post 12: To Not Have a romantic comedy life is a good laugh
(yaa) Haro! Has anyone watch oregairu / Yahari Ore No seishun Love comedy wa machigatteiru / My youth romantic comedy is wrong as I expected? Because if you do you'd probably know how exactly my greeting (Ya haro) would sound like. The way the characters do it are so cute.
*imagine me doing so*
*got a (internal) comment from Hikigaya Hachiman; What is that, some sort of a retarded trend of greetings?*
He did say that ,internally, in regards to all those whom greet that way (except when Totsuka Saika did it/which was such a funny scene since Hikigaya was like"Oh my god so cute.we all should greet like that"/ you just call it retarded and now you want it started/ =.=/good joke good joke.
Ahh~ yes I probably stepped in the topic with the wrong foot. As a proper introduction Oregairu is a story about a high school student Hikigaya Hachiman (a boy with rotten eyes or beady eyes (reminded me of Levi's) /mention so many times) who is so proud of his loner's life. He refuses to interacts, go against the trend and well , regard youth as a threat, wrote in a career survey form that he refuses to work.This lead to his teacher/ counselor to force him to join a volunteer service club at his school.There he met the most beautiful girl in school, Yukinoshita Yukino (which of course is another problematic student that has her own problem on her side of story /unclear yet as of now)
Well, that was about it on the summary. The story basically follows the everyday life of Hachiman and Yukino when people came to them for help and another lead character, Yuigahama Yui (female) would came in an episode later by becoming their first ever client together.
This series is an adaptation of a light novel by Watari Wataru. It is a popular series and not overrated at all, it deserves it.
It has a well-developed plot and characters and not to mention, funny!
This series was aired in 2013. I didn't know what it was that time .One of my friends mentioned it quite a few times saying things about the characters and the story.
I wasn't that intrigued about it (tbh because I thought the main genre would be romance/ not good with that genre that much/and oh how I was wrong to judge an anime by it's title).
Then I decided to watch it.Oh how I was so wrong. It wasn't your typical romantic comedy anime at all. It has the romance bits in it but not too much. It was in an almost perfect cropped up experience according to a reality scale/in other words it's not those story where each episode they just gets closer and have this moment of intimation and fall in love, rather it is something you can say-you possibly have experience (not completely)- things like, this girl try to grab the attention of the boy but got ignored or distracted, some other series have these.
In another "other" words, it is a slow progressing, (painful even) , serious, unseen romance thread pulling on the one that is loved , yes just like irl.
Moving on to the scenario writing , it is amazing, i should say. To transform a real-life loner kind of thing into someone this amazing (smart, cool, wise-like y'know bad-assed characters with some cool (in this series- also includes harsh/pitiable) quotes on his sleeves) is not a surprising thing but the fact that this "amazing" person I talked about is the villain to other supporting characters' eyes is.
I was expecting "I-am-a-loner-and-you-might-think-I-am-creepy-with-my-rotten-eyes-and-all-but-I-just-saved-your-day-so-you-like-me-and-appointed-me-as-the-president" / just sayin .
That is in fact, common. The hero with "not-good" reputation so kind that everybody put aside bad rumors about him and make him king of harem.
This was different.
Well I don't want to spoil things so I will leave it to there.
There are alot of interesting and amusing characters . My personal favorites is Zaimokuza /look out for him . He is so funny , very! Oh and there's the little sister of Hikigaya , Komachi (voiced by yet again my beloved Aoi Yuuki) too.
The art is not bad, in fact it looks good. The second season and the first season differs in the character design because they changed the studio which was put in charge of it.It is said that the second season's Hikigaya character design looked more closely similar to the light novel's than the first season. Yes, while the art of the first season wasn't bad in itself , the second was better. In fact, Hikigaya looks more "good-looking" and "gentle" in the 2nd season and I seriously like that" rotten eyes" of his. It is a feature that stand out.
The OP song and Ed are lovable. Both OPs are sung by Yanagi Nagi(hearts hearts) while the Ed are sung by both main female seiyuus.
The story as I said is very well developed ( currently there are 5 episodes of the second season).
I felt very emotional watching it to the point I could just cry. There are parts where I could relate myself to but most of all it is the personality of our MC that makes me suffer.
He had a well constructed background story that supports his actions but unfortunately those are never enough to justify them. Sometimes people would say he is so cruel in the way he do things but to me (and his dearest company, he is after all human). He has his own reason for the way he do things.
This story doesn't lie. It present you with harsh view of the reality world.
This story reveal the reality of how the society handle things: black hole in the human hearts.
It also shows how you are never right all the time.The characters did alot of wrong things and there are consequences one after another.
This story has a good character development.This is obvious if looking from the personality of the major characters : Hikigaya , Yukinoshita and Yuigahama . It may be unseen at some point and at some part of the story they would just go back what they called "normal" old-selves(again with the reality check in which most won't change for the better so easily) but still it is one of the most obvious aspect of the story. You could see they went through hardships(both within and outside the club) and realised things along the way , whether it be good or bad things about the society. Just saying the right things as a hero doesn't make things right and arguments would follow.This eventually give a positive light to their characters and allow them to grow little by little.
Hero are never always right and this series perfectly presented that. Hikigaya is always rejected for solving problems in a harsh way , even if it earns him a perfect solution; the problem is solved and that people would hate him and distanced themselves away from him.
Hikigaya may seems like a cold person but he is actually an emphatic person . This is shown by how he is easily on friendly terms with Saika and the club members . It also took him no longer to actually begins caring for people . This could also be proven by the number of times he actually wanted to be friend with Yukinoshita.
Because he had always been a no-face kind of person , when faced with a problem, he went ahead with a solution (usually him as the bad guy) that would benefits the people with faces that need to be maintained (despite him hating superficial people and relationships) only to be hurt later.Due to this, people around him who knew his selfish motives (to make people hate him, and not that he cares about it because he always been alone all this time according to what he said -not that he'd believe that-leading him to accuse himself as the most superficial person) would feel guilty and hurt (in this case,most obvious would be Yuigahama) that he have to carry all the burdens by himself. Hikigaya knew what the world is like and that is why he doesn't want to be hurt and thus puts himself in the corner.
Hikigaya have his own hesitation at times eg. he would start to say something to argue but later swallow it back in his mouth when people shot daggers at him.
In the latest episode (ep 5) Hikigaya realised his mistakes when he experienced what it feel like to have your friends handle the burden to themselves and he changed the way he solve a particular problem they were given.He found a reason to change his way of solving the problem for once so that the club remained as it is supposed to be. This reason was provided to him by Komachi. Unfortunately, at the end of that episode he had said he might be making the wrong thing in regards to Yukinoshita remark of him unable to understand her. Well I will leave that there. I am looking forward to what kind of problem next that would trigger his change. He said so himself , "Some people are unable to act unless when they are faced a reason, found a reason," This applies both to him and Yukinoshita.
Yukinoshita Yukino the most beautiful and smartest girl in the school, is a cool and stoic, cold girl.
Due to her appearances , she said, many boys approached her with romantic motive and this, resulted in her being bullied by her girl classmates. Yukinoshita unlike our hero decided not to cower (as she said it but was argued back by Hikigaya) and changed herself.
She would always give back to her bullies for what they did. She also hate superficial things and she doesn't actually have any friends except for Yuigahama when she joined them.
She is good with her words/insults and always seem to argue with Hikigaya.
According to Hikigaya her stares are cold like of that of a wild beast (in the LN)
There aren't that many things known about Yukinoshita (Hikigaya being an observant person still couldn't understand her). Her past and family matters remained clouded but as the story progress she is seen to be much more caring and softening (especially to Yuigahama). However, the actions taken by Hikigaya always set the both of them in a huge disagreement and followed by silence treatment from both party.At this point, it wasn't clear (yet) whether that she hated him/his ways because she had known him to care for him- though she did say the opposite of it- or because of his selfishness of not wanting to change.
Yukinoshita being the second child of a prominent family seems to have trouble regarding her perfect older sister. Her older sister would always poked her nose in her business and say mean things to her just to provoke her into actions.
Yukinoshita might seem to be not making much contribution or appearances compared to Yuigahama (I might be wrong) but she actually plays a great role because her personality actually give a reason for Hikigaya to act thus contributing to his character's development.Hikigaya is also seen comfortable with her twice; at the 1st episode where he thought that they might be similar and at another episode where he thought maybe they are unalike at all thus the reason for his peace by being by her side.
Yuigahama is a cheerful, kind girl that belong in a popular group. At first she never talked to Hikigaya in their class but as the story progress her relationship with him become visible even to her popular friends. She values her friendship with the popular people (despite realizing how superficial it could be) because she wanted to feel belong (She seems to have a battle of her own in the past having come this far to earn a sense of belonging). As she gets closer to Yukinoshita, she remained faithful and value both friendship and even go as far as to go against her popular friends to defend Hikigaya. Unlike the loner Hikigaya and the untrusting Yukinoshita, Yuigahama's character is a cheerful and friendly one, creating a balance for the club. She wears her hearts on her sleeves which she could be seen always smiling and at times crying . This are unlike the two other characters who kept their emotions hidden. She always regards herself as useless and always find herself in a situation where she was unable to do anything to overcome the tension that always happen between Hikigaya and Yukinoshita.She also tends to regard them both as selfish and unfair as they tend to do things by themselves while leaving her in the middle of it with clean hands
Yuigahama supports the club in alot of ways in terms of her connections with her peers.
Yuigahama has a deep affection for Hikigaya and at one point - almost confess/talk about moment killer/ but Hikigaya seems to pushed this side of her away though afraid of having too much hopes on her.
In other words, Yuigahama is a character that supports the other two major characters and I strongly believe this story won't work without her!
Phew that is one long post. The thing with me is that I like to reread and edit my posts in case there's any grammatical error(always!) . Anyway I am anticipating the rest of the episodes . I really want to understand Hikigaya Hachiman to a certain depth ( he's keeping me awake all night last night =.= in an analytical-I-am-trying-to-figure-you-out) so I am reading the LN right now to get his point of views in a complete narrative way.You can read it here ^^
All in all , You should give it a go! There's only 13 episodes in the first season and there would be another 13 for the 2nd one.
And seriously there's nothing to be embarrassed about watching a 2013-anime-when-it's-already-2015 . We respect newcomers (otherwise how else would people get involved in the anime industry if people keep on intimidating others of this kind of thing/just sayin). (Otherwise , just say it like this "Oregairu 2 is this year's spring anime so in order to catch it , I need to watch the 1st one)/just sayin again.Not convinced ? go find some other better reviews and be convinced!!
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| Oregairu 1st season (c) To the respective artists, taken from here. |
well then,
Aniyuuki
-listening to: Sugar Maroon 5
Quotes of the day:
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.-Riza
hawkeye (Full Metal Alchemist)
