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.
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.
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