Alright Hachiman, what’s the plan? You’ve wormed your way back into the prom preparations, but how are you actually going to triumph over the full power of Yukino’s mother? You’ve largely dealt with children or peers in the past, using your understanding of adolescent psychology to manipulate the actions of those around you. That’s clearly not going to work on an adult woman with institutional power, who knows exactly what she wants, and has no obligation to entertain the whims of teenagers.
His one real piece of leverage, which he was quick to point out last episode, is that the PTO wants the student body to voluntarily abandon their plans. If he can rally the students to his side, he could possibly create a conflict of a scale that supersedes Yukimom’s authority. If he can turn this conflict into a liability for her reputation, he might just win out.
Of course, even if he does that, it’ll still be an embrace of the old, limited methods he’s always employed. In fact, as of this moment, it feels like all three of our heroes are backsliding. Hachiman’s once more acting as a lone avenger, Yukino is refusing to relinquish her pride, and Yui is sacrificing her own happiness for the sake of her friends. It’s clear they’re all trying to reach a certain level of independence as high school ends, but it was their mutual friendship that made them strong, and without it, they’re relying on the same old habits as before. Can they successfully stand apart while still embodying the honesty, empathy, and humility they’ve learned together? Let’s find out!
Episode 6
Iroha catches up with Hachiman after the meeting, to once again ask him why he has to be so goddamn difficult all the time
She’s genuinely annoyed with him now, and he picks up on it quickly. He attempts to draw her into one of their usual banter loops by basically setting up easy insults about himself, but she just refuses to talk
The character acting is definitely more limited this season than the last one, but there are still some beautiful backgrounds and layouts. The shots as they stop at a park are gorgeous, using the effect of the sun breaking through the trees to create a gold-green reverie, as the light draws out a variety of hues in the surrounding greenery
The uneven lighting through the trees also makes for a more effective composite job here. The characters feel more integrated into the scenery because they share the same splashes of light coming in through the trees. If you can use a common light source to establish congruity between characters and their backgrounds, you’ll generally end up with a far more convincing overall composite, which in turn tends to create a sense of depth in the composition. Of course, that requires making your light source’s effect remain convincing in spite of character movement, which is why you tend to see it more with still shots like this (or in KyoAni productions, because they are geniuses of character acting and compositing)
I like how Iroha still sort of uses the conventions of high school hangouts to soften the intimacy of this private meeting. She wants to embrace greater emotional honesty like Hachiman is trying to, but it’s still a bit intimidating to just say “I have something important I need to talk to you about,” and so she strong-arms him into the more casual convention of “buy me a drink”
Iroha apologizes for her part in creating this rift between them. But as Hachiman admits, it didn’t have to be her specifically – something was going to upset the untenable balance of their current relationship, forcing them to confront Yukino’s issues with her mother
Hachiman offers a more appropriate apology: “I’m sorry we burdened your prom idea with all our emotional bullshit”
“Despite how it seems, I don’t really have friends.” Iroha was accustomed to the breezy acquaintanceships of high school, the companions you develop via politeness and proximity, but who you don’t tend to rely on in an emotional sense. She was fine with that for a time, just like Hachiman was “fine” with his isolation, but seeing what Hachiman is attempting to do has made her hungry for close emotional bonds as well. Having learned what actual confidants can provide, she’s recognized that she’s never actually had real friends before now
“This is all so I don’t have any regrets.” And now that she’s established actual bonds with so many of the third years, she wants to take a step forward for herself. Hosting the prom is a way of demonstrating she can be committed and emotionally sincere too – it’s a “thank you” to all the people who helped her grow, presented in the form of an event that embodies that growth
God, so many lovely compositions throughout this scene. This one after Iroha yanks Hachiman’s collar is great, using the foreground brush and vines to create an even greater sense of intimacy, with lines of vegetation drawing our eye towards the pair
In general, shots presented through foreground clutter like this draw our attention to the surroundings, making the audience feel almost like a voyeur in the scene, and thereby emphasizing the private nature of the scene in question. They’re an excellent tool for creating a sense of secrecy or intimacy
Hachiman grilling Komachi for party tips is kinda sad, but undoubtedly a good idea
Hachiman tells Komachi about the prom they’ll be hosting this year. He knows he has no logical reason to assume the plan will happen, but telling Komachi it will is like making a vow to himself. It’s a symbol of his intent to succeed
The next day at school, Yui is unsurprisingly doing an exaggerated performance of peppiness, to allay Hachiman’s fears
He explains that he’s actually competing, not collaborating, with Yukino
“You know Hikki, sometimes you can be incredibly dumb.” Yui’s natural approach to social issues is to slice right through the Gordian knot of politeness and ego, and state how she feels and what she wants without pretension. While Hachiman will spend long minutes fiddling with a rubik’s cube of interlocking social dynamics, Yui will just announce her intentions, and let her earnest appeal dispel the awkwardness of differing emotional needs. From her perspective, Hachiman’s machinations can frequently look like a whole lot of nothing
“Would you… mind if I helped you out with that?” YES YUI, YESSS. ASSERT YOURSELF! VALUE YOUR OWN NEEDS! It’s as tentative as I expected, but I’m so happy to see her actually pursuing what she wants
“We need to sway the PTA by giving them a new bias.” Hachiman correctly deduces that their only route to victory is circumventing Yukino’s mother, by testing her degree of control over the PTA. “We need to convince Yukino’s mother to allow the prom” is an unsolvable problem – “we need to undercut her ability to prevent it” is a different story
His plan is to establish plans for an entirely separate prom, which is worse than Yukino’s prom. Therefore, the question shifts from “should there be a prom” to “which prom option is preferred”
It’s sort of a large-scale version of his usual trick, where he “succeeds” by making himself the target of everyone’s hatred. He’s going to construct a prom-size avatar of himself to take the fire for Yukino’s prom
“Are there any people who’d go out of their way to make a plan designed to fail?” It does seem like we’re tying all the pieces together for the endgame now. Presumably this fake plan will offer an opportunity to revisit all the characters we’ve met before, pulling the gang together for one last plan before graduation
In general, having your story’s beginning and end mirror each other helps create a strong sense of cohesion and structure in the work. The ideas that were set aloft at the beginning eventually come home to roost, creating a sense that this story’s turns were almost inevitable
This truism dovetails with another: “don’t introduce narrative elements that aren’t essential.” At the end of your story, it should feel like all the pieces have locked into place, and everything introduced has arrived at its purpose. An ongoing light novel like Oregairu frankly can’t accomplish that, because basically all of its first-season conflicts were one-off, episodic conflicts, featuring characters with no major relevance to the core drama of Hachiman, Yukino, and Yui. Instead, Oregairu is fudging it – by bringing the whole gang in to contribute to this project, we at least get a partial sense of purpose, emphasizing that the friendships Hachiman has developed all along are now empowering his core competencies
Yui demands Hachiman be a good boy and eat his tomatoes
As expected, the three standalone arc characters from season one all pop in
Totsuka frankly asks Hachiman what he actually wants to do. I really like that from him – he’s recognized that he normally just smiles and laughs when he’s confused, and wants to change that part of himself. It’s an unusually frank address of a common anime convention: characters just sort of cheerfully breezing past all the jokes they don’t understand, some of which are often at their expense
I love that Hachiman is still kind of dazzled by Zaimokushita’s unrepentant chuunibyou. In another life, the two of them would have spent an emphatically nerdy high school together
Yui suggests the beach for their counter-prom, leading into a reflection on how she can always see the sun setting over it at the end of the day. This prom is a way of saying goodbye to their high school days, meaning Yui’s basically stewing in all the feelings she’s been trying to repress. “I think about… how I wish this day would go on forever”
She clings to what intimacy she can. “Doing this changes nothing, because the ending was already set in stone”
“I promise not to have any hopes that something will happen.” God damnit Yui!
And Done
Agh, this is agonizing. Both Yui and the show more generally are setting things up for a very clear “destined end,” where Yui steps aside in order to let Hachiman and Yukino be together. But frankly, I don’t want that ending! It feels too clean, too melodramatic, and too insensitive to the profound emotional growth that all three of these characters have experienced. There are no “destined romances,” and Yui has just as much right to happiness as anyone – I want something messier here, more true to the ugly complexity of personal relations, and more in line with the insight Oregairu has displayed all along. I’m hoping this episode felt so fatalistic because we were specifically in Yui’s headspace, but I’m getting a little nervous about how this all will play out in the end.
This article was made possible by reader support. Thank you all for all that you do.