I am deeply disappointed with this season.
**Spoilers ahead**
The reason why is because of how it ended, with Hikki dating Yukino like it's normal. Hikki became the very cliché MC rom coms he set out to destroy. The entire show became the very thing it was trying to be different from but in a very bad way. I get Hiki can't be an edgelord forever but I was expecting mob psycho 100 levels of growth, not a forced "MC goes with 1st girl" ending like so many rom coms before it. Especially Yukino of all people, the ice queen who I personally feel like did not change at all and was forced to change to give a very hollow happy ending. That is what this ending feels like, a ending to please shippers and gush how cute they are but the soul of this show was never about that. Or at least I was lead to believe it wasn't. I thought finally a show that wouldn't pander to the waifu wars and their armies and be more realistic with a MC who clearly was not popular with girls. Only for him to be quite popular with girls to have a typical love triangle that just does not fit the characters of this show. Where do I even begin?
The Plot: How the fuck did we end up here?
Coming from season 2, I was excited to see where the story was going to go. It made it seem like the major problem with the trio was Yukino was realizing she was relying on Hiki and Yui too much and if she wanted to be a independent person who could be respected, her solution was to cut them off to prove her worth. Typical of her character. Yui being the type of girl she is, would of course want to stop that but also suspects she won't be the one to stop yukino because she is also in the same boat of relying on Hiki to fix everything and gets where she would be coming from. Not to mention also clearly being in love with Hiki and feels terrible at the idea of Yukino not being there would actually put her in a great position to get closer to him regardless of what Hiki and Yukino's actually is. Hiki, being a disillusion guy, knows the group would have to end at some point, but being a edgelord loner for so long only to become codependent on these two girls who actually want him to be around, it would be understandable for him to be scared of losing these relationships and would want some excuse to continue it. Especially after helping another group of friends prevent that same end in a way that pisses of the girls who actually care about him. This was what I was expecting to get resolved in season 3. Instead we got Yukino's big sister making shit super confusing with her meddling only for Yukino to go, yep I do love you lets date. I just don't buy it but more on that later. I thought the show was joking when Hiki said this was a love triangle only to go wtf at the ending episodes because it turned out to BE a love triangle. The only serious love triangle involving Hiki, I would have believed was from Yui and Iroha. (More on that later) More importantly, I loved the character dynamics and was expecting the drama to come from Hiki and Yukino learning to evolve from their methods of approaching problems and learn it's ok to want and make human connections and don't have to act in extremes. Instead of...whatever this is.
Romantic Relationships: Why I don't buy Yukino has romantic feelings or the Hiki x Yukino ship would even last.
Yukino, is a very driven woman despite her flaws and her problems with her family. I highly doubt she would be the type to even think about romance until at least college and would see that shit as distractions towards her goals. Hell it took so much just to make friends who she just tried to cut off due to interactions with her family. Add this with a guy who has become so disillusioned with rom com ideas of romance and the show is trying to tell me they make a great couple? Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit! These two are friends for life at best. Their personalities match well for that but as a couple, yikes! Romantic relationships take work, effort, and time and these two would just make shit exceedingly difficult than it needs to be. Sure you could say they challenge each other, but I say they go way too far with it. Ron x Hermione from Harry Potter are the gold standard of that type of dynamic and these two don't meet that at all. As an adult, I know the look in Yukino mom's eyes when she looks at these two. They won't last, the work involved for their relationship will be too high, and they will just wear each other down. And because their communication skills suck ass with barely any improvements, if any, they will slowly drift apart like they did during the season. Because that is their base nature, and the anime did nothing to show they will be able to prevent this when problems arise. Sure Hiki's key plans worked liked always, but the scary question this season hinted at is what happens when life calls his buff. Them going with the 2nd prom anyway showed it was very close to becoming a disaster. Making one think what if his other solutions were actually followed through till the end and a outcome different than what he predicts happens. (I was hoping season 3 was going to play more with this idea too) Their friendship was almost destroyed quite easily in a very realistic way so I find it very hard to believe their romantic relationship would fair any better, especially when hard times come and Hiki CAN'T gary stu his way out of it.
The believable love triangle: Yui and Iroha
I get why Hiki doesn't choose Yui but their dynamic is far more realistic. Simply because Yui puts in the effort to turn their relationship into a romantic one. On the surface, it looks like a typically rom com cliché plot with them, but Yui knows her flaws and greediness is what sells it. She truly gets she can't have her cake and eat it too but tries to screw the rules anyway. Which is why it would have been spicy to have Iroha to be her competition.
Hiki and Iroha dynamic unexpectedly works. In fact Hiki's little sister puts it best by saying a girl as trashy as her brother could be the girl for him. I say this because Hiki not falling for her bait/manipulation but helps her anyway and Iroha's disrespect for him as a potential partner but accepts his help while not bothering with her façade, I can see naturally leading to romance. I find their interactions just more natural. I can also see Iroha put up a serious fight against Yui more than Yukino who kind of just, did nothing to improve her relationship with Hiki this season. In fact she was gone for nearly all of it so I am even more baffled on how this happened and why it seems a lot of people are happy with this.
So yeah, I need to rewatch the previous seasons because with this ending, I just don't get how such an awesome series turn into this and it be ok.
