Because I feel like Oregairu Kan is conflicting. Looking at the show without the lens of somebody who’s poured a disgusting amount of time rewatching it, this season is rather disappointing. I’ll save you from having to read a summary, but essentially the story boils down to three topics: Prom, Codependency, and Gahamama. I’m kidding. Slightly. The story picking up from where they left off in Zoku, we immediately launch into scenes that feel like they’re from the previous season, and then Irohas comes into the scene. The prom brings up a lot of interesting points, but most notably the point that we come to focus on is something that Haruno plants into all of our minds: codependency. While it may be the harsher view on what those three are, it isn’t wrong. Codependency is a type of relationship where a person needs to be relied upon, to give them a sense of worth, and the person they are relying on also needs to be relied upon by the other, creating a cycle. It highlights a lack of autonomy, or in a sense, a lack of something genuine. While Haruno feels like the three are always hiding what they truly want from each other, thankfully we have Hiratsuka to bring us back towards that sweeter ending, telling Hachiman that it essentially boils down to a word that’s hard to express in simpler terms: love.
And really, that’s all Oregairu is. The series is one of learning how to express our love for other people, to look past all of the superficial things, and experience something genuine. Between Yui’s selfish desires and Yukino & Hachiman’s inability to properly express what they’re aware of, in reality, they’re being broken apart because they go about expressing things differently. It’s what drove the club apart in Zoku, and if a miscommunication happens again, it's what'll shut the doors on their relationship for good.
So what are the issues with Kan? To me personally, it comes to pacing and treatment. To talk about pacing would basically require me to say that, yes, Oregairu as an anime has some issues with adapting. Having read 11 volumes of the LN (I’ll read the last 3 once I find the time), I know what the anime has skipped. Between my favorite parts like Totsuka, Zaimokuza, and Hachiman hanging out and a ramen date between our dynamic teacher/student duo, and better parts like Yukino and Yui entering the fray after Hachiman asks them for help or literally all of Irohas’ development, there’s quite a lot that was sacrificed at the expense of a better focus on the main trio. So sure, Oregairu doesn’t necessarily have the best pacing record and doesn’t adapt everything. But even so, the middle of Kan felt bad. While it picked up and then gave a beautiful finish by the end, by episode 7 I was already pretty disappointed at how it had turned out. We were spending too much time on the prom, and while it is the major point of this season, I am aware of a couple of things that were left out that would’ve been beautiful since this season is coming from feel. Which brings us nicely to the topic of treatment.
When I say treatment I refer specifically to animation. While, yes, the animation buff that feel. brang to the table was nice, it was rather...disproportionate. Because Yukino felt fucking terrible in a lot of the scenes. And I know I’m not crazy either, I’ve seen a decent amount of complaints about this. Sure, the animation is different and so maybe we’re just not used to it, but by the end of the season, we’ve adjusted to that changes. Yes, for the most things we were given a really nice and stylish upgrade, but for Yukino we went from the given cold demeanor she should have to this kinda lost and dumb girl (I don’t really see the dumb bit but to each their own). Yukino’s scenes were rather scarce in this season, making it feel like Yui was going to win as she did in the ANOTHER version of Oregairu (non-canon). So it really didn’t feel like poster girl was being given that poster girl treatment. While the final episode did like, have some really fucking cute scenes and the animation kinda felt right, a percent less than 100 is still not 100.
Yet, I feel like I kinda forgot about these grievances by the time episode 10 came around, but ultimately this season still underperformed. Will I still be giving it a high score? Yes, absolutely. I fucking love this series to death. Watari did an awesome job with the LNs, and both studios (as mentioned before) have done an amazing job with adapting it. But for those of you who watch Oregairu because of the romance or the characters, watch this season. I guarantee you’ll like it. For those of us who watch the series because we want to see all things come full circle, or want to see how the concepts that have been brought up throughout the series are conveyed, I’d still say watch this season, but don’t go into it expecting this to be some grand finale worthy of super high praise. Because while you won’t entirely be disappointed, it just wasn’t performing at the caliber that you would’ve wanted it to.
