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.
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.
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