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.
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.
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