Oregairu S2 – Episode 11

This week, we finally got something that I’ve actually been hoping for for a while – a Hayato focus episode. Hayato’s a compelling character who’s very different from the majority of the cast, so it was nice to see him given some time in the spotlight. And I definitely made the most of it in my writeup – yeah, other stuff happened, but this was Hayato’s day goddamnit! Though I do somewhat regret not being able to also highlight Iroha’s top-tier trolling this time, from interrupting Yukino’s birthday part in order to ask her about rumors to doing that ridiculous slow motion arm-flip run towards Hachiman. Iroha is pretty good.

Here’s my Hayatotastic ANN review. Notes below!

Oregairu

Graduation questionnaire. Oh boy

“By the way, Hayato-kun. Is it true you’re going out with Yukinoshita?” “Who said something irresponsible like that?” Man, this whole season Hayato has seemed tired

Iroha invites herself to their celebration of Yukino’s birthday so she can directly ask if Yukino’s dating Hayato. Damnit, Iroha

“The petty suspicions of a lowlife.” oh Yukino

“Hayama’s never had any rumors about him before. He’s everyone’s Hayama.”

Hayama has more expectations placed on him than anyone

Iroha trolls Hikki by demoing an “are you going out with anyone?”

More moe Yukino, this time with glasses. The show’s being kinda shameless there, and yet doesn’t really have any other kind of fanservice. A matter of Hikki perspective?

Yumiko shows up and Iroha gets out ASAP

“I’m used to this sort of thing. As long as the people closest to me understand, that’s enough.” One step forward…

Yumiko is frightened of losing Hayato as a friend. He’s been distant, because he doesn’t feel secure in the way he acts, and is basically on the verge of moving on a bit as a person. But Yumiko really cares about what they have now – she’s where he was at during episode two

“I still want to know. It’s the only choice I have.”

Hayato: “Can you ask you a favor, too? Can you stop being so intrusive?”

“If I said something contrary like that, what would you do?” Dang Hayato. Really just playing around with his own self

Holy crap, an actually reasonable scene with Totsuka! They have a normal conversation and Totsuka demonstrates that he’s really a leader to the tennis club. Wonder of wonders

Oh my god, Iroha doing this ridiculous senpai dance

Yukino’s sister telling her to do things on her own again

Hikki’s intimidated by her, understandably

“Hayato was hoping for someone to find him” Hayato thinks everyone likes him for their image of him, not who he really is. And he’s not sure even he likes who he really is, or his impression of that

Just like how Hayato’s words to Hikki’s middle school crush caused an ultimate shift and ripple effect, Hikki’s words to Hayato have caused a negative ripple for him

“Everyone’s Hayama Hayato, huh?”

Nice that they’re able to almost animate this run. Well, sorta

“I wonder how people feel when they reach the halfway point of a race. Despairing, or relieved?”

“Was Miura handy for keeping girls away?” Aw dang. Hikki dropping the hammer in the old way

“You want to stop being the Hayama Hayato everyone wants”

Hachiman urging him to pick science, since that will naturally make the friendships he’s feeling awkward about drift apart without any dramatic action

Hayato’s reply: “I was right. We never could have been friends.”

“I don’t like you. I feel inferior to you, and I can’t stand that. I wanted us to be equals, so I could accept losing to you. So I won’t do what you say.” But now he feels a bit better about it. Hayato’s insecure, but he doesn’t necessarily need a huge shift. He just needs confidence

“Damn it. Why is he so cool?” They each envy something in the other, they each can’t really see themselves

“A lot of me is bad” oh Hikki

A very close moment between Hikki and Yukino, and he actually asks her where she’s going

Sounds like Yui was standing outside the door

“Things like going up to the next grade or college don’t reset relationships.” “Yeah, they totally do.” “That’s only for you. You and I are not the same.” Hayato staking his claim to who he is

“If I chose something because I had no other choice, I couldn’t call it my own decision.”

“I don’t like you, either.” “You might be the first person who’s said that to my face.” yeah, Hayato really appreciates someone he can be blunt and mean with, even though he’s not really that person

“I won’t choose anything.” Lots of lines here echoing Hikki’s revelations this season

19 thoughts on “Oregairu S2 – Episode 11

  1. Really appreciate your thoughts on this show in particular.

    Um is Hayato in ‘love’ with Yukino? I can understand the inferior to him part with his own personality struggles but not the ”losing to you” if its outside this context.

    • He could be? I could see him admiring in Yukino something similar to the freedom he envies in Hachiman’s actions, but I just don’t think we’ve seen enough of his behavior to really know.

      And I’m glad you’re enjoying the pieces! I’ve been going all-out this season…

    • I’m under the impression that Hayato is in love with Haruno who has made it clear that she finds him boring and finds Hiki more interesting.

    • if he is …. damn ….. i dont even wonder … i love yukino too ^_______,^

  2. I’m surprised that you read that mid-run speech as an honest attempt for Hikigaya to pull an old Hikigaya. His question to Miura was meant to discern how serious she was, and he took the task because he respected her real desire to be closer to Hayato. In that light, I took the run talk as a goad: Hikigaya realizes that he can’t quite predict or understand Hayato in the way he wants to, so he pushes him knowing that Hayato will push back. He’s not really wanting Hayato to fall to his level, because he recognizes that Hayato genuinely is better than him in some ways–he wants him to rise up and be even better. …which is the exact same way Hayato feels about him.

    From comparing Hikigaya’s line after falling down to the Commie fansub and my own shaky by-ear Japanese, I think it’s something more like, “aren’t you cool”–where “you” could be him mocking himself (trying to run after Hayato even after he’d exhausted himself to accomplish his goal, then tripping over his own feet) or it could be honest praise for Hayato. I like that ambiguity a lot better than the translation Crunchyroll went with.

    • I did take the run thing as a goad – it was just Hachiman-like in that he was taking the most abrasive route possible to force action, and playing into the cliche of his own “heartlessness.”

      • It also fed well into something he’s been taught this very episode, by Iroha, where you can make an assertion in order to try and force a denial, which is its own answer.

  3. Holy shit the pacing in this episode. I can’t believe they put an entire volume into an episode and a half.

    Did they even mention the marathon before it happened? I knew it was coming but it feels like to anime-only viewers it would have basically come out of nowhere, like “wait why is there a crowd why are they in tracksuits why are they running what’ss happening.” But maybe I just missed some point where they mentioned it in passing. No explanation for what 8man’s plan with Totsuka actually was (getting him and the tennis club to block the other runners so 8man could catch up to Hayama) was also a bit of a questionable choice. Not like it would have actually taken any more time for him to just monologue it to himself over the clip either

    • Nah, I don’t think they mentioned the marathon. I didn’t really have an issue with that, or the Totsuka thing, though – my reactions were basically just “oh, they’re having a school event” and then “ah, that’s the plan.”

    • As an anime-only viewer, I have no problems with the pacing. I actually applaud studio Feel for having the courage to make the difficult choice to cut content (even good content). They’ve decided what scenes they wanted to focus on and made concessions where necessary. They’re not recreating the novels, they’re making a show based on the novels and doing a damn fine job.

      Anime and LNs are different animals, not everything needs a complete in-show explanation. If you try to include everything then the pacing becomes an absolute slog (something UBW is suffering from this cour), or you transform the show into a high speed word dump.

      • I see.

        I, an LN reader, find the pacing of this episode ridiculous. I found episodes 8 and 9 pretty much perfect, deserving of perhaps maximum possible score. Yes, 10/10. And in just two episodes my whole perspective changed to apathy. I do not even know if i will watch the last two episodes!

        Someone decided that brushing over volume 10 (best volume in my opinion) and adapting unreleased volume 11 (and spoiling it!) in ep12-13 is a good idea. I dont know why, because the party at the end of this episode is a potentially great end-of-season material.

        Volume 10 has in my opinion 4 really good ‘climaxes’ each deserving plenty attention – as much as the ‘genuine’ scene. Those are:
        Hikki+Yukinoshita
        Hayato – the marathon scene
        Yumiko crying
        Haruno walking with Hikki.

        None of them hit me at all in the anime. Its sad to see SNAFU reduced to blushing and shipping wars. And its sad to see people being content with skimming through the ‘most important events’ and slideshow summaries .

        I really urge anyone, please do yourself a favor and read the source material.

        • I also read the LN and while I agree it feels like they rushed through volume 10 I don’t know how they could’ve dragged it out for another episode. Even if you put the stuff that was cut back in I still don’t think there’s enough. Also we can’t be certain that the last 2 episode are going to cover the unreleased volume 11 they could be anime original. I also urge people who enjoy the series to read the source material

        • Got to agree with evafan here. I guess different readers will feel differently but it can’t be denied that this volume gives us very important cues regarding future development. And all of them ended up streaming one after the other. Instead of the usual directorial dexterity the series has shown so far this compression felt almost like a filler episode; rather like rushing through peripheral concerns instead of finally building up the triangles between major characters.

          It could easily have been spread out over two episodes for greater impact. For e.g. the underlying irritation Hikki felt with regards to the rumor was elided over, lost in the montage of volume 10 highlights. That prickle of unease that Hikki allows himself to feel is what lends particular tenderness to the infirmary scene. Truth be told the infirmary scene is supposed to be right up there when compared to the rollercoaster yet it feels like lesser impact just because of the flow of events that frame it. Also zaimokuza.

          Still thought it was a great episode, just that given the strength of the source material it could have been better. Feel have done a great job this season, but they had episodes to work with and to compress volume 10 like this just means that episodes 12 and 13 have a greater burden is all.

    • It took me 5 seconds to figure out what the plan with Totsuka was, and that a marathon wasn’t “explained” wasn’t an issue, since it really wasn’t the core. The core was getting Hayama alone, everything else was just background setting.

      I mean, this episode felt fine, it had multiple distinct high points and none of them felt shortchanged or skimped. I’m surprised how much LN readers are crying over it being “rushed”, but I guess when you want every little detail adapted, which leads to a bad pacing and flow, it’s to be expected.

      I felt last episode was “rushed”-ish, but about unimportant stuff, I’d have just cut out a date and let the others breathe more.

      • The wall of severance between anime folks and LN readers. Trial has begun. Will you give up on pacing? Never! Gau Gau.

        • evafan, I disagree with most things you comment here. But you’re dedication is sexy. Shabadadoo.
          Yuri approved!

  4. I love Hayama’s telling Tobe to take his career choice more seriously. One single line that encapsulates all of his anxieties and insecurities.

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