Sachyan said:So, I'm re-watching Oregairu, mostly because I missed the 3rd season and I didn't remember the anime at all. Also, it was a 4/10 to me, and I felt at some point that it deserved a different score, so I decided to re-watch the whole thing. Anyway, the 1st season end up being a 6/10 to me, I changed my perception of it and turns out I actually like this anime, but there are some things I still don't understand, and I feel like it was the same in the past, that's why I had some mixed feelings about the whole story. Either way, I think it's in the 2nd season that things get more complicated, and the real drama really starts, more specifically after the fake confession of Hachiman in episode 2 (No, perhaps the ending of the 1st season would be more precise, but back then Hachiman and Yukino were still in good terms with each other).
Anyway, after the fake confession, both Yui and Yukino start to treat Hachiman in a more cold and awkward way, and their relationship becomes really distant, and I understand that they don't really like his methods of doing things, actually is more like they completely despise his behaviour, but at the same time care a lot about him, to the point of feeling sad and even heartbroken. Actually, the biggest problem here is that even they don't understand themselves very well, so there are a lot of misunderstandings and problems with communication, which leads to more drama. I can see that they're just a bunch of teenagers, drenched in hormones, anxiety, social insecurities, passion and love, and all these feelings come together in a state of confusion, so they can't verbalize quite well what exactly is happening. In the end, everything is a complete mess. That's my interpretation of it.
Anyway, here are some questions: How does Yukino feel about Hachiman? Is she acting this awkwardly because she actually likes him, in a romantic way, and then she try to cover this with a façade, cold and distant and hateful towards him; is this how she handles her true feelings, by not conveying them at all? Or the reason is more simple than that and she simply despise everything Hachiman represents? What about Yui? Does she like him as well? At some point in the 1st season, in the festival, she apparently tried to confess to him but he interrupted her in the last moment, but I'm not quite sure if that was a confession. Also, in 2nd season she openly says she loves the club too much to let it go astray, and she emphasizes the word ''love'' for Hachiman, almost like it was a very personal confession. But then again, it's not quite clear to me what they're all trying to say, it could be love or something else entirely, I'm not sure, in the end everything in this anime remains in the subtext. Anyway, I think Yui and Yukino like Hachiman for some reason, but at the same time they don't respect him, or rather they don't even realize how much they like him, and just feel like his cynical character really hurts them all the time, so it's painful to get close to him. This became more clear to me in episode 8 where everyone burst into tears and emotions, but at the same time none of them were quite sure why exactly they were crying...
I feel this was a very long thread, and I didn't really get anywhere, sorry about that. Either way, at the same time I think I understand what's happening, and this is just a case of teenager angst, sometimes I'm not entirely sure what this is all about, and I think all of these events will be key factors to watch the 3rd season. So I want to hear some opinions about it, what do you guys think the drama is about? Does Yui and Yukino like Hachiman in a romantic way? Actually, a better question would be: how they exactly feel about Hachiman, and how Hachiman sees them? Give me some of your thoughts...