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「やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている。」 (Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatteiru.)
“My Teen Romantic Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected.”
What Follows on From the Accepted Confession
We’ve arrived at the end game. And in spite of my reservations about Hachiman and Yukino as a couple, I guess they’ve managed to prove me wrong. To be fair, I was expecting a Ron and Hermione type of relationship – born from short-term passion and likely to struggle in the long run, because these two are competitive and argumentative. Perhaps it’s only the honeymoon phase we’re seeing right now. But from what I can see, they really do bring out the best in each other. Whereas Yui was content to permit and even encourage Hachiman to stick with his shortcomings, Yukino is pretty strict with him. However, it isn’t bossy. She makes reasonable demands out of him – which causes him to try and step it up to meet her expectations. While last episodes sets of confessions were… odd to say the least. Seeing them spend so much time together organising the second prom was a fantastic payoff when most of this season had been a slog to work through. That said, it was unexpected and extremely sweet when Yukino openly spoke about her feelings of love directly to Hachiman. The way she quickly scampered off blushing like a shy creature was too adorable. Even though Iroha is my favoured girl, I take it back. This ending was just meant to be.
The reconciliation between Yui with Hachiman and Yukino felt a tad too convenient. I’m not sure how life goes on like normal now that everyone’s feelings are out in the open, and I certainly haven’t seen many friendships survive in the longterm when a party with unrequited feelings has to hang around with the object of their affection being together with their beloved. Nevertheless, Yui and Yukino do have an extremely deep bond. So it’s not out of the question that things can remain amicable, even if the situation is awkward in some sense. After all, when the love between the trio is unconditional – both romantic and platonic, then it makes sense they’d be able to accept each other so easily despite the remaining complications.
Hachiman’s Teen Romantic Comedy was Wrong – As Expected
From writing about how musings of youth are rotten and a lie, Hachiman ironically becomes the protagonist who lives out that youth, discovering what it means to have genuine connections with others. His teen romantic comedy was indeed wrong – as expected. It was fun to see the series coming full circle – with his search of the genuine beginning with Hiratsuka at the start, and now having finally found the genuine thigns he desperately sought out, he finds closure and bids Hiratsuka a proper farewell as she moves on to another school. As she labels him the best student she’s ever had, and shares a particularly intimate moment with Hachiman that didn’t cross serious lines, I really wondered if there could have been something between these two if they didn’t have such an age gap. We will never know, but I’m sure these two appreciate what they’ve done for one another and will remember each other for the rest of their lives. To top it off, the Service Club gets revived – thanks to Komachi joining and Iroha pulling strings as the Student Council President. So everyone gets to spend one more year together. And with Komachi and Iroha, greatness recognises greatness – and it’s a shame we won’t get to see them having their litany of entertaining interactions.
Afterthoughts
To conclude, I wanted to like Season 3 more than I did. But it really proved to be a slog throughout the section where they planned out the first prom. I hugely preferred the character interactions and story arcs in previous seasons. That said, they handled the emotional rejections of Yui and Iroha really well. And though the climactic confession was really odd, at least we were able to enjoy a final episode filled with the cute romantic moments everybody wanted. Compared to so many other anime, this was a really excellent ending. Was it worth the seven year wait? Certainly. I feel rather melancholic that the series has finally reached its natural conclusion. But it’s much better than overstaying its welcome. And all good things must eventually come to an end. Although I’m more of a Hayama in real life when it comes to ease of social interactions, I could really relate to Hachiman’s desire to seek out genuine things. And watching this series taught me where to cut my losses after investing in certain friendships, because you can find the genuine article if you keep searching and don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy with regards to less sincere people. You might not have found them yet. But I promise, if you don’t give up, someday you will meet the right people.
Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading this post. Thank you for reading these posts till the end. And take care everyone!
Gracias por este final ! Thank you Zaiden
No problem, my amigo 🙂
Liked the ending
But the road we took to get to the ending this season was tedious at times with some conflicts that made me keep questioning why they were happening and why they existed
Man, Iroha talking to Yui about being able to drink alcohol in three years’ time instantly reminded me of a certain hard-drinking Iron Blood shipgirl with a sideboob mole. (I know, it took me this long to make that seiyuu joke.) Iroha’s playful teasing in past episodes were reminiscent of Azur Lane‘s Prinz Eugen as well. (Damnit, Ayaneru…) Speaking of seiyuu jokes and shipgirls, that scene with Iroha, Yui and Yukino waiting for Hachiman on a bench was also a goldmine considering Yui (Naobou) only voiced KanColle shipgirls (“Kongou desu!”) while Iroha (Ayaneru) and Yukino (Hayamin) voiced shipgirls in both KC and AL. Heck, Iroha saying “Senpai, osoi!” was very KC!Shimakaze-like. And right within earshot of Yukino, who shares a voice with AL!Shimakaze!
Hiratsuka-sensei: “Youth is a lie. It is nothing but evil.”
Had a laugh at Hachiman visibly cringing at his own words from the start of the series. Yeah, Hachiman probably realized how much he sounded like a high-school edgelord. I mean, sure, there are some young people that consider being an edgelord as the epitome of cool (and if you do, more power to ya, I suppose). But if being an edgelord makes one more dysfunctional later in life and impedes finding actual happiness in the long run, it’s ultimately a net loss. Also, Hiratsuka-sensei accomplishing her “last job” of making her dysfunctional students enjoy youth was a satisfying closure to her subplot.
Other thoughts:
– Hachiman’s awkward selfies with Yukino… XD That first pic was more natural, TBH.
– The boys (and Saika) being shippers on deck for Hachiman x Yukino at the sauna… 🙂
– Glad to see the Service Club will be in good hands with little sister Komachi.
Well, it took three seasons (with some long years in between) and a metric f**kton of sorting out their admittedly dysfunctional lives (even while trying to help others as a club), but all that build-up made for a bigger payoff once Hachiman and Yukino finally realized their feelings and confessed to each other. That being said, my sympathies to the Yui fans, whose ship of choice has been torpedoed and given the coup de grâce this season. (Hope the anime adaptation of Nisekoi‘s finale gets made soon, if only to break the “romantic runner-up curse” of Nao Touyama’s characters.) But returning to Hachiman and Yukino cementing their status as official couple, I had a chuckle at Yukino borrowing a maneuver from Mai Sakurajima… (Or was it the other way around, LN-wise?) In any case, Yukino’s confession was full of HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG! And that’s good enough for me.
TL;DR: Even though reading the LN is recommended for the details left out of the anime, as an audio-visual person, OreGairu is still a “must-watch”, if you haven’t already.
The segment with Shipfus went completely over my head. But I can appreciate that there was some inside understanding/reference between the voice actresses. That kind of easter egg is so cool to know about.
And I didn’t necessarily consider things from Hiratsuka’s perspective. Must feel great to have successfully brought a misfit out of their shell, and onto a more fulfilling/happier path.
As for the LN, I’ll give it a pass for now. Maybe I’ll come back to it one day if my curiosity gets the better of me. But for now, I’d rather read/consume new content.
What can I say? I just love them seiyuu jokes/connections.
The TL;DR is mainly for the weeblets who are on the fence about reading the LNs or watching the anime. With both the LN and anime complete (not sure about the manga adaptation), it’s mostly safe to recommend at this point.
Also, OreGairu turned out to have a much better ending compared to what I once considered to be its contemporary at the time: Haganai. Shame that the latter won’t receive a new animated season any time soon.
To be honest, I’m at the stage where I’m starting to have a hard time keeping up with the handful of new anime series I pick up each season, and would rather focus on established series that I genuinely like (guilty pleasure or no) but for one reason or another are still incomplete. (e.g.: Insufficient source material, or completed source material that hasn’t been animated yet. If it’s incomplete due to the author passing away, I let that work rest in peace.) But I feel ya on wanting stimulation and new experiences from new anime (or even live-action shows).
Truth be told, even if I’m in the Yukinon faction… I just want to hold on to sensei tight and let her know she can have my life.
How to put it. Iroha’s not my kind of girl, but I thought she had really great chemistry with Hachiman. If I had to hug one of the Oregairu characters, it would probably be Saki.
And so the story of Hachi, Yukino and Yui is finally over, except that it’s not. Because a sequel series is in development.
Just rewatched Toradora and while I will always love Oregairu for the in, some minor ways, more real teen drama Oregairu only had one scene that made you cry. The denouement never really delivered. I would welcome more real, slow-paced teen dramas but it seems odd to me that Toradora still manages to be more touching, maybe because they more strongly hinted at the *real* couple and the others got less screen time than Oregairu did. Perhaps it all comes down to closure, while the main couple start dating there seems to be the chance for Yuigahama at the end unlike Toradora but maybe a tight Rabukome needs that bittersweetness to be super pronounced.