“If you can’t solve this in one word, then use all the words you need. And if words aren’t enough to get the job done, throw in some actions. Use any words necessary, take any actions necessary. Let each of them become a dot to connect, and build them into your answer.”
Oregairu is a story about the various types of social dynamics that form between people. The first two seasons dealt with a myriad of types of relationships, and did so in a pretty unique and amusing fashion. This was because it was through the lens of the Volunteering Club, a club composed of the witty but incredibly bitter and anti-social Hikigaya Hachiman, the cold and sharp tongued but dutiful Yukinoshita Yukino, and the energetic and loyal but passive Yuigahama Yui. However, as season two progressed, things started shifting towards being less focused on comedy and more focused on drama, with a particular focus on the relationship between the Volunteering Club trio as well as the relationship between Yukino and her family. This season doubles down on that.
The first two seasons had a lot of depth to them, but in hindsight they could also be enjoyed if watching in a pretty casual manner. This is not the case for this season. It relies heavily on understanding the personalities, complexes, and motivations of the main trio. And this is really difficult because the three of them are terrible at conveying their true feelings. Hachiman and Yukino will psychoanalyze others and then use that to form intricate plans, but absolutely refuse to even try to put their feelings into words. They’ll have something that they want to do, but will come up with complicated and elaborate excuses to do it rather than just explaining what they’re truly thinking. They understand each other well enough that they can generally peer through the nonsense and understand what the other truly wants, however they won’t confront that directly but will instead go on roundabout word games trying to fit everything into the whatever façade they have going on at the moment. They are both an enormous pain in the ass. And that’s what makes them so lovable. Meanwhile, Yui may not understand the nitty gritty of whatever the two are doing, but she has enough emotional intelligence to get the general feel of things. And that’s enough for her to understand what they have is quite fragile which makes her afraid of doing anything that might break it. And thus all she can do is passively look on while doing her best to try to keep things together.
A common complaints about this season is that a lot of it could be resolved pretty easily if they just had an honest conversation. But that’s missing the point completely. They can’t do that. They’ve never been able to do that. And the little steps they make towards doing so takes a tremendous amount of effort and mental preparation. That’s just who they are. If they could just casually sit down and have an honest conversation whenever they wanted, they would be completely different people with a completely different relationship dynamic. And this anime would have no point whatsoever.
I’ve also seen people say that even if they weren’t able to do so at the beginning, they should have grown to the point that they’re able to do so by the end. But that too I don’t think is necessary. The growth they showed in the cast here is a lot more interesting than the type where characters have pretty much overcome all their faults by the end. Hachiman has definitely grown, and I would say he has definitely grown a lot, but he started so far from what’s normal that compared to that his character arc may look downright negligible. However, what I felt was more important than the growth itself was how he values his own growth, and how he acknowledged how easy it was for it all to slip away and to return right back to where he started. Yukino’s character arc is a bit more complicated and muddled in that she seems to be intentionally trying to force herself to grow in a certain way, though ultimately takes a different view on what it means to grow as a person and then goes in a different direction. Yui doesn’t have much of a character arc, but instead it focused much more on her relationship arc with both Hachiman and Yukino. And as a result of watching her emotional roller coaster and what she does in response, it becomes clear that she is indisputably a good person, and by far the kindest character in this anime.
This season also does a pretty good of highlighting a lot of the other characters that were introduced throughout the previous seasons. Most notably Iroha, Shizuka, and Komachi all get pretty solid showings. The focus is very much on the main trio, but how the side characters play into that also brings out the best in each of them as well. I would also like to note that Yukino’s mother and sister were a lot more likable than I expected. Hachiman has really good chemistry with all of them interestingly enough, and it really does feel like they all deserve each other.
As for the romance, it does reach a definitive conclusion. Rather, it kind of feels like it’s been pretty clear what the conclusion was going to be for quite a while, but early on in this season it becomes explicitly clear what direction things are going to go, though it takes a while to eventually get there due to the aforementioned issued characters have communicating. Still, in the end it results in a lot of amazing moments. It has the most dramatic non-explicit confession scenes I’ve seen in anime. Followed not long after by a really fun explicit confession scene. Which is then followed by another amusing non-explicit confession scene. And then another dramatic confession scene. Each of them are going for completely different emotional beats, but all of them managed to hit their mark pretty well and the end result is that the final stretch overall has a lot of emotional impact. It felt kind of rushed at times, but all in all it was a really satisfying conclusion to everything. The OVA is an epilogue that’s after all the drama, so it returns to the comedic tone of the first season, which was a nice note to end on.
The art and animation were pretty good, they’re pretty much the same as the previous season in all respects. The soundtrack hit a lot harder though. Especially the use of old tracks at key moments, such as Yukitoki, the OP of the first season, or Yui no Ketsui, which is based on the ED of the first season, Hello Alone. The new OP and ED were also pretty solid in terms of audio and visuals.
A brilliantly overdramatic conclusion to the character and relationship arcs of a very interesting trio.
9/10
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