Oregairu 1.8

This is our first extended look at a Hachiman solution. Since in his judgment Rumi has already been judged wanting as a loner, and "the world will never change, only you can," his answer is to "become the god of a new world," which sounds suspiciously like embracing the emotional solipsism he and Yukino have already exhibited - cut yourself off from the lives of others as far as possible; turn yourself into a self-sufficient island. This will give you the power of a god, omnipotence. None can harm you. 

The final day of camp is organized around a test of courage and a bonfire - two things which naturally tend to produce camaraderie and community. Predictably, Hachiman's mused recollections are of precisely the opposite; dances, parties, and bonfires are great for friendships, but for loners and outcasts, they emphasize the alienation. Is there a way to subvert that in Rumi's case? 

Apparently, in Japanese schools, you have the same class until you graduate grade school, and then get a new class which you have till high school graduation. Rumi asks Hachiman if he has any friends from elementary school (the answer is obvious), indicating whether or not she should make an effort to reach out if it's going to end in nothing anyway. Yui (bless her) voices an objection, but when Yukino backs him up (again: unsurprising), Hachiman ruthlessly dissects her argument, concluding that the odds of staying friends are close to zero. Interestingly, this same social logic applies in all circumstances; in any group among which you find yourself, there are rare possibilities for friendship and camaraderie, particularly if some kind of hardship or shared struggle or accomplishment is involved. School and various training programs immediately come to mind. Hachiman's logic isn't wrong, but it's wrongheaded and self-defeating, because it tends toward a sort of social lethargy, a form of despair.

In Rumi's case, shunning is the catalyst, which she apparently did when another girl was the victim, and now has no idea when it will happen to her again or not. Cliques are capricious and unpredictable, and can viciously turn inwards at the slightest random provocation. Thus, Rumi's solution: "I thought it would be okay to stop trying." People judge by stereotypes and first impressions, according to Hachiman, who concludes that such impressions indelibly last. "If you try and do something and stand out, they just use it to bring you down. Such is the iron rule of the rotten society of children." Ender Wiggin could have penned those lines. 

Hachiman details his solution to the group: "If your problem is based on relationships, if you destroy those relationships then the problem disappears." If everyone is a loner, the clock is reset. Presumably the older children will destroy the friendships of the younger. This sounds dubious for a whole host of reasons. It could also easily backfire. 

During the test of courage, the popular older kids, including Hayama, start humiliating the rotten little kids. It is viciously delicious. Small children are rotten to the core and watching mini tyrants get their comeuppance, while extremely childish, makes one gleeful and satisfied. Two are ordered to stay, while the other three can leave. Of course, Rumi is chosen first, since she's the outcast, but there must be one more, so the clique turns on itself and ostracizes another. It is random arbitrary, and mean; and manifestly so even to the same children. Hachiman's plan is to have the group in question show itself how ugly it really is; in his mind, that will "pummel the relationships surrounding Rumi to dust," but it also might lay the foundation for something more enduring. That, in fact, is why Hayama goes along with the plan. He sees the world in a very different way than Hachiman does. 

The result is delightful and strange; The clique must self-destruct, but Rumi takes the initiative by blinding the tormentors and leading the escape. It doesn't seem to fix the problem, but it does seem to dissolve the arbitrary and ostracizing tendency of Rumi's friends. The whole scenario seems to have been good for Rumi more than anything else, because it revealed the solidity and goodness of her own character. Justice was done, in a low, petty sort of way. 

And thus it is back to real life for the three friends. Fascinating as it is to see how the same relationships change when given responsibility, Hachiman & Co return to living their own lives, instead of living their lives through others'. Already, cracks are appearing in the group; faint, hairline cracks, but weaknesses all the same. Yui is obviously in love with Hachiman (her reasons totally escape me), and Haruno intimates that Yukino is or will be as well. Of course, fun and flirty (i.e., afraid and insecure) Haruno could just be running her mouth, but perhaps not. 

More important, however, is that Yui and Hachiman both recognize the car that picks Yukino up; the same car that ran him over. That means Yukino, the girl who claims to be indefatigably honest ("I never lie") has in fact lied, when she said she'd never met Hachiman before. For someone who values integrity as much as Hachiman, and someone who genuinely believed Yukino was who she said she was as fervently as he did, this ending arc does not bode well for what is to come.

Hyouka and Clannad

I did like Hyouka. I liked it a lot. The pace was meditative, tranquil, languid; entire arcs were ordered around apparently irrelevant quotidean details like a teacher's remark on helicopters (no, I am not making this up) and the resulting 'drama' actually reveals the intricacies of the characters and their relationships. Almost nothing dramatic happens, and yet it's still a beautiful exploration of a friendship that slowly catches fire. Understated, subtle, and seldom (if ever) dramatic in the usual sense.

Clannad was also fantastic. The writing suffered a bit, falling into the shonen school life cliches a lot, and fanservice irritates me more the older I get, since it is completely extraneous to anything important. But those faults I readily excuse, since it was one of the most beautiful depictions of family and love that I have seen in any medium ever. At times I could hardly believe it was real. The otherworld flashbacks were almost mythic in their power and simplicity, and over and over again the journey from friendship to love to marriage and beyond was astounding. I saw the beauty of family life enfleshed. It is one think to know that being a father means to sacrifice for your children, but it is entirely another to see it realized before your eyes. 

Oregairu 1.7

Without too much surprise, the upcoming plot is a machination of Hiratsuka-sensei. "To learn how to live with people in different cliques; learn how to deal with them smoothly without fighting or ignoring them." In other words, learn how to practice some basic human skills. Leave it to Sensei to strongarm her students into growth. Thus, the trio and Hayama's group will assist at a middle school summer camp for a few days. 

(An aside: yet another perfect example of Oregairu's slice of life honesty: the opening scene is exactly how people deal with unwanted texts. It also illustrates how close siblings interact. I wish I had something more profound than pointing and saying, "Look! This is great!"

Oregairu has up to now presented what human nature often does with social interaction. Thus, no matter the ages, general patterns are going to emerge. Those might shift over time, assuming one actually grows up, but though the standards for judging success and failure change as one gets older, the same general idiocy prevails. Nothing prevents someone from being a superficial airhead at forty, the same way nothing prevents another from being an isolated cynic at nine. Yukino notes this explicitly when she explains to Hachiman, "There's no difference. They're human, all the same."

The catalyst here, however, is the influx of new faces; specifically, younger children. The highschoolers are in some fashion responsible for them, and this often has the effect of growing people up, In fact, one could argue this is generally what makes you grow up in the first place - responsibility. A boy becomes a man when he assumes the responsibilities of a man. Thus, a whole new dynamic will be introduced between the Hachiman-Yukino-Yui trio and the Hayama group. 

The new dynamic affects Hachiman and Yukino first, illustrating that both of them are on the same wavelength, practically reading each other's thoughts. A group of middle school girls finds a snake and adores the helpful Hayama, while one girl stands apart and alone. This persists, so Hayama speaks to her (name: Rumi) and tries to re-introduce her to the group. Predictably, it's a dismal failure. Hayama has probably always been well-liked, so he's not exactly an expert at dealing with loners. He doesn't speak their language. Yukino and Hachiman do, so any solution (if there is one) will almost certainly have to come from them.

Unfortunately, neither Hachiman nor Yukino are able to provide any wisdom for her, though she not unexpectedly seeks them out (loners attract other loners, after all). They are isolated, and so is she; it would be strange for, say, Yukino to give successful advice on solving the same problem she herself has - being socially shunned. Now, however, all the group has noticed this dynamic, and they try to solve it all at once. Hachiman's unspoken opinion is that being lone is fine - it's the shunning that's the problem; Hina's suggestion is for Rumi to devote herself to her hobbies, since one finds friends through mutual interests. 

This isn't such a terrible idea, but Hayama disagrees. The solution, according to him, is to make everyone friends again. This immediately prompts a cynical, superior smirk from Hachiman, and Yukino shuts it down in the only way she knows how - cold, blunt, and brutal. Yumiko can't stand that side of Yukino and starts a fight, which illuminates something important. Komachi observes that Rumi has a strong personality, which makes integration difficult. Hayama agrees; it's as if she's disinterested, or disillusioned. Yumiko counters that she's not disillusioned, she's looking down on everyone, which is a sure-fire way to alienate them and make them resent you (I can't really stand Yumiko, but I've gotta hand it to her - she is absolutely right about this). She links that to Yukino's behavior (this is a terrible idea, Yumiko; there's no way you'll ever trump Yukino in an argument), and that goes over about as well as you'd expect. According to Yukino, "You simply feel you're being looked down upon because you're aware that you're inferior." This is about to start a real fight of Vingananee proportions, and would have, were it not for Hayama's intervention. 

Thus nothing gets resolved, but that night brings out one of the best conversations between Hachiman and Yukino to date. The latter "Spent thirty minutes refuting her (i.e. Yumiko's) arguments and made her cry." One can only imagine what was said, and it's genius directing move that we didn't see it. Yukino doesn't know her own power with words and tears make her uncomfortable. But outside in the dark, she feels totally comfortable telling Hachiman about her relationship to her family ("I'm just a replacement"), her desire to help, and even whether or not she and Hayama have a history together. That sort of transparency is remarkable, and belies her claim that Hachiman is not her friend. He understands her quite well, and vice versa. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say the two are now close friends. 

The new insight into Yukino's character  - she sees herself as a mere replacement for her sister - makes me terrified to imagine what kind of twisted family dynamic is at work in the Yukinoshita household. Given her close-lipped nature, though, it'll probably be awhile until it gets more fleshed out.

Oregairu 1.6

We get a treat of Hachiman Spiderwebs: an elaborate attempt to convince himself everything is fine. "We're totally reset. By resetting our relationship, I've regained peace of mind, and Yuigahama has been freed from the chains of guilt. Now we return to our original separate lives. I made the right decision." Good try there, but the mustard hath not been cut. He manifestly has not regained peace of mind, and he immediately compares his 'reset' with Yui to how he hasn't spoken to anyone from his middle school. He's honest enough to call that a delete, but by saying he and Yui return to their separate lives, isn't that the same thing as a delete? You can call his treatment of her last episode many things, but a 'reset' isn't one of them. 

He keeps this charade of "everything's fine" going for Yukino, who's smart enough to realize Yui and Hachiman have been distant for a week. Yui hasn't been coming to club for a week, and Yukino knows it's not because of Yui, and not because of Yukino. That leaves Hachiman, who admits under interrogation that they had something like a "difference of opinion," to which Yukino responds, "Then there isn't much to say." And that's that. These two are like social slugs. Nothing will happen unless an outsider prods them. 

And this outsider happens to be . . . Hiratsuka-sensei! Her character is such a breath of fresh air. Role models would be non-existent in Oregairu were it not for her, and even she does not fit the standard categories - she is in her late 20s or early 30s and unmarried, a source of running jokes throughout the series (to be honest: they are both hilarious and awful). Every interaction she has with her students (at this point, mostly Hachiman and Yukino) pushes them into something new, expands their boundaries, or forces them to consider something different. She is an agent of genuine growth, and those two sorely need her. She is absolutely dedicated to her students' flourishing, and you don't get a mentor like that every day.

Hiratsuka-sensei pushes Yukino to (in effect) re-recruit Yui. This leads to celebrating a birthday and Yukino asking Hachiman to go out with her on the weekend to get a birthday present. Apparently she thinks she needs him for some reason - though what that could be is beyond me. Perhaps it's as simple as recognizing her own lack of expertise in shopping for personally insecure girly-girls.

Call it effusive optimism, but perhaps it's because Yukino is really enjoying her banter with Hachiman. They go back and forth during the shopping spree, and Yukino even acknowledges Hachiman's talent in blunt accuracy, cracking a faint smile as she does so. All is well, till The Awkward shows up. Her name? Haruno, Yukino's older sister. She is everything her little sister isn't - flighty, bouncy, effusive, fun, flirty, and excitable. She takes delight in provocation, like Yukino, but in the form of relationship poking rather than insults. 

In the face of this fiercely happy, frisky nymph, Yukino becomes stony and frigid, treating her sister with barely-polite severe formality, as if she were a complete stranger. If that's not indicative of a gigantic amount of resentment, I don't know what is. Something has poisoned their relationship, either on both ends and Haruno is just pretending, or Yukino has something truly deep-seated against her sister. When she agrees with Hachiman that Haruno is amazing, she sounds as if she's robotically reciting an oft-rehearsed speech that says what people want to hear. That, she figures, is what Hachiman means. But she is wrong, rendering herself confused and taken aback by the cynical loner for probably the first time. 

What he finds amazing is Haruno's armored shell: her sociable behavior, acting all nice and starting conversation, being the life of the party, always smiling, being every man's ideal woman. "But," he concludes, "those are ideals, and ideals are not reality, so it feels fake." Yet again, he delivers a social depth charge that explodes illusions. and yet again, Oregairu proves its understanding of people. There is more than one way to hide from genuine human connection, and acting coquettish, fun-loving, sexually playful, etc., is just as effective (if not more) than Yukino's barbed venomous superiority or Hachiman's alienating behavior. Best of all, that realization doesn't need to be accompanied by a condemnation, just a description, which makes it feel even more true. The depth of human understanding Oregairu continually displays can actually inform and help purify one's own relationships. To say it again: I can't believe anime this good exists. 

The next frame is pure gold.Yukino is fiendishly delighted, smirking at Hachiman out of the corner of her eye as she delivers him a dessert-sized dish of teasing compliments on his sight into behavior. For the first time, they are delighting in one another's company, and they've just had a fleeting moment of real connection. Hachiman either surprised her because he saw in Haruno what she saw, or because he showed her what she hadn't seen before. They are friends now, halfway through the first season. 

Enter Yui, who upon seeing them immediately assumes they're dating, which Hachiman realizes but Yukino hilariously does not. Hachiman's insight is only good with others, not with himself though, since he does not pick up on Yui's rather unsubtle hints that she's into him. This is for the best, because he is actually able to reset their relationship so that they proceed forward instead of staying apart. It's probably the first relationship he's ever mended, and it probably wouldn't have happened without Yukino's incisive commentary. She speaks Hachiman's language, and since the problem was with him anyway (Yui's only problem is that she's falling in love - God knows why - and won't say it), her speech wound up being mostly for his benefit. Thus everything is truly back to normal, and the happiest of them all is (surprise surprise) Yui. If her last frame is not the image of a delighted, pleased girl in love, I'll eat my hat.

Oregairu 1.5

Another loner is introduced, Kawasaki. Unlike Yukino and Hachiman, however, she simply seems private, reserved, and intense, not raising barriers against other people out isolation and fear. She often stays out till 5am, making her brother afraid she's getting into trouble. Getting close to her is next to impossible, especially when your method is to say, "You need to change now. Change this way exactly, please." Yes, Yukino thinks this strategy will work, and yes, she is sorely mistaken. It is up to Hachiman again, who inadvertently winds up exposing her brother Taisha's worries about her as much ado about nothing - she's just working to help pay for summer school and college. Voila, Crisis averted.

Along the way, a few insights into family come up, chiefly that in this series, parents are overwhelmingly absent. Hachiman's parents work all the time, as do Kawasaki and presumably Yukino's. If this is a widespread phenomenon, alarm bells should be going off all over the place. In Yukino's case, however, we discover a) her father works for the prefectural assembly (whatever that is), which grants his family a very well-to-do position. So he and his family are rich, but the parents are distant from their children. It is unlikely the Yukinoshita siblings are different, since Yukino strongly resonates with the description of siblings being "the strangers who are closest to you." It doesn't take a Nostradamus to figure out that Yukino's isolation begins at home.

Other than the above minor familial reveals, this episode would be kind of a dead note if it weren't for the final scenes. Komachi tells Hachiman in passing that Yui owns the dog he saved - probably assuming he already knew that and has talked about it with her. We know of course, that he had no idea. Now he thinks over all of Yui's kindness to him, and assumes it must be because she feels guilty his saving of the dog got him hospitalized. He makes this assumption because the alternative is untenable for him right now. It's probably wasn't hard to figure out, however, that Yui was not being nice to him out of guilt, since her eyes immediately flood with tears and she runs away with a bitter, "baka!" (meaning 'idiot' 'fool', 'jerk,' 'stupid' or all of the above) on her lips. 

Of course, this is the safe way out, i.e. the way out that does not risk genuine connection. Misunderstand someone's intentions and therefore alienate them. One of the surest ways to get and stay on someone's bad side is to misunderstand their motives, especially when you choose to misunderstand them. That's probably what happened here with Hachiman and Yui; he chooses to look at her behavior as coming from guilt, instead of her human goodness or (even worse) because she is beginning to love him. He does this mostly because she's a nice girl, and nice girls are dangerous; it is easy to read romantic interest in their casual encounters with you if you're not careful. His snafu with Yui was simply a resolve to not make that mistake again. 

His experience with this phenomenon prompts another glorious Hachiman Monologue: "I hate nice girls. Just exchanging pleasantries with them makes me curious, and texting each other makes me restless. If I get a call, for the rest of the day I'll keep checking my call history with a stupid grin on my face. But I know the truth. They're just being nice. Anyone nice to me is nice to others too. But I always find myself on the verge of forgetting that. If the truth is a cruel mistress, then a lie must be a nice girl. And so niceness is a lie. I would always hold expectations. I would always misunderstand. At some point I stopped hoping. An experienced loner never falls for the same trap twice. A lone warrior, surviving hundreds of battles. When it comes to losing, I'm the strongest. That's why, no matter what happens, I will always hate nice girls." 

It's like being sledgehammered with the truth. Almost all of what he says is absolutely true. Once again, Oregairu shows that it knows what it means to be young and alone. This is exactly the effect nice girls have on intelligent, rather isolated young men! Hachiman's clarity here is astonishing. On the other hand, his monologue is completely self-centered and selfish, in the service of justifying alienating behavior. The problem is not with Yui being nice to Hachiman, the problem is with Hachiman! Either she was simply being nice to him because -newsflash- Yui is a kind and generous person by nature, or because Yui is becoming drawn to him. He doesn't want to risk the rejection and humiliation of the latter possibility, but the former will tend to make him think the latter is real, so he figures it's safer for him to hurt her so that she avoids him. And all the while he can call himself "a warrior surviving hundreds of battles," and feel like he did the right thing: after all, since he said Yui didn't have to be nice to him anymore out of guilt, if she avoids him after that, doesn't it prove she was acting that way out of guilt? QED, right? Wrong. Duh, Hachiman. 

The way Hachiman blends concise, clear illumination on social interaction with staggering amount of self-deception is yet another reason why Oregairu is so great. His own fear and previous pain are at the heart of his defensive, nasty behavior. Within those walls, he is safe. Yui came close to sneaking into a postern gate, but he caught the potential intrusion and filled that gate up with bricks. This way, he is safe. The wall just got ten feet higher, but it's less stable than it used to be.

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.