Haruno chose the sciences), so she's got some explaining to do. 

So the final obstacles to friendship are enumerated: Yukino's awful family and a love triangle that somehow avoids most cliches - like the medieval stories where two knight-brothers both fall in love with the same girl. Sticking the landing will be hard.

Oregairu 2.11

Two firsts in this final arc: a Hayama-centric episode, and seeing him angry for the first time. Someone saw him and Yukino together at her birthday party, and started a rumor that they are dating. That's the camel's straw, and Hayama reacts with a death glare. Normally the spirit of sunshine (is it a carefully constructed front, like Iroha's cute and clumsy act?), it's refreshing to see he's capable of fury. 

Yukino reacts precisely the way we'd expect ("Just like human trash to have their minds in the gutter"), but that's nothing new. Rather, it's another confirmation that there's a lot more to Hayato than meets the eye. Yumiko, for example, seems nothing more than a fairly superficial girl whose most attractive quality is that she's in love with a good guy, and that makes her a bit more likable. But we don't know Hayato hardly at all, and only know Yukino as well as Hachiman does. We don't know her poisonous family, for instance, and we never get inside her head the way we do Hachiman's. It is why the different characters, beloved protagonist aside, are so difficult to read: because we read them through Hachiman, and only through his experience. That is why it's much easier to understand the interactions of others than it is to understand your own. That's why we can only really guess at what Hayama's relationship with Yukino is or was like, since the latter refuses to discuss it. 

Back at summer camp, Hayato let slip he was into a girl with the initial Y, which could either be Haruno or Yukino. Uncharacteristically, he does not date and hasn't his entire time in highschool. "It just seemed like Hayato belonged to everyone," quips Iroha. But his family is close to the Yukino family, they've known each other for ages, and it's hard to imagine upper-class families like Hayato and Yukinoshita not considering that their daughter and son would make a good match. So there was probably something like grade-school crushes that went on. Normal and unremarkable. 

As the series has emphasized time and again, the trio and Hayama's clique are practically the same. Yumiko is trying desperately to keep her friendships from deteriorating after graduation, and the same desire animates Yukino, Yui, and Hachiman. How their friendship is expressed of course changes and will change constantly, but they want that friendship to stay the same, even (especially) Hachiman. Social sadists like Haruno don't help of course (she's dropped the nice act and is simply demeaning and belittling her sister now. It's ugly to watch. If someone I knew treated me like that I would cut them off completely - never meet or speak to them again. I don't know how much lower my opinion of her can get), but nobody wants what's beautiful to end. 

Because we never get inside anybody except Hachiman, we have to play his game of reading between the lines to understand other people. He notes (correctly, I'd argue) that Yumiko made other girls keep their distance from Hayama, so she was useful to him. Normal popular highschool boys would pursue relationships, so the reason Hayama isn't points in one direction: Yukino and Hachiman, whom Hayato claims to see as a hateful superior. In a roundabout way, he also tells Hachiman Yukino's in love with him (does he really not know yet? It's stamped all over her face, especially when they're alone together), and chooses the same college field as her. For her part, Yukino is courteous and polite to Hayama, the very model of what her parents drilled her to be, but is entirely genuine. Even so, there is no hint she feels for him anywhere near what she's feeling for Hachiman, and Hayama, who's probably in love with her, easily intuits this. Hence his statement that he does not intend to lose to Hachiman. 

On the other hand, all that could be entirely wrong and I'm completely missing the mark. It could be as simple as Hayama wanting to live up to his own expectations instead of his family's, just like Yukino, or some combination of the two. But there is no way to tell for sure. Other people are and remain a mystery. Hachiman is one of the most well-written characters I've encountered, and even he's a mystery, given his talent for self-sabotage and self-deception. How much more then, are characters (like Yukino) who are mediated through their interactions with Hachiman. It's the opposite tack Monogatari takes, where several arcs (Sodachi, Hanekawa, and Sengoku, for instance) get you into the very souls of the respective characters, yet it works perfectly to help us understand ourselves and others.

Oregairu 2.10

Despite Iroha being one of the most false-seeming of all characters, second only to Haruno, Hachiman is able to have extremely fun conversations with her, able to dissect her elaborate social constructions. He observes that she was trying to make herself look like a love-struck fool in order to win over Hayama (no good: shot down at once), and wonders aloud why she bothered: "You knew it wouldn't work." Clever camera angles emphasize that their two trains of thought are parallel without ever meeting, because what got her excited, worked up, and caught up in the moment was not a romantic time with the most popular boy in school, but overhearing Hachiman's plea to Yui and Yukino. In a rare second of openness, she reveals that "I'm starting to want the real thing too." And just like that, becomes a little less hateful. 

Of course, there's still plenty of facades left, and Hayama, whose intuitive intelligence continues to impress, had already picked up on that, claiming Iroha isn't really interested in him at all, right before moving into a entree-size compliment for Hachiman being able to change people around him, giving us a clue to his unstated opinion. Whether or not he's right, Iroha promptly tries to hide behind her own cynical, manipulative calculations - after all, it's familiar territory. At least some miniscule progress has been (maybe? Hopefully?) made, but odds are it's infinitesimal.

As if to emphasize that the whole Iroha Christmas party request was simply the stage to explore the trio's relationships, Yukino solves the dilemma in one sledgehammer dialogue, banters comfortably with her friend afterwards (who gives as good as he gets, Iroha being only a third wheel), and the event proceeds as a fait accompli. More important is the aftermath, where in the clubroom Yukino reaffirms her intent to fulfill Hachiman's request - something genuine. That room, bathed in rich evening light, is now the site of deep and comfortable communion between the three, which Yui intuits with a warm smile and Hachiman is just barely beginning to realize. Yukino has also realized it, and she is radiant in these scenes. It's like a long-lasting sigh of relief. The tension is (for now) out of the air. What's more, the chemistry between Hachiman and Yukino is incredible, and watching them together is matched only by Komachi and her brother, who have a small moment illustrating family at its best. 

Family at its worst is reintroduced by Haruno & Family. Seriously this woman is evil. Black heart incarnate. She manipulates Yukino by using her feelings for Hachiman to arrange an embarrassing meeting for her younger sister, culminating in Haruno getting her way and Yukino looking small and petulant by comparison. Her mother makes an appearance, and it is clear that Haruno exceeds expectations, whereas Yukino fails to meet them in her mother's eyes. 

Three episodes till the season (and probably series) finale, and the real work to be done is still relationality. Whereas the first season and a half focused on friendship, the rest seems destined to look at slow-burning love in the context of poisonous family - i.e. Yukino, Hachiman, and that domestic mess. The last two arcs demonstrated how easily bonds can be frayed and broken, and this last arc will be the biggest test yet. The three have moved beyond fear and insecurity with each other, and are growing in true freedom - but Haruno in particular is a paralyzing agent, easily capable (I hate that she's furiously smart and intuitive! I wouldn't hate her so much if she were dumb!) of ruining all the good progress that's been made.

Oregairu 2.9

If the tension had been slowly building over the past five episodes to Eight's climax, episode nine is a twenty-minute sigh of relief, concluding the conflict left over from the Tobe request and pointing towards the last material of this season: the relationship between Hachiman, Yui, and Yukino, particularly after their newly discovered watershed. 

Since the walls have come down, it's as if the three relationships have become new; there is a shy, slightly embarrassed awkwardness now, as if Yukino and Hachiman have entered unfamiliar territory. Naturally this does not apply to Yui, who is over the moon, letting us see what Yuigahama Unleashed is really like. She's everywhere, on cloud nine; effusively, honestly, purely happy. Even Hiratsuka-sensei is happier than we've ever seen her, and rewards her successful charges with a trip to a theme park; ostensibly to give them ideas for the winter festival from hell, but really just to give the three a chance to be together and have fun. 

And it's there that Yukino definitively declares she no longer intends to simply be a clone for her sister, but become someone different than Haruno, someone different from Hachiman. Hachiman finds this extremely attractive, and it's no surprise that the two have hit it off again, or rather that they've passed through a step-function, like when Hachiman told Yukino the truth about her sister in the first season. And in the most beautiful frame we've seen of her yet, she reaches out to her friend and asks, "Save me someday." What that means is unclear to anyone except Yukino, but even saying that, holding the conversation about her own weaknesses, would have been unimaginable just a moment ago. Her relationship with Hachiman is no longer defined by fear or insecurity, and vice versa (or close to it). These two make the perfect couple; they are fully themselves and compelling in their own right, but when they're together they come alive. Chemistry like this is rare. 

Not even Iroha is likely to throw a wrench into these works. Both Yukino and Yui notice her foxy behavior immediately, of course, and pick up that she's amusing herself by being flirty, pretending to be interested in Hachiman, but that will probably go nowhere. Hayama, the boy at whom highschool girls love to throw themselves, rejects her serious advances (if she's capable of taking anything seriously), and I doubt Hachiman has lost enough cynicism to be taken in by second-serving attentions. 

Oregairu 2.8

There have been a lot of beautiful, clever opening shots in Oregairu (Yui seated helplessly midframe between the Dolorous Duo comes to mind), but this one is currently #1: Hachiman sitting alone on a bench, allegedly in his element ("I'm a lone wolf!") but anxiously, desperately miserable. He's looking for a miracle, so of course who should show up but .... Hiratsuka-sensei. This is no teacher, she is guardian angel. She is ready to teach, and for the first time in his life, he is ready to learn. 

She asks him a leading question and gets an earful about the incompetence of the planning committee, but artfully steers it towards the heart of the matter: he, Yui, and Yukino. Hachiman has  a keen ability to know what people think, but "You don't understand how they feel. People's thoughts don't always mirror how they feel. That's why they sometimes make decisions that seem nonsensical. And that's why Yukino, Yui, and you jump to the wrong conclusions." In a way, almost identical to what Komachi told him earlier when they reconciled. This woman is incredible, but she's not finished yet. The problem in both circumstances (Christmas party and the two slugs) is the same: the human heart. Hachiman pleads ignorance before impenetrable mystery: "That's not something you can understand by thinking about it." He's promptly cut down to size: "Baka! If feelings could be processed like that, they'd be digitized long ago." He already knows the answer, and she helps him see that: "The last remaining answer, the one you can't calculate - that's human emotion." In a word, that is how you find a decision of the heart. 

Sensei is like a Yoda of the heart. It makes sense, according to her, that you try to avoid hurting someone by pushing them away - exactly what Hachiman and Yukino do to each other - though Yukino is better at it by far (probably because Hachiman has Komachi, who genuinely loves him). Not the pushing away, but the why of the pushing is what's important; because you care about the other. The alienation is simply from fear. Gently, forcefully, persistently, she works on persuading Hachiman to be genuine, and hence be vulnerable before the other. The vote count is in. Hiratsuka-sensei is best girl.

This is why Haruno and Sensei, who might at first glance seem similar - harsh, abrasive, interfering - are total, absolute opposites. Haruno's interventions are paralyzing. They cause friction, anger, resentment, and help make people - Yukino especially - worse. They do not help. Sensei on the other hand, is magic: everything she does and has done results almost infallibly in positive, stretching growth for her charges. Proof: she just did in five minutes what Evangelion spends its entire run working out - the pitfalls of human interaction and closeness with others, and why genuine friendship is still worth pursuing. This works in Oregairu because Eva takes place in a loveless, bleak world. There is no warmth, no gentleness, no connection there. Small wonder Shinji is so tempted by Instrumentality. Things are not quite so bad in Oregairu, and though it takes a sleepless night to ponder what he wants, Hachiman is able, thanks to Komachi and Sensei, to make a choice.

Everything about the Hachiman-Yui-Yukino confrontation is perfect. The writing, the direction, the framing, the acting, everything. Hands down it makes one of the most beautiful scenes in anime, in close contention with Re:Zero 18 and Clannad 2.18. And all of it appears to be for nothing. For the second time in his life (the first was for Komachi) Hachiman apologizes: he's acted like a solipsist, as if nobody else existed, so that the solution can be found with the minimum of pain. His friends (I'm looking at you, Yukino) are too blockheaded to articulately call him out on it, so the cycle continues. Yui knows exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, but is unable to take the first step. After Hachiman apologizes, she's riveted in shock, still looking for Yukino to take the initiative.

Until Yukino shuts him down. Hard. Only then does Yui act. Hachiman probably played the rejection tape a thousand times before entering that classroom, so Yukino's refusal barely surprised him at all. He would have left immediately, and the anime would end right there, if it weren't for Yui, who with Hiratsuka-sensei is the hero of this series. Hachiman is unable to reach Yukino, but Yui sure is, attacking her for not being fair. It is the first time Yui has ever eloquently, passionately disagreed with someone, and it is beautiful. 

Hachiman tries to defuse the disagreement, but the girls totally ignore him. Yukino is bothered by Hachiman's method on every single level, not least because it works better than her own. He solved the hate-mail dilemma, he solved the Sagami problem, and he solved the Tobe disaster. Even from the beginning, when Yui couldn't bake a sheet of cookies without burning them and Yukino despaired of teaching, Hachiman provided the solution then too. She knows his way of doing this is wrong (and she's right about this) but his success makes her look inadequate. Her only statement that gets through to Yui is that she Yui, tried to act as if nothing was wrong in the hopes that things would fix themselves. "So I thought that if that was what both of you wanted..." she trails off. 

That is when Hachiman admits that he can't trust what anyone says at face value. "I'd fall back into my habit of reading between the lines and thinking they had ulterior motives," he relates in a most honest dialogue. Yukino assumes the most defensive stance possible, hugging herself and trying to keep everything at bay. I'm almost surprised she didn't curl into the fetal position here. But that is not the end: "Even so," he says, and the frame, so closed off before, with none of the three making eye contact with one another, opens up into dialogue, because for the first time in his life, Hachiman is being straightforward. He wants to understand and know others, resting secure in that knowledge; he wants to know others inside-out and no longer be in the dark. He calls this desire egotistic, self-indulgent, and arrogant (probably out of fear), but he wants to share that desire, and have a relationship where you are free to seek that from another and give it to another in your turn (and the camera turns first to Yukino and then to Yui as he says this). He calls this out of his reach (and it is, because it requires the will of another, who can't be controlled), but bursts out that "Even so, I want something genuine!"

Yui wouldn't - and maybe couldn't - articulate it that way, but she intuits exactly what Hachiman means. She's won over immediately, just as we knew she would be. But we also knew that Yukino would be different, and she is. To the shock of both Hachiman and Yui, she too has a quiet outburst. "I don't understand. I'm sorry." And she runs away clutching herself as if she's in pain. Which she probably is. 

That short cut is exactly why the two of them are the way they are. Hachiman was 100% totally authentically real, and he got shut down with barely a word. No wonder people act the way these two do, or the way Haruno and Iroha do; that kind of response feels like treachery, and Hachiman is shell-shocked, immobile, in despair. Somehow, however, Yui is not rendered immobile, and knows exactly what to do (she and Hiratsuka-sensei are the heroes of this arc), and just by being Yui persuades him that it's not over yet, but if he stops, it will be. 

Understanding Yukino is hard, because we only see her from Hachiman's perspective, so she almost always appears perfect (because to his eyes, she is), which is why the frame of her friends approaching, Hachiman in the foreground, Yui ahead, and Yukino in the background, smallest, most diminutive of all, is practically a photographic miracle. Hachiman just had an epiphany, Yui intuits what it means even if she can't explain it, but Yukino feels small, inadequate, and ignorant, because being genuine also means being vulnerable, which she can't abide. She tries to take refuge in words or argument, and Yui, who has no talent whatsoever for that sort of thing, counters by doing the thing women somehow know how to do at exactly the right time: she sees someone in fear and pain, so she simply flings her arms around her suffering friend. That's the camel's straw, and both of them dissolve in tears. One could be forgiven for thinking it's a hallowed moment. 

Oregairu 2.7

Finally, Yukino returns to front and center - at least for the opening. Yui figures out that she really wanted to be student council president (double blast you, Yukino, for being an emotionally repressed, inarticulate ice fiend!), and worries that something is wrong. "The old Yukino" would have eagerly taken on requests like Iroha's, but this new, damaged version just looked pained. She is all about hiding these days. Triple blast you, Yukinoshita!

Hachiman is slowly wearing himself down with all this faking. He criticizes himself for helping Iroha as just "conforming to the ideal self I've created in my mind," and recollects Iroha's sullen manipulation and Yui's forced cheerfulness (I don't care even if it is fake. Yui can do no wrong), but what bothers him the most is "Yukino's resigned smile." It reeks of falsity, just like the more superficial elements of Hayama's clique. He, Yui, and Yukino are in fact not so different from them, a hypocritical fact he is beginning to acknowledge, even as it makes him uncomfortable. That, coupled with the falsities of the  Christmas event, which is increasingly devolving into meetings from hell, headed by people who love to hear others talk about nothing almost as much as they love talking about nothing themselves - this is about to make him explode, in a much more colorful way than during the school festival, when he happens to run into......Yukino! Finally, an unscripted encounter.

It's as if Yukino was pushed to the brink of going beyond herself, and then retreated. She has officially given up, saying almost exactly the same words Hachiman used on Hayama: "If this is all it takes to pull us apart, maybe we weren't all that close to begin with." If this were a lesser anime, I'd assume Yukino is testing him, but there's no doubt. She's given up. Hachiman was clearly not expecting such a response. No banter, no humor, just formal, polite, false pleasantness. Then she walks away. It will take a miracle to fix now. 

Oregairu 2.6

For all the grief Yukino gave Hachiman for not changing, she's the changeless-est one of them all. This woman is so blind! And inarticulate! She has a frozen ice smile in place, and Hachiman fights the desire to run away, noting that "In order to avoid crying over spilled milk, you try harder than ever to act the same as ever." He has the intuition that things are not alright, that the new normal routine is just "papering over the cracks of something that had fallen apart." He and Yukino haven't actually spoken a word to one another that wasn't through Yui. "What happens when we can't pretend anymore?" he wonders with somewhat ominous undertones. 

The pattern is intimately familiar by now: Hachiman and Yukino are in a rut, so they need something from the outside to help them. That arrives in the form of Iroha, a girl I despise just slightly less than Haruno (there might be hope for her; there is none for Haruno). She has to cooperate with another high school to organize a Christmas event for senior citizens and nursery school children (yet another Japanese school community event that makes me shudder and gag reflexively. I am a bad man). She puts on a weepy helpless act to elicit sympathy. Thanks to Hachiman, I am not fooled. Thanks to Hachiman, that type has been ruined for me now. Iroha and Haruno, what with the cute and clumsy or flirty and sexually playful acts, have shown what's underneath them - insecurity, need to manipulate, looking towards domination, hiding oneself, etc. - and it's genuinely repugnant. It will always be at least a little effective, at least until the realization returns to consciousness - sexual attraction is real and powerful, after all - but it is only a false promise of connection, like the proposition of a prostitute; a promise of everything but which in reality is the furthest possible distance removed from genuine closeness.

What Iroha and Haruno are doing, of course, is only a distant analogue, but the principle is the same; using expressions of closeness and intimacy as weapons. It's a tamer version of the advice Cersei gives Sansa during the assault on the Blackwater Bay: use certain behaviors to get what you want. Small, petty, filthiness of soul. 

Iroha might be doing something Haruno never would or even dream of doing. She lets Hachiman see how she's manipulating people, including him, so the spell necessarily collapses - at least as far as he's concerned. He thinks it's because she wants him to dislike her (since she displays the cute side so that people will like her, the logical converse reveals his conclusion), but at least there's a possibility for something real, whereas Haruno is manipulation and lies incarnate.

The rest of the episode focuses on the meetings between Kaihin and Soubu councils, and is the best possible depiction of the hell that is meetings. Perfectly skewered, and wildly hilarious, especially when Hachiman adopts the same vague, abstract, pious communitarian platitudes in order to argue for something approaching sanity. He is only partially successful, but the level of insight into the sorts of people like meetings is as clear as it is true. The villain for this arc has just been given. 

Oregairu 2.5

Every time we get an extended scene of Hachiman and Komachi, it seems like it's the greatest scene. The writers really know how siblings interact, ranging from playful banter to sincere, simple, heartfelt emotion at the drop of the hat. A little effort, a cup of coffee, and a request for help prompts an endearing smile from his loving little sister. Completely real, totally adorable. It will hold the best brother-sister scene award for some time. 

Now Hachiman has his marching orders: keep Yui and Yukino from being elected and keep the club intact. The simplest way to do that is to negotiate (read: manipulate) Iroha into running for real. Hachiman knows her number, so to speak, and suspects she'll be easy to 'negotiate' with. This highlights how accurate his cynicism usually is: characters like Yui are outliers; not everyone (read: almost nobody) possesses her purity and goodness; most are just social garbage, like Kaori, Haruno, and probably Iroha; whiny, manipulative, worthless creatures who suck life out of others for their own advancement or own amusement. They are what Yui seemed to be in the first episode - self-centered airheads who manufacture a persona so that they never have to be real with anybody. No wonder Shinji is such a mess and Asuka is a broken shell of a human being. Those like Subaru and Yui, who can transcend the lies, are few and far between. 

At any rate, a little flattery, a little surprise, a hint of romance (he argues she can convince Hayama to help her, since she's into him, though who isn't in this school?) and Iroha agrees, as Hachiman knows she would. Onto the tougher sell. 

Yui is unsurprisingly easy to convince; just the revelation that Hachiman put a lot of effort (even if it was a tad underhanded, which she guesses but does not verify) is enough to convince her love-struck heart, but the real obstacle is Yukino, who while quite moved Hachiman abandoned his method, was sure "he'd understand;" so while she agrees, and withdraws from the race, is still not happy with the way things turned out. Just as Sensei said, when Hachiman found someone or something he truly wanted to help, he'd find a reason, one that didn't involve being a social martyr; his was found in family and friendship; but Yukino also found her reason; opposition to her sister-nemesis. Hachiman's is life incarnate, Yukino's is poison.

I only have hints of the kinds of relationships Yukino has with her family, so I can only barely understand that kind of motivation, where competition and rivalry replaces love and understanding. The world is an awful enough place already, rife with cruelty and uncaring, without those bad traits defining family relations. Hachiman is bad enough, but if he didn't have Komachi, or their relation were defined by loveless, cold formality, icily bubbling into occasional hatred (Yukino and Haruno, if the above weren't obvious), he'd be a total monster. But he has his sister, Yui has her mom (and plus, she's Yui), and all three of them have Sensei, but after Hachiman's growth of light-years, Yukino has been left behind, and she lacks the means to see it. "Can things really go back to normal?" Yui anxiously asks him. "I don't know," he drily replies, and both look by instinct to Yukino's empty chair. The cohesion or dissolution of the group now depends on her, the weakest link, for the future. 

Hachiman reflects that there are people who can't act until they're faced with a problem. By 'people' of course he means himself and Yukino. Despite her awful motivations, she genuinely did want to be council president. Only after the current president relates her hopes that Yukino, Yui, and Hachiman would together succeed her in office (president, vice-president, and general affairs manager), meaning they'd still be together and doing what they've been doing for a year, does another possibility emerge. But of course the president said nothing. Thanks, Kaichou. How were the three supposed to know that's what you wanted if you kept it to yourself? Are they mindreaders?  Thanks to her silence and Yukino's stony sullenness, that possibility is gone forever. Much work has to be done, but almost all of it is in Yukino's court now. 

Oregairu 2.4

Different methods are on full display here, from Hayama to Hachiman to Haruno to Yui to Yukino. This is one of the best episodes in the series. The writing is taut and the characters are in all-out war. Each one has their own conceived, well-designed plan, and all of them contradict one another. 

First up is Hayama, who asks Hachiman to go on a double date with him and the two girls from last episode. Unsurprisingly, Hachiman refuses point blank. He has no idea what Hayama is up too, but a) it's on a day off, and b) being the quintessential third wheel for the most popular guy in school and the girls who fawn over him sounds like the opposite of fun. Hayama recruits Haruno to plead for him, and she tries to persuade Hachiman: "Doesn't a date with a girl you used to love sound romantic?!" No, Haruno, it does not. It sounds miserable and awful. But of course this interests her, so she bullies him into going. 

This is precisely as fun as it sounded, with the girls belittling Hachiman every chance they get, and Iroha popping up and being foxy (eerily reminiscent of Haruno when we first met her, and just as false-seeming), but towards the end, Hayama's character takes a real dramatic upturn. He's just as smart as Hachiman is, just as intuitive; with Iroha, for example, "She shows everyone her cute side, because she just wants to be loved, so she hides her true self." The implication being that if we reveal ourselves fully to another, they would be disgusted and ashamed. But this is peanuts to the finale, when Hayama savagely roasts these two flakes with a cheerful smile, sticking up for the universally-despised loner. He uses Hachiman's own method to help him. He wants Hachiman to learn his own worth and stop taking the fall for everything in a twisted desire to help. It bothered him that Hachiman alienated his friends in order to help solve the Tobe dilemma, just as Hayama figured might happen, so he tried to mend it by summoning Yui and Yukino to witness his defense, but it fails, because Haruno intrudes and starts provoking her sister. 

Yukino stalks off in wrath with Yui in tow, and Haruno, now bored, also leaves. This woman ruins everything she touches. If she has friends, we never see them or hear of them. Maybe that's why she spends all this time with highschoolers when she's supposed to be a college student. Angry himself at Hayama's intervention, Hachiman proclaims himself a lone wolf, such that "What happens to me is my business and nobody else's," words that probably sound as false to him as they do to us. He's lost his conviction. He tries again to convince the others to use his method to solve Iroha's request, but is turned down for the last time. Yukino decides to run, probably because Haruno provoked her. She'd easily beat Iroha, and presto, nobody loses, everybody wins.

Yui doesn't like that, intuiting the club will dissolve once Yukino wins, as she seems sure to. So she confides to Hachiman that she intends to run as well, beat Yukino in the race, and be a lackluster president, all for the sake of keeping the club together, because "the club has my one love," she concludes with happy tears in her eyes. Somehow I think she is not referring to the clubroom, but one dour person in particular who inhabits it. And Hachiman is not ignorant of her meaning either. But whereas last time, when Yui was about to confess to him and he deflected, now she deflects and runs off, leaving the three of them to their own devices. 

Hachiman's self-sabotage method won't work in this situation, for the other two won't allow it, and he's unable to force them. He doesn't object to their solutions either, but is unwilling to throw his lot in with them. He still has reservations, probably because he doesn't want to see the club end any more than Yui does, though he's a lot less willing to be vocal about it. To be fair, he is on the verge of changing. Hayama's move made an impact - a real one - even if he only appeared to get angry about it and leave, which often happens when one encounters a personal argument that can't be refuted. Yui has already forgiven him, but Komachi and Yukino are still mad. In order to change, he has to start with them.

Oregairu 2.3

The fallout comes home. One of the best sibling scenes I've ever seen is our perfect opening, and confirms just how much Komachi loves her brother. She intuits something is wrong, cleverly weasels out of him that it is (he tries to deflect but to no avail), and tries to get him to tell her about it - assuming that as in the past, she'll eventually persuade him to spill. 

Not this time. He coldly shuts her out, and the hurt is palpable. Even the cat notices. This has probably not happened before, or at least rare enough that it's a nasty, unpleasant surprise. Abruptly leaving for school, she closes the door and fumes, loud enough for him to hear, "I knew something was wrong!" before running off. Emblematic of the wall he's so expertly built - he and his sister are visually divided, and the one person who'd probably understand ("you might be doing something wrong and not be aware of it", she says, which is at least half right. Hachiman knows what he did alienated his two friends, but he might not be sure exactly why) he is able to drive away. 

And of course everything is awkward, especially the Service Club. Hachiman and Yukino verbalize that everything is fine - strange, isn't it, that the two people who claim to value straightforward honesty are the most reticent and false-speaking liars when it comes to their own friendship? Both are totally blind to their own inconsistency - and Yui tries, but honest Yui knows everything isn't fine. "I can't figure out what they're thinking," she laments, ostensibly referring to Hayama's clique but really referring to her friends. It is a genius directing move that makes it unclear whether her line is mental or expressed, an ambiguity made flesh by the stubborn refusal of the other two to be straightforward. Neither Yukino nor Hachiman know how. 

"You can't know the thoughts and feelings of others," Yukino counters, "And even if you could, understanding them is a different thing entirely." Hachiman takes a different tack: "Don't worry about it, because we're the ones feigning normalcy the most." Yui accepts that in sad resignation (seriously the animation detail here is beautiful, even iconic), but not Yukino. "That's what normal means to you? When nothing changes?" And this makes her, for the first time in the series, visibly, seriously upset. 

This small group is less growing in natural ease with each other than it is constantly walking a tightrope, with a definitive falling-out a hair's breadth away. Yukino of course cannot express her frustration, because she's unwilling to be honest and vulnerable with herself, let alone Hachiman; the self-saboteur is unwilling to make even the least amount of initiated progress into admitting he may have messed up, or that he longs for the company of others. Yui, of course, is capable of both of those things, but it unable to spread that to Yukino, to say nothing of Hachiman. Again and again the Dolorous Duo depend on circumstances orchestrated by Hiratsuka-sensei in order to get past their own stupidities; left to themselves, they're already on diverging paths formed by their own social cowardice. 

And so once again Hiratsuka-sensei barges in with another project: Iroha Isshiki has been placed on the student council president ballot, and wants to drop out without damage to her reputation (she's cute, popular, and "juggles multiple guys at once," according to Hachiman's dour analysis). It is immediately proposed someone make a sabotaging speech which will cost her the endorsement (three guesses as to who, but you'll only need one), and a surprising thing happens: Hachiman encounters resistance, first from Yui and then from Yukino. Yukino gets visibly upset again, and then in frustration asks sensei for a moment of time to discuss the club, wherein it is decided that until the issue of method is resolved, attendance is noncompulsory. Hachiman takes the hint immediately and leaves without a word. "You and I both were never fit for getting along with others," Yukino says to his back, but it is unclear if he hears her. 

Strangely, Hiratsuka-sensei lets him leave, and is the gentlest she's ever been, first asking (as if she had any doubt) if something happened between them, and then saying, "When there's someone you truly want to help, your way [i.e. the way of self-sabotage] won't work." It's as if she believes he and Yukino will come back together, though everything points to the opposite result. Perhaps because of Yui, because unlike last time, where Yui seemed to be powerlessly in the middle (it was Sensei who got him drafted into the festival committee, if I remember), this time she compels him to return, so after a scene confirming Haruno has the ugliest soul (who enjoys manipulating and making people uncomfortable out of sport "because it was interesting" - Hannibal's "Because I wanted to see what would happen" explanation hit home hard right then) he shows up again in the clubroom, where the girls decide someone else will run to defeat Iroha in the election. Hachiman thoughtfully and brutally rips into their particulars, and when Yukino practically begs him to change (granted, you have to read deep within the lines), he leaves again. Yukino could solve the problem if she explained what bothered her about his method, but that would make her vulnerable, and she cannot but be the aloof, superior one. The two paths are still diverged.

Oregairu 2.2

The matchmaker plot continues, and the series intimates that the unexpected is to be anticipated, using the reactions to a haunted house. Some things are normal - Yui and Yumiko are scared and Hachiman isn't - but others are not - Kawasaki and Tobe are scared, while Hina and Saika eat it up. Naturally this is also a place where the growing attraction of Yui for Hachiman gets ever more so slightly obvious. 

From a quick conversation with Yukino, confirming her happy, perky attitude is continuing, we get an entirely unexpected development when Hachiman runs into Yumiko for a private conversation. Already suspicious because Hayama seems to be subtly undermining Tobe's quest, Yumiko confirms that Hina will definitively reject Tobe, because she delicately "rejects everybody.' Yumiko likes how things are with her clique (not least because she gets lots of time with Hayama) and so fiercely orders the hapless one to "not ruin it," which Hina quietly confirms in her own icky yaoi-loving way. Moral of the story? Don't play matchmaker. 

This would be extremely boring if it were not the backdrop for the Service Club's increasing bond. Hachiman, Yui, and Yukino are functioning as close to a harmonic unit as can reasonably be imagined, even if Yumiko is right and Yui is withholding pertinent information. Scenes with the three of them walking together down the street, with the girls foisting food on the boy (who concludes, "I feel like livestock being fed. I could get used to this. Food tastes the best when you don't have to work for it.) are hilarious, and nothing says friendship like tranquil munching in silence together. Simple, contented companionship.

The group these three have formed is constantly being compared and contrasted to Hayama's clique, which Hachiman claims to look down upon and despise for its shallowness and artificiality. Like Yumiko, Hayama likes the way things are now and doesn't want them to change, to which Hachiman retorts, not entirely wrongly, that "if this is all it takes to shatter your bonds, they were never that deep." Perhaps, but the bonds he's formed with Yui and Yukino are probably as fragile, if not more so, than their's. "What's lost can never be returned," Hayama intones in resignation, and indeed that is the fear in friendships. Both he (and Hachiman, if he were aware of it) are being ruled by that fear, instead of confronting and overcoming it, and if they tried, they would find other opportunities open even as these might close - because even though it is a motivation from fear, it is still an insight - mucking around with a friendship is a good way to distance and alienate the other, and often, that distancing is irreversible. So Hayama wants nothing to change, Hina wants nothing to change, and Sayoko wants nothing to change. Thus, Hachiman concludes that "there is something I can do." That it will be something absolutely effective and self-destructive is a given.

The stage is set and the pieces are moving. The two girls agree that Hina will probably reject Tobe, and when Hachiman tells them there is "a way to resolve things semi-peacefully," they both spontaneously agree to trust him in handling it, with such bright, eager smiles it's guaranteed to make you uncomfortable. Proof that their real delight is working together, and not succeeding in accomplishing the goal asked of them. And so the plan is put into action. There, in the romantic spot Yui wanted someone (guess who!) to confess to her, Hachiman fake-confesses to Hina, who politely turns him down. 

She is smart and knows he was faking, as does Hayama, Yui, and Yukino. Tobe and the others, however, are totally convinced, and so Hachiman will probably experience again all the negative aspects of being rejected he brought up at the beginning of the arc. He cares deeply for others, enough to self-efface, but can't move away from a socially self-destructive, alienating pattern. 

In the school festival, Hachiman was truthfully cruel to Sagami, meaning her disaster could be blamed on him being mean to her on the rooftop, and when amplified and spread via the Way of Gossip, preserving her false reputation as a good committee chair, his self-destructive behavior reconciled him and Yukino, reestablishing their friendships. But this time, she tells him, "I very much hate the way you do things." She's so mad she doesn't even have the words to properly express herself and stalks away. Outwardly calm and composed (she didn't even raise her voice), but inwardly a raging volcano. 

She lacks the words, but Yui sure doesn't. In a beautiful, pleading monologue, she begs Hachiman to never do that again; even while acknowledging that he probably succeeded, "Why can't you think of other people's feelings for a change? How can you be so smart but so stupid?" And in tears she also walks away. Hachiman is able to be brutally honest with those who mean nothing to him (kudos to Hina for this insight), but those who mean the most to him are precisely those who need the truth the most and who he's afraid the truth will alienate because he, like Hina, "is rotten." He notes to himself that "because we value things and don't want to lose them, we hide and dress up the truth. So everyone lies, but the biggest liar is me." He is smart enough to realize the simplest solution to the popular kids' dilemma, but refuses to turn that insight to the relationships he's been building with Yui and Yukino. By "other people" Yui meant herself and Yukino, so it is probably there where anything resembling an answer will be found. 

Why are Yui and Yukino so upset? Granted, Yui is more heartbroken than angry, but neither one is happy with their friend. It could be because the way he helps other people is to make himself the gossiped-about villain, which ruins his chances of genuine relationships. As Sensei told him, "There are people whose hearts break every time you hurt yourself," and both of the girls were hurt by what he did. Because they care about him and his reputation, for him to ruin it all over again for people he claims to not care for at all must be infuriating. But then why were they not mad about the Sagami Solution? Hachiman is not in love with Hina and so the resulting gossip will actually be amusing, not embarrassing, whereas the Sagami Scenario made him look callously cruel. Yet Yukino admired him for it that time. That time, being a sheep in wolf's clothing was good. Now it is bad. There must be more to it than simply the girls being inconsistent.

Another possibility could be hinted at by the episode's title, "Unheard Confessions," of course referring to Tobe, but probably indicating Yui and Yukino as well. Both of them are developing feelings for Hachiman, and maybe it bothered them that he was able to lie about something as important as love so casually. Telling another girl he loved her probably hurt them because of that, even (especially?) when it was clear he didn't mean it. Yui of course has been in love with him since last season, when only her mom's phone call stopped her confession, and it's all but certain Hachiman knows about it. Yukino on the other hand, is just as friendless and solitary as Hachiman, and has no experience with friends, let alone love, so she may not even realize the truth herself, even though she's so strongly drawn to him and he to her. They were made for each other like Kurisu and Kyouma. 

Yukino is probably the key here. She has changed since the last season; we've never seen her this warm and open before. Her feelings are beginning to change; to friendship certainly, and to love probably. Always before she has been calm and collected; always in control, ever articulate, never at a loss. But that night walking back to the hotel, she lost her sense of direction and had to rely on Hachiman; she felt vulnerable then, and flustered when out of courtesy she thanked him for walking her back. She has no experience with positive relationships, if Haruno is any indication here, so of course she would have no idea how to understand or integrate what she's feeling now, much less how to explain it to others, even if she wanted to. Hence: "It frustrates me that I can't articulate myself." What didn't bother her before bothers her now - not because it is different (Hachiman and his methods are the same), but because she is different, even though she barely knows it herself. 

Put more cynically, with Sagami, Yukino realized Hachiman was doing it for her; now, she realizes he was doing it for someone else; or perhaps she's frustrated that his underhanded tactics work, while nothing she does has ever been really effective, which makes her feel expendable and inadequate, even as she knows he's not going about this in the right way. I doubt either of those motivations - jealousy and resentment - are the primary reasons for her anger, or if they're even there at all, but it's at least possible they're contributing factors.

Both of the girls are right to be upset but are being unreasonable at the same time. Anyone paying attention to Hachiman's stories of past attempted connection will realize instantly why he does what he does and how he does it. Constant rejection is enough to make anyone suspect that perhaps they're rotten, and unworthy or incapable of genuine connection, which is the one thing that truly makes life worth living. Hence the self-sabotage and the lies, and his recognition that "I am the biggest liar of them all." He claims he wants to be a solitary bear, but is longing for true friendship. Yui will probably forgive him almost instantly, but Yukino will not. She expects him to pull an about-face and totally change on a dime, while refusing to really understand him. Tragedy in the making. 

Oregairu 2.1

"I just created a world where no one gets hurt." That is Hachiman's response to Hayama in the season two premiere flashback to the previous season's finale (the athletics festival kind of seems like filler in retrospect). That sums up his conflicted, contradictory nature: extremely self-giving to the point of total self-abnegation, but unwilling to accept or acknowledge that anyone would or could care about him. Fear is still the dominant motivator for him in both word and deed. That state of being cannot be sustained, because he is still totally heedless as to its application: doing something outrageous to solve a problem (the Sagami scenario) happened to work out well for him (at least, it impressed Yukino, probably because she realized he'd done it for her), but it's only a matter of time before it causes an ugly self-destruct. Hachiman, Yui, and Yukino's personalities are each so sharply drawn, so vivid, and so strong that each of their flaws has the potential to destroy the group they form.

It is a real pleasure to see characters grow, and Yukino's growth in particular is exciting. She is still the somewhat icy, stoic, sharp-tongued princess of last season, but there is a loyal side of her that is only just emerging. Upon a request for help (Hayama and Tobe enter the clubroom), Tobe gets cold feet about speaking in front of Hachiman ("He doesn't seem trustworthy at all"). Yui promptly gets visibly and audibly upset, whereas Yukino appears to calmly acknowledge that it is probably Hachiman's fault. "Then, forgive my asking, but would you please leave?" His response is entirely unruffled: "Yeah. Call me whenever you're done with stuff." He is genuinely unconcerned. Only after he gets up to leave does he discover that Yukino was talking about the duo, and she proceeds to shred them as lacking manners and propriety. Last season those words would have been directed at Hachiman without a second thought. It wasn't until she spoke again that I realized I'd made the same mistake myself. Things are different now. 

Tobe's problem is that he likes a girl and wants advice on how to properly tell her this. Yui - adorable, lovable Yui - is all aboard the ship train, and somehow the other two agree. Hachiman is the last one to accept it, and unless I'm wildly off the mark, Yukino's stare has a pleading quality to it. One reason I love this anime so much is that I've never seen such attentive work to render the expression of a face before. Yui in particular has incredible detail in these frames.

This situation means, among other things, that we have lots of opportunity to witness Hachiman's probing, cynical views on the risks involved in telling girls you're into them, such as it being promulgated through the school immediately, and you being the subject of "their little conversations." And (this is a depth charge) "What happens after you tell someone you're friends with that you like them - " and Tobe cuts him off. The season is rapidly moving in that direction as far as Yui, Yukino, and Hachiman are concerned, so perhaps that's a good thing, but I for one would love to hear from Hachiman what happens when you tell a girl you're friends with that you're falling in love with her. That would provide volumes of insight into his character. 

But I can guess: "She turns you down, and the friendship soon withers after that." He is acutely attuned to rejection and social embarrassment, all of which stemmed from opening up to another person. A less dramatic version of Shinji's Hedgehog Dilemma. "When a girl says a guy is nice, that means she couldn't care less about him." Tobe has no idea what Hachiman is thinking, and the latter is not audibly forthcoming. 

The plan is to get Tobecchi and Ebina alone during the field trip to Tokyo, and naturally Hachiman's relationship with Yui and Yukino is where the main focus lies - Tobe and his dilemma is just subtext. Somehow Yui is always together with Hachiman, ostensibly because "we have work to do," but continually pushing the touch barrier and making innocent observations ("You think everybody's wishing for romance?" I dunno Yui, but you definitely are). She is extremely beautiful, with a strikingly pure heart, and I find it inconceivable to suppose she doesn't realize what she's doing. She's not cynically smart like Hachiman or Yukino, but she is good, and pretty intuitive. There's no way she doesn't know what she's doing. 

Enter Yukino, who has a convenient rendezvous with Hachiman in the hotel lobby, and we see what delight in interaction really looks like. Hachiman is extremely guarded around Yui, probably because he knows quite well she's into him, but that guard gets relaxed around Yukino, perhaps because they're so similar. Unlike Yui, from Hachiman's perspective (though the viewer is starting to suspect otherwise), there is no sign that she has a crush on him, so there is no danger. And who should appear but Hiratsuka-sensei, who takes them out for ramen (they saw her sneaking out against the rules, so she bribed them. Good example there, Sensei) and conveniently has them walk more than a few blocks to the hotel. Alone. At night. "I'm looking out for you. Make all the mistakes you want." Just like Yui, it is clear what she's doing. 

The only mistake that is made is in Yukino's head when she gets lost. Yet another reason I love this series' characters: Yukino is not just a stock, hypercompetent, barbed, vicious, stoic wit. The look on her face when she realizes she's depending on Hachiman for direction (and on Hachiman's when she thanks him for walking her back) say more than their words do, and provide a dimension in themselves. Displaying any vulnerability makes her tremendously uncomfortable and afraid. She prizes self-reliance for parallel reasons that Hachiman does as well. But the friendship the two have developed, though it's only just been barely tested, is in direct conflict with that. Both are enjoying, probably for the first time, the joys of opening oneself up to another, and how furiously fun that can be. It can also be extraordinarily painful (as Shinji and Asuka would attest), but for now, that is forgotten.

Oregairu 1.13

Sensei has not gotten tired thinking of ways to push and pull Yukino and Hachiman into becoming human beings, and her latest plot involves them once again doing things for other people and even the whole school. A bit transparent, perhaps, but the two reprobates do not mind, since they're having fun with their once-again customary banter. Yukino looks more alive than she ever has, and Hachiman fills his role as wearily persecuted expertly. And Yui is the emotive, adorable third wheel. So of course they agree to help.

Wherein is encountered what I'll bet is a quintessential Japanese high school problem: making a school event crazy mad fun while considering absolutely everybody's feelings. In Sensei's words, "They've been anal about feelings this year, so we've got a ton of restrictions." And she torpedoes every idea, prompting Hachiman to sarcastically retort that this approach won't work, so they should go find people instead, people who can be used. "It's a universal law that someone who can be used will be used until they burn out and die. Meanwhile, no raises for them." Cue a violent agreement from Sensei, and it is agreed they will outsource. Presto! Fait accompli!

The standard shenanigans ensue, their team has a glorious victory, but the triumph narrative is subverted because Hachiman gets caught cheating. He's a loner, so "I didn't think anyone else was watching." Yukino and Yui both were, however, and the former gets flustered when Yui figures that out. She quickly takes refuge in banter, but the viewer already suspects what she would deny to everyone, especially herself. 

A halcyon episode, in a way: the three are solid friends, and have made more progress in thirteen twenty-minute episodes than most characters do in a cour of twenty episodes of an hour. Only the hints of the dramatic conflict next season will have are intimated, and only just. There is very little that could destroy the friendship these three now have, but the seeds of it have been sown. 

Oregairu 1.12

With a whirlwind encounter with Komachi, the frame sets up the subject of this episode: Yukino enters the shot before the credits and it's clear she's still uncomfortable, barely able to meet Hachiman's eye. But the two can't avoid hanging around each other, so meet they must. 

And what better subject matter than Haruno, who's wearing a bombshell of a dress and directing a band ensemble gloriously? Every man's dream enfleshed. Yukino praises her with characteristic Yukino flavor: "Expectedly good," which sounds sincere, sardonic, and matter-of-fact. She reveals that there was a time when she wanted to be just like Haruno, to which Hachiman unexpectedly replies, "You don't need too. You're fine the way you are." Yukino does not respond. As expected, the two must have direction from the outside, or they'll never get anywhere. And so Sagami goes missing. This provides the drama for this episode, and will illustrate more of Yukino and Hachiman's relationship. After Sagami embarrassed herself in the festival's opening, she hid, and since only she knows the results of some important contest, people need to go find her. Predictably, Hachiman votes against this. Important people who are hiding are really hoping someone will find them and give them attention. He is disinclined to humor such things, preferring the harsh truth - you aren't really necessary, and things will continue without you. A bit bleak, but not unreasonable.

Hayama, however, is a decent, stand-up guy. He convinces Yumiko, who has a mad crush on Hayama, to keep singing so that the rest of the group can find her. This also means finding and getting distracting help from Haruno, who is inclined to be irritatingly evasive, as her social Hannibal self would suggest. Yukino however, outwits her, prompting a devious smirk from Hachiman and an admission from Haruno that "You've grown, Yukino." To which her younger sister retorts that this is how she's always been; an argument that only now is Haruno beginning to see her sister as a person instead of a replacement. No longer does Yukino want to play that role. Hachiman could not be prouder.

Yukino is able to rely on everyone else, so Hachiman is assigned to find Sagami. Yukino intuited (not without reason) that he'd be good at finding her, because he thinks. "When someone loses their sense of belonging, they want someone else to hand it back to them on a platter. She wants someone to find her, so she's on school grounds, and in a place where people can find her." Genius. A simple narrowing of possibilities and presto! Up on the rooftop is Sagami.

The chairman is inclined to be ornery and difficult. Ordinarily, Hachiman would have accepted her request, taken the results, and left, but he reasons with himself that Yukino accepted the role to make Sagami, committee chair, a success. Because it would make her efforts worthless, Hachiman decides to get Sagami downstairs, and "instill in her the honor, frustration, and regret associated with the position. I could do it by saying what she wants to hear, but I don't have it in me to say it." How very interesting.

Right on cue, Hayama shows up and tries to do exactly that: coddle Sagami into going back downstairs. For reasons a little unknown to me, Hachiman can't stand this syrupy, saccharine sentimentality, and decides "to do it my own way, as Yukino did things her way to the bitter end. So it will be unequivocal invective, vile, villainous, and vicious." He is going to make himself a hated villain again. This makes the third time. He gets to perform by telling the truth. Pure, unadultered, loveless truth. Relentless. Sagami envies the standing of Yukino but is incompetent to imitate her, and Hachiman ruthlessly excoriates her weak character. 

Hachiman gets about five sentences in before Hayama interrupts, slamming him into a wall, taking the poor shell-shocked Sagami back downstairs. The girls around Hayama either didn't know what he was doing, or played into it, coddling Sagami just the way she wanted to be coddled. Hayama definitely knows, however. With regret he asks Hachiman alone, "Why can't you do things differently?" Hachiman says nothing. The perfect contrast to the concert downstairs - the perfect image of rejoicing community, with Hachiman alone and isolated, everyone hating him. Everyone, of course, except Sensei: "Doing amazing things is no excuse for hurting yourself. You should know there are people who's hearts break every time you do that." This woman is the perfect mentor, the perfect teacher.

Back in the classroom, Yukino and Hachiman reconcile completely, with plenty of barbed wit shielding desire for connection, per the usual. I love Sensei, but it was probably Hachiman's sacrifice that made Yukino make the extra step, since she'd intuit why did what he did. Despite his stated love of solitude, Hachiman desperately wants Yukino as a friend, and she wants the same from him. Defending her earlier statement back in episode 1 as no lie, "I didn't know you well then. Now I do." Cue a wink and smile. Not bad for a social slug. For better or worse, the two are together again.

Oregairu 1.11

Yukino is sick. Therefore, Hachiman and Yui go and visit her in a fancy high-rise that surprises (I don't know why though - it's clear Yukino is from a wealthy family, as if the personal chauffeur weren't enough signal) Hachiman. He imagines all sorts of objections when Yukino finds out he's there with Yui ("So go home already") but ignores those and demands entrance. And just like that, the door opens. 

Yui and Hachiman are both upset about the way the festival work is being handled, meaning Hachiman has a quiet, monotone speech and Yui has an outburst. They eventually get Yukino to agree that she will rely on others - at least these two - but Hachiman doesn't believe anything will change. He himself has a plan, however.

This happens during the festival meeting, in yet another display of atrocious leadership by Sagami-san. Debating the slogan, common Japanese high school platitudes ("Let's all work together and help each other out!") as vomitoriously saccharine as they are ubiquitous get thrown around like drunken ping pong balls, until Hachiman points out all these really mean is one or a few people - himself and Yukino in particular - do all the work and the rest goof around. This insight causes Yukino to lose control momentarily in what for her is hysterical laughter. 

Naturally this makes everyone hate Hachiman and this provokes a delightful conversation between him and Yukino about changing and the lack thereof in Hachiman's case. It is an ingenious scene. No conversation about Yukino's lie, no overt apology, but an awkward half-smile and wave goodbye from Yukino, which is probably equivalent to a heedless embrace from, say, Yui. Somehow the two have reconciled, and if not exactly where they were before Hachiman realized his friend's lie, tensions between them have somehow eased almost without trying.

It might be because Yukino perceives the reason for Hachiman making himself the villain, as Haruno observes. Prior to this, following the stupid president's example, committee members were slacking off, but having a perceived villain (Hachiman) brings everyone together. "What brings people together more than an enemy?" Haruno flirts, which is true. I've felt closer to people over shared hatreds than shared loves. And since Yukino is easily as smart or smarter than her sister, it's unthinkable she hasn't picked up on that herself.

Nor is Yukino the only one who perceives something. Yui understands her friend is in the process of changing, and is content to more or less wait for her to come talk honestly and genuinely whatever's on her mind. An exception is made, however, for "those who won't try even if you wait," and it doesn't take a genius to figure out she means Hachiman right there. Giving him a dessert turns into Hachiman refusing charity meaning he takes Yui out for something else. That sounds suspiciously like a date. I can't work out if that was her intention from the beginning (sneaky girl) or if she was just being Yui. She certainly snaps at the idea of going out for food, reminding me of the dog collar scene.

The common thread in Hachiman's interventions is being the agent of his own vilifying, which is eerily similar to Sengoku's unrequited love for Araragi in Monogatari. One of her friends (I think Hanekawa or one of the twins) calls it a deception, a way of hiding from reality; a way to shut that part of you off, which means it will never be hurt. Hachiman is the same - being hated is its own form of enjoyment, particularly if you are despised by the stupid; if you know the truth, what difference does the bleating of cliques make? One can easily rise above that. But that is the Haruno road, and ten to one it will take Sensei, Yui, or both to keep Hachiman away from that abomination. There's a form of selflessness in what he does, but he is still unwilling to go all the way and seek total, genuine friendship with another. 

Still to Come

Just so that the reference is easy for my lazy self, here are the series that still look promising after the heights of Oregairu, Steins;Gate, and Shinsekai Yori. I'm still going to finish writeups of Oregairu, but that doesn't mean I won't watch anything else in the meantime. I'll work through the tortured mess of Monogatari as that all happens. 

• Shiki
• Kyousogiga
• Haibane Renmei
• Made in the Abyss
• Denpa Onna
• Red Data Girl
• The Eccentric Family
• Paranoia Agent
• Kino's Journey
• Gatchaman Crowds
• Natumse Yuujinshou
• Mushishi
• My Neighbor Totoro
• Owarimonogatari S.2
• Devilman Crybaby
• Revolutionary Girl Utena
• Baccano
• Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress
• Psycho Pass
• Terror in Resonance
• Kurozuka
• Occult Academy
• Classroom Crisis
• Requiem from the Darkness
• Girlish Number
• Aria
• Planetes
• Log Horizon
• Re:Creators
• Beatless
• Dagashi Kashi
• Koi wa Ameagari
• Kids on the Slope
• Pet Girl of Sakurasou
• Nichijou
• Sora Yori mo Tooi
• Violet Evergarden
• Persona 5
• Steins;Gate 0
• Death March
• Ajin
• Lost Village
• March Comes in Like a Lion
• Flip Flappers
• Noragami
• ACCA
• House of Five Leaves
• Record of the Grancrest War
• Darling in the FranXX
• Angelmois
• Re:Life OVA
• Ousama Game
• Blend S
• Children of the Whales
• Inuyashiki
• B: The Beginning
• Ancient Magus' Bride

Shinsekai Yori, Stein's;Gate, and Oregairu

Oregairu, Steins;Gate, and most of all Shinsekai Yori turned the world upside down for me. Prior to Oregairu, though I would have passionately defended Evangelion (still probably my favorite, and my judgment for the best anime ever written), for the most part I likely would have admitted under duress that anime was a guilty pleasure; suspect at best and a total waste of time at worst, unworthy of serious reflection. In Oregairu, however, I found intense, rapid, and perceptive writing; writing that knew what human interaction was about, and could see the pitfalls for the young and alienated in seeking genuine friendship. In every way it proved better by far than the classic of alienation, Catcher in the Rye. In almost every episode its insight into humanity and human relationships surprised or even stunned me. 

Steins;Gate was a break from this, because it was most of all a compelling, thrilling story; good tale-telling at its height. I was reminded of my friend J who just wanted to write something fun to read without trying to include much in the way of moralistic teaching (I still remember the name of his hero, Brick Stormthrower). Best of all (and truly unexpected), it retreated from the love of technology, suggesting that perhaps some possibilities should remain unused. All this, plus a beautifully depicted love story, shaped under taut, urgent writing. I've seldom enjoyed narrative this much, whether it be Melville, Austen, or Wilde. 

But it was Shinsekai Yori that blew everything out of the water. My friend D told me his private rating was 15/10, which I thought then was hyperbole. Now I believe it is too low. It was as if Watership Down and The Village met The Republic. I've never seen or read anything that better explored the qualities of a good leader. In Saki, courage, love of the truth, compassion, and understanding all grew together and informed one another. The series showed the formation of her own beautiful character, the way Pan's Labyrinth's climax showed the triumph of the Princess Moanna's conscience. To look beyond the authoritative opinions and ugly, founding lies of the city and remain humane, just, and understanding, even taking responsibility for the city, is a staggering feat; doubly so when the reader or viewer is convinced it's real. 

In the end, I suppose it's not surprising that anime has risen to a high art form. After all, so have novels, poetry, film, even television. Why then should it surprise that Japanese cartoons have as well? Despite its many and obvious flaws, what enfleshes family love and reconciliation better than Clannad? Understands the peril and pain of human connection better than Evangelion? Knows more about leadership than Shinsekai Yori? Anime is a very recent form, to be sure, but it has become a way of storytelling, the equal of the poem and the novel in imitating and explaining nature, especially the nature of man. For me it is now a companion for life.

Oregairu 1.10

The opening scene of this episode is simply perfect. Yukino and Hachiman are ignoring one another, engrossed (or pretending to be) in their books, while Yui is situated exactly in the middle between them. The frame could not be more explicit. She's caught in the middle, but unable to affect either side. She is neutral against her will.

God Bless Sensei. She is the hero of this episode, and probably of the entire series. Against his will, she has made him serve on the committee for the high school's cultural festival (an exhausting sort of formal school party I probably would have abhorred as a teenager. I do not think I would have flourished in the Japanese school system). Yukino also serves as assistant to the president, and it is by this means their reconciliation will happen. 

That is a ways in the future, however. Yukino seems to be picking up Hachiman's resentment, and answers by closing herself off to everyone around her. Rudely, even. Whether it's the constant comparisons people make between her and Haruno or the problem Hachiman has with her, I don't know, but the result is the same. Her walls are even higher and stronger than Hachiman.

Poor Yui sees this and frustrated, bursts out at Hachiman. She knows something is wrong and hates it, but doesn't know why. Even totally ignorant, though, she is able to extract - against his will, most likely - a promise that Hachiman will help Yukino if she gets into more than she can handle with the festival committee. Without Yui and Sensei, the two slugs would be hopeless. They have to be dragged, total dead weight, to any sort of personal growth. 

For some reason, Haruno ends up as a volunteer. I admit I do not know the beginnings of the ins and out of Japanese high school, but is it weird that a college student is spending so much time around a specifically high-school event? Particularly when she had already headed it during her own day, and when her sister is de facto heading it now? I am beginning to think she enjoys being a social loose cannon, and take pleasure in the discomfort she causes those around her. She deliberately starts sabotaging the process of planning the festival like a social Hannibal Lector. She's like an anti-Sensei. Her intervention might coincide with growth between Hachiman and Yukino, but it's probably going to be an accident. Sensei cares. I'm not sure Haruno does.

Perhaps Haruno and Sensei were both very much like Yukino and Hachiman are now when they were in high school. If that's the case, Sensei seems to have undergone experiences which altered and transformed her isolating behavior, and now is able to act like a mentor to those who isolate themselves. In Sensei's person, we can see what it looks like when things go right, which means it's possible Haruno might exemplify the opposite. 

Oregairu 1.9

Komachi gets to play matchmaker, either exasperated or pleased at how obstinately Hachiman is ignoring the signs from Yui. So against his will, he's on a date, under the cover of buying a thank you for his little sister from Yui. But even Hachiman isn't dumb enough to fail seeing his sister's plot. Instead, he's actively resisting the temptation around Yui - the temptation to see fate or destiny revealed in coincidence. As he so eloquently puts it, "I do not believe in coincidence, fate, or destiny;" precisely those things that so inspire teenage infatuation. 

According to Hachiman, 80% of the male population is prone to the speculation, "Is she into me?" Thus, he says, he shall remain cautious, endlessly repeating to himself, "No way in Hell." Is he being wilfully obtuse, or is it really so hard to recognize when someone is falling in love with you? The viewer recognizes Yui's attraction immediately, but perhaps they are simply exemplifying Hachiman's talent of seeing more clearly into others' than his own relationships. So predictably, when running into Yui's friends, Hachiman immediately compares himself to the more popular, more likable (let's be honest here) Hayama. This reinforces his instinct to withdraw, as he inwardly repeats his Nice Girls monologue. Thus, the first half of the episode is Hachiman ignoring the obvious on purpose. 

Enter Haruno for the second half. She can always be counted on to stir things up, though it remains to be seen whether she will stir things up the way Sensei does (pushing Hachiman towards growth) or in less positive ways. Without too much surprise for the viewer, she starts talking about Hachiman and Yui's relationship and the problems it will create for Yukino, who she reveals is not good at either compromise or negotiation (thank Haruno, but we already knew that), especially with her mother; and now that Hachiman and Yui are on a date (Yui gives the standard anime "It isn't like that!" protest, but it's clear she's lying through her teeth), "Things won't go Yukino's way yet again." 

Haruno is so superficial and false it's almost impossible to get a read on her. Her armor, as Hachiman recognized, is amazing. She's a social loose cannon. Yukino sees herself as simply a replacement for Haruno, and in Haruno's words, Yukino has always sought to match and chase after her older sister. Then, after Yui explains all the reasons she loves Yukino, Haruno explains why that turns into jealous resentment. "I hope you're different," she says, but it's impossible to know if that's the truth. More probably, everything that comes out of her mouth is simply said to see what will happen, like Hannibal calling Garret Jacob Hobbs. I do not trust her. 

Case in point: Haruno asks Yui and Hachiman if they'd like a ride back in her family's car - you know, the one that ran him over. Discerning that Yukino never told him, she asks him to "not hold it against her," knowing of course that he will obsessively dwell on just that. Or simply just wondering what he will do after all this has been made explicit. Of course, Hachiman waves it off, claiming that he does not dwell on the past. Good to know he can lie through his teeth. 

Perceptive Yui knows something is wrong, but is unable to do anything about it. Yukino is the elephant in the room right now. Hachiman claims he wants to avoid what Yukino doesn't want to touch on (why she lied about not knowing him, for example), and according to Yui, "if you miss the right time you can't say it." This is fine, according to him, because knowing less means you have less to worry about. This strikes Yui as wrong, because she wants genuine friendship; to know another fully and be known in return. She tries to use this as a springboard to get through (or leap over) Hachiman's carefully constructed walls, but his talent lies in losing, so he is able to avoid hearing that she is falling for him. 

Yukino, upon their reunion, actually seems as if she has something to say to him, hearing about his encounter from Haruno - I can only guess how that went down, but I'm glad we were not privy to it - but Hachiman shuts it down, retreating even further into his fortress, because he is furious with himself for expecting Yukino to be totally consistent: "The Yukino that I've known, always beautiful, unable to lie, honest, always standing on her own two feet, without anyone or anything to support her; I'm sure that I held Yukino in admiration. I chose to expect things out of her. I chose to force my ideals on her. I chose to feel like I understood her. And so I chose to be disappointed. As much as I've told myself not to, I still do it. Even Yukino lies. I can't accept this basic fact. And so I hate myself."

What a great monologue. Classic clearsightedness joined to his familiar fortress mentality. Hachiman could have listened to what Yukino had to say, but had already decided what he was going to do before school started, just as he did when he tried to destroy his friendship with Yui. A minor betrayal (if we can even call it that) reinforces his original intent to close himself off from other people at the slightest sign of risk. Yukino disappointed him once; you could even read it as her taking advantage of him. Like Shinji, he is afraid of that sort of pain, so he hides. He is afraid, or even a coward. 

What has already happened, however, is irreversible. For the first time in his life, he has (or at least, in Yukino's case, he had) good friends. Yui is still there, and her presence is bound to effect something. There is also Sensei, who is unlikely to stay away from her charges for long. Hachiman has experienced some of the thrill of understanding another and being understood, so his retreat is unlikely to last very long. He will not be able to help himself.