Oregairu 1.4

Whereas last episode sang the praises of Yui, this one brings out some of Hachiman's strengths. He doesn't play second fiddle to Yukino or Yui here, displaying an acute awareness of what goes wrong in group friendships, and we even see something of his generosity (masked, of course behind indifference to ridicule) in problem-solving for other people.

We get his 'origin' story too, where according to him, he began to be a loner. Run over by a very fancy car while saving a cute, dumb little dog (which belongs to a pretty girl of whom we only catch a glimpse) - the perfect setup for a Boy Meets Girl story. Since it's Hachiman, however, things can't be so idyllic: Dog Girl visits his house while he's in the hospital, in order to thank him and bring thank-you food. His little sister Komachi eats said food, and forgets to ask Dog Girl her name for Hachiman, so even though she goes to Soubu High, they have no way of meeting unless she approaches him first. Good job there, little sis. 

This is one of the best depictions out there of a sibling relationship, banter and all. The way Hachiman and Komachi interact is actually how close sibling relate, especially brother and sister. It's startling, how real it is.

The action of the episode revolves around the chain letter text slandering three of Hayama's friends: Tobechi, Yamato, and Oka. Hayama being Hayama just wants it to stop, not necessarily expose and humiliate the perpetrator. Unsurprisingly, Yukino absolutely disagrees, showing a vehement hatred towards anonymous slander we've come to expect from her. There is a special place in Yukino-Hell for authors of slanderous chain letters. Given her predilection for honesty even or especially when she's ripping people apart, she operates fully known and in person. Whatever her flaws, she is not wont to spreading lies about others, and despises those who do, particularly when they're anonymous.

Despite her wrath, however, she is able to do almost nothing about it. It's Hachiman who accomplishes the solution in this episode. Yui tries by interrogating her girlfriends, but is entirely unsuccessful, not even able to hide her affection for someone, which isn't even relevant to her goal. She does drop some social wisdom on Hachiman, by informing him  that girls are more apt to be aware of the relationships in the class, and that "if you talk about someone you both hate, they can get carried away and say all kinds of stuff." Oh my. 

We never do find out who sent the text, but thanks to Hachiman's observations about a friendship revolving around a single character (something everyone has experienced - a person is your friend and another's friend, but when he leaves the group, the others are just friends of friends, it gets awkward, and conversation dies). Yui puts it the best: "When the person who keeps the conversation going leaves, it gets totally awkward. You don't know what to do, so you pull out your phone." That's an awful solution, but it perfectly captures the difficulty of genuine interaction.

Hachiman is able to put the solution together extremely fast, leaving Yukino far behind. She doesn't realize the implication of Hayama being the center of the friendship until Hachiman spells it out for her. Remove Hayama from the situation, he advises, and the problem will disappear - Tobechi, Yamato, and Oka might even becomes friends in his occasional absence - and indeed, it seems as if they do. 

This is the first time he's really done something for another person in the series, particularly while avoiding his characteristic, cynical cruelty. He claims to have done nothing, but in fact is the sole reason the solution works so well. This is probably not a watershed moment (Exasperated, Sensei asks him at the episode's start if he's changed at all, and he seems dedicated to appearing unchanged in front of her for the time being), as if things will be radically different from here on out, but since we already knew Hachiman is not the hardened, triumphant cynic he thinks himself to be, it's exciting to see his potential so early. Soon that good potential will begin to conflict with his defenses against human connection, so troubles will be afoot soon, and they'll probably be afoot for him sooner than Yukino.

Oregairu 1.3

Now that the group dynamic is settling in (Hachiman, Yukino, and Yui, occasionally visited by help-seeking outsiders), the trio will start to change. And in this episode, most of that change has one source: Yui. She's the one who bridges the gap between Hachiman and Yukino, referring to their mutual inside jokes (a bit of an odd way of describing their vicious banter, but Hachiman does not object. After all, Yukino is the only real social interaction he has at school), she is the one who brings Saika to the clubroom, she is the one who initially helps Hachiman in the tennis match, and when she's incapacitated, she's the one who fetches Yukino to help finish the job - in addition to unleashing the latter's humorous, competitive fury. 

The banter between Hachiman and Yukino is always well-done, always funny, but it does more than amuse - it reveals. Yukino's experience with jealous competition (the passive-aggressive, envy-inspired female sort, primarily) has taught her that rivals, when they team up to take another down, generally confine themselves to sabotaging that person, pulling them down; not by making themselves more excellent human beings and surpassing them that way. Now I'm not a girl, nor do I have much experience in that sort of catfight, but everything I've heard about the way girls are nasty to each other in competition just got elegantly, if bitterly, distilled by the Ice Queen. Pure, if brutal, social enlightenment.

Yukino has been consistently revealed as extremely competitive. She possesses an intense desire for victory, which even leads her into voicing sentiments of camaraderie with Hachiman during the tennis match - and in the hearing of others, no less. Granted, she would have endless dirt to throw on him if they lost (e.g. "You made me lie. Disgusting"), but I still can't imagine her putting any confidence in another in the pilot. Her expression of confidence is likely to increasingly win Hachiman's respect ("I may spew insults and gaffes, but never once have I spewed a lie"), though squaring her identity on  avoiding a ubiquitous vice is a bad idea. If she ever does lie to Hachiman, he won't take it well. 

Further, Yukino is - or used to be - solitary as an oyster, as her opening frame suggested. But that is beginning to change, now that Yui's here. It is Yui who first calls Yukino a friend, which surprises - even shocks - the latter (although Yui doesn't think anything of it, or if she does, does not indicate it), who is so flustered she can't even repeat it yet. Yui is almost certainly going to be the one who gets Yukino and Hachiman to make interior progress.

Speaking of Yui, her letter of intent is adorable. I have seen girls do exactly that before, and it's (surprise) hilarious, mostly because it would never occur to me to do that in a thousand years. Heart of gold.

Hayama's character is also getting more fleshed out, and his identity as a nice guy seeking social reconciliation - "let's all get along" seems to be increasingly solid. Thus Hachiman and Yukino's resentment towards him (though to be honest, hers is more directed at Yumiko, who has much less to recommend), is strange. After all, he's smart (like them), attractive (like them), and has friends (not like them). They seem to resent his apparent superiority in precisely the same way they criticize the inferiors who resent their own superiority. Neither seem to be aware of this inconsistency.

Now that the initial dynamics of the trio have been fleshed out, both Hachiman and Yukino are depicted as having intelligent, if immature, highly articulate views of the world. Both see themselves as internally consistent, but both have been revealed as inconsistent in rather significant ways, and neither one recognizes it. The only one who is consistent like that is Yui, the airhead with the heart of gold. In a way, that's refreshing. Who would honestly expect an intelligent, bitter, and solitary 15-year-old to be completely consistent? The surest way to know more of who you are is to experience life with others, since they expose your flaws and the lies you tell yourself and other people. Neither Hachiman nor Yukino do this, so it is unsurprising that they exemplify many of the behaviors they condemn in other people. 

Oregairu 1.2

The exposition continues with Hachiman's monologue on human pack behavior, namely by observing popular cliques and the groups of the unpopular. That is where the social power lies, so the popular do whatever they will, and the unpopular suffer what they must in the hopes of becoming popular themselves. There is a lot there worthy of contempt as superficial, and Hachiman sees that. He likens it to a zero-sum game of alphas and non-alphas. It produces the flighty, superficial behavior Yui tried unsuccessfully to defend in the pilot, and Hachiman rejects it as destructive to the individual, save when that individual is the alpha, in which case he can force his opinions and personality on the unpopular.

The alternative to this of course is genuine friendship, and Sensei is clearly trying to cultivate that between him and Yukino by asking him what he thinks of her. It is not a surprise that he is unwilling to be forthright with her, so he claims to hate Yukino. Liar! Sensei ignores this (she's probably smart enough to see through it easily) and makes a surprising observation: both he and Yukino are twisted into their current views, and they're both twisted in similar ways. Everyone is fond of saying that Hachiman is "rotten" or "dead inside," but it is equally true of Yukino, though of course it manifests differently in her. She is actually more venomous, more angry than Hachiman, who is already restraining her outbursts. I don't know whether Sensei means for her explanation of Yukino's behavior is meant to illuminate Hachiman's or not, but it does. Both of them have experienced cruelty, but both probably have immense capacities for others, as Yui  clearly does, for her conformist tendencies seem to come from a desire for others, not something self-centered. The others, by contrast, have largely retreated from this sort of behavior.

Speaking of Yui, she is already in an interesting place, in the process of separating herself from the alpha pack. She does not want to reject it completely and thus sever the accompanying friendships, even if they are (as I'm pretty sure they are) on the superficial side. Her solo attempt to do this is almost entirely unsuccessful, because she is afraid of confrontation and is easily reduced to tears. Yumiko surely knows this, which is probably why she exploits it, claiming to want "straight talking" while bullying Yui into a place of cowed, acquiescent silence. She has to be in control all the time, forcing her opinions on her social subordinates, and when she can't, she becomes flustered and defensive. After Yukino's hilarious intervention, which exemplifies her extremely funny, barbed cruelty, when Yui actually does have a chance to speak frankly, Yumiko can do nothing but pretend indifference and hide behind her phone. But the battle has been won anyway; thanks to Yukino's (and, to a lesser extent, Hachiman's) intervention, the separation is achieved. 

Strangely, it is Hayama, the Popularity King, who keeps the conflict between Yumiko and Yukino from escalating, though of course not resolved. He actually seems like a nice guy, not scum. Mark that cliche averted. 

Yui's explanation of what draws her to Yukino and Hachiman is beautiful. "They say what they mean, they know what people want but don't force themselves to do it." As the pilot hinted, that has made her realize the stupidity of mindless social conformity: put briefly, it's a self-contradictory, incoherent means of communion, for the individual self is lost, and genuine communion can only grow between full, not partial, persons. She will no longer be stunted by the need to run with the pack, and is the quickest of the three to realize the way she needed to change. Neither Hachiman nor Yukino have any inkling they have any need to change, much less concrete ways of changing. Yui is light years ahead of them, even though it was their example that awoke her to it. Granted, her explanation of it to Yumiko is a description only of the best parts of Hachiman and Yukino - she does not mention how they can be totally awful human beings (e,g, the way Hachiman treated her in the pilot, and how Yukino seems to relish social cruelty so long as it is in the service of the truth). Doubtless she knows the ugly sides of the two, but perhaps that is just who Yui is - someone who prefers to see and focus on what is best in people. 

The tone between the three seems to be settling into something stable. Hachiman claims to despise Yukino, and his notebook of Who to Kill is dominated by references to her (and they are hilarious: "Ice Queen. Looked at me as if I were a bug. Called me gross 15 times today"), but the two's mutual insults are rapidly becoming more like intense, enjoyable banter. And now that Yui has had her first experience "saying it straight," it is likely she will the them and be an example of effortless giving the other two sorely need.

Oregairu 1.1

I cannot believe anime this good exists. Claymore was good, Bebop and Champloo were better, Eva is about the best, but Oregairu is right up there. It leaves almost all the anime I've seen far behind. I am still in shock and awe. So much so that I'm going to write on every episode. Can this be real? How can anime writing be this good? And so on proceed my thoughts as I'm watching.

Oregairu understands and explores alienation, insecurity, social cruelty, fear, and how these all intertwine in relationships - and it does this better than anything I've seen in a long, long time; it probes the ways we project ourselves and seek to dominate, or self-efface, retreat and hide, raising shields and walls against the hostile other, all with one common denominator: to fly genuine human connection. Oregairu enfleshes what it is to be a lonely, smart, social outcast; and it points the way out. It's never preachy (something I can't abide in art) but it will often say the truth in such simple ways that you're staggered, such as when Hikigaya describes the behavior of a bright, extroverted, very pretty, fun girl - every man's dream - as an armored shell designed to ward people off; or when he describes the ways lonely boys so easily mistake the kind attentions of nice girls for romantic interest. Simple, clear enlightenment.

Again and again the fear of genuine relation appears throughout the series. Eva dwelt on that at length, in excruciating, horrific detail; likewise, Oregairu presents it as a problem in a way that Clannad never did. Notably, there are no role models for flourishing human relationships, which is odd, since those are precisely that which above all make life worth living. Children have no relationships with their parents (or if they do, with one exception, they are awful, destructive relationships), nobody is depicted in love, and those who struggle for friendship have a tendency rip the other apart as often as they show them love - even more so as romance becomes a possibility within a friendship. The potential for relational destruction seems infinite - and it is. Since human relationality is a necessary corollary to the rational nature of man, to avoid it seems to be a rejection of who we are and were meant to be. Such rejections are never made from a place of reasoned detachment, only from past pain. What can equal the pain of being ripped apart by someone you thought a close friend? the rejecting contempt of someone you loved and thought loved you? Those are the sorts of experiences that raise the interior wall of Jericho, and Oregairu explores how one might lower them. 

The pilot opens with an cynical, contemptuous monologue, in which truth and falsehood are (by the writers) ingeniously wound together. The monologue's author, Hachiman Hikigaya, has a penetrating gaze, and sees a lot of the falsity that lies behind a life of celebrating youth; the mindless seeking of varied experiences instead of wisdom (he singles out lies, secrets, sins, and failures), of heedlessly accepting failure ("the hallmark of being young!") while refusing to think through the more sinister implications: "If failure is the hallmark of being young, then someone who has failed to make friends [i.e. Hachiman Hikigaya himself] must be at the peak of his youth." A blithe, saccharine, "I'm-okay-you're-okay, yolo" seems to be something like what he's excoriating. He despises mindlessness, and his school seems to exemplify mindlessness. 

Just because it illuminates a few truths about high school society, however, does not make it a masterpiece. It is a sneering, contemptuous piece of suffered alienation (like Holden's conversations in Catcher in the Rye) and his teacher, not wrongly, shreds it as "worthless drivel." This launches him into his meeting with Yukino Yukinoshita, who seems to be his immediate, albeit complementary rather than mathematical, equal in intellect, wit, and loneliness.

Like him, she has no friends, though being an attractive girl, gets plenty of unwanted male attention. She takes immediate delight in sparring with Hikigaya, and is as ruthless as possible in said matches. She uses words as venomous weapons and enjoys using them to rip people apart, especially since much of what she says is completely true. A perfect example of loveless truth. Both of them have articulate views of the world; according to Yukino, "The human race is weak, ugly, jealous, and hate those with more than them," which she has amply experienced by being pretty, and thus the frequent object of male lust and envy-inspired female hostility. She is clearly intelligent, and argues that "the talented (i.e. herself) "have it rough." She is not content to retreat from all things, but wants to "change the world and everyone in it." What that means exactly I don't know, and I doubt she does either, since she holds the world in just as much contempt as Hikigaya. They see themselves as superior, outside observers with clear sight. 

Her attitude clearly wins (and fast!) Hikigaya's respect: he seems to admire honesty, and judges that she never lies to herself; by extension, she will not lie to him either. She appears intrinsically honest and straightforward, which immediately begins to strip away the elaborate hostile defenses he builds for himself. His refused offer of friendship gets them right back where they were, but it is surprising how quickly they came down when he found another a) like him and b) honest. He is not the hardened cynic, the world-weary champion, that he makes himself out to be. 

Into this duo comes Yui Yuigahama, who is almost everything Hikigaya and Yukino are not - energetic, part of a popular clique, a bit of an airhead, and someone dedicated to social conformity. It would seem that they have nothing in common, especially since Yui seems to be kindhearted and generous, while the other two are more like solitary, angry porcupines. Their articulate, black views of the world are just true enough to give them the pleasure of feeling right, as if they are knowers of the truth, and they are young enough that they do not realize being intelligent is not the same as being wise. For all the grief she gives Hikigaya about unwillingness to change, Yukino sees no reason for herself to change, though she is just as alone as he is, in just as much need of interior transformation.

Both Hikigaya and Yukino fear human connection, and Yui does not; rather, her longing for it is what causes her to do and say whatever necessary to fit in any social circle, including this one; she is unwilling to establish her own identity, seeing it as an obstacle to friendship; she changes everything whereas the other two are unwilling change anything; thus Yui has everybody but little of herself, and Hikigaya/Yukino have nobody but themselves. Paradoxically, because she is so attracted to Yukino's advice of establishing yourself and refusing social conformity (and it does not hurt that this advice is actually true and useful), Yui's tendency to conform will purge itself, and may allow her to develop as a human quicker than the emotional solipsism of Hikigaya and Yukino.

New

I had thought I had exhausted good anime. Nothing, so it seemed, was left except relatively humorous shonen series to serve as distraction. Perusing lists of anime proved a waste of time, since the same awful series predominated said lists, and I didn't have the time to research hundreds of series one by one. I needed an in - someone reasonably intelligent whose judgment I trusted. But where to find such a person on the Internet, of all places? The task seemed hopeless and for awhile I turned aside.

Then I discovered Your Lie in April, which I devoured in one sitting (I love classical music so was immediately hooked, disregarding the more annoying shonen cliches), and the youtube comments directed me to Clannad, which turned into one of the most beautiful series I have seen in a long, long time. So while googling top ten lists, I found my way to a site whose top thirty list put Eva at the top, and which began with Hideaki Anno's pre-Eva work. Upon examination, I realized that for the first time in very long time, I once again have anime on deck! They are:

• Shiki
• Kyousogiga
• Monster
• The Flowers of Evil
• Haibane Renmei
• The Eccentric Family
• Paranoia Agent
• Kino's Journey*
• Gatchaman Crowds
• Mushishi*
• Katanagatari
• Revolutionary Girl Utena
• Baccano
• Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress*
• Psycho Pass*
• Terror in Resonance*
• Kurozuka*
• Occult Academy*
• Requiem from the Darkness*
• Girlish Number*
• Fate/Zero*

Next time I'll write about Clannad and maybe a brief snippet on Your Lie in April.

Foot in the Mouth

I saw a trailer for Skyward Sword a ways back, and as infatuated as I was with the previous incarnation of Legend of Zelda, was not impressed. Twilight Princess was the darkest, most awe-inspiring game in the franchise to date; still under its spell I sneered at the bright watercolors and giant ducks of Skyward Sword, thinking the darkened Hyrule far its superior. Last fortnight or so I reiterated my objections, but thought I ought to substantiate them, so I went and found all the cutscenes online.

I was blown away. Skyward Sword is one of the most beautiful video games I have ever seen; rivaling, if not surpassing, such beauties as Final Fantasy VIII and Chrono Cross. Two examples come to mind: life in Skyloft and Link's relationship with Zelda.

The goddess Hylia, sparing some men the flame of the war which ravages Hyrule, raises earth to the heavens above an impenetrable cloud barrier, where the inhabitants live in peace. Each child is granted a Loftwing, a guardian bird, as a gift from Hylia, and which they meet while still small. To summon it, each child leaps off the edge of Skyloft and calls their guardian Loftwing, who never fails to catch them and fly away. Nintendo pulls off this extraordinarily beautiful concept exquisitely; for who has not wished to soar like a bird? The freedom and trust in another, manifested in unhesitating leaps into the abyss is nothing short of exhilarating.

In all previous Zelda iterations, the titular princess has been the collected, reserved, graceful heiress of Hyrule; especially in Twilight Princess, where her nobility was unmatched. This was quite lovely in itself, but Nintendo changed it in Skyward Sword. Zelda is no princess here, but only longtime childhood friend of the soon-to-be hero. As such, she is cast as a charming, wonderful young woman who loves life; it would not be too much of an exaggeration to describe her as life incarnate. And as we know from my adoration of St. Joan in Mark Twain's Personal Recollections and Anne from Anne of Green Gables, I'm a sucker for women so portrayed.

So from every important aspect the game offered, I reversed my earlier disdain; I thought I knew when I in fact did not. Let this be a lesson for me. In the meantime, I shall quietly acknowledge Skyward Sword as perhaps the best Zelda game yet, possibly surpassing such wonders as Ocarina of Time.

You Can (Not) Advance, You Can (Not) Redo

More than a year since my last update, yes? Sadly, nothing has really progressed. Monster took forever to get moving, so I eventually lost interest. A handful of comedies passed my way without much of note, including Birdy the Mighty. But there is good news on the horizon! Anno has finished Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 and it shall be released this fall! Since Eva is quite possibly my favorite anime and favorite television series, and since You Can (Not) Advance was one of the best films I had seen in a while, I am terribly excited. The animation quality was astounding, the story compelling and wrenching as always, and the blending of music and animation simply superb. 

The weakest part of most anime and popular media in general these days is the ending (The Book of Eli is a significant exception). Eva draws out perfectly the pain of being, but, since modernity has abandoned the faith, must create something new for salvation; thus the final applause scene of the anime was a bit of a letdown, as it seemed little more than a mediocre understanding of popular psychology. I have only found the Church and the noble paganism of ancient Greece to answer the complete problem of man's being, and though the former is far mightier than the latter, even the latter, with its heroic depiction of man, would do; sadly, we are three millennia past ancient Greece, and the closest shortcut to return, Nietzsche, fills most democrats with horror. Their solution is to strip Christianity of everything sublime, leaving only the 'nice' parts: "treat others as you would be treated", etc. A noble sentiment in its place, to be sure, but if you strip such a moral claim from its context of the saint, the faith, and metaphysics, such an attitude becomes contemptible, as Nietzsche saw.

Perhaps Anno will do something spectacular with the conclusion of the Rebuild tetrology. I hope something noble and sublime is produced. Till then, I shall enjoy the ride, and hope You Can (Not) Redo gets released in American theaters.