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.