Overview:
As punishment for a scathing report written about the concept of friendship and society, Hachiman is forced to join the service club where he is introduced to Yukino. The two of them are later joined by the vibrant Yui. Can the three successfully provide services to others when they can barely communicate with each other?
Review:
There’s something truly wonderful about Hikigaya Hachiman and his view on people and the world. It is scathing, hilarious, bordering on being too true, and yet an utterly self-defeatist way to live your life. It is through his warped lens we view the school and the service club and are forced to reconsider everything we accept about making friends and getting along with people, even as we realise that Hikigaya is himself an incredibly flawed character who needs to make some changes in his approach to solving problems.
That might be a weird way to start a review of a series but essentially this is a story about three characters who through various contrived circumstances end up working together despite their vastly different mindsets. The actual situations they are dealing with are more or less irrelevant to whether you will enjoy the show. What will make or break this show for you is how entertaining you find their various observations about their situations, their classmates, and each other.
Hikigaya is a loner. In some ways he has made this choice and is happy with the result, but there are enough tell-tale scenes, particularly flashbacks of middle-school that would point out that his alone status has been externally imposed as much as accepted and made a badge of honour by Hikigaya. As much as he claims a dislike of hypocrisy, he himself exhibits the trait quite a lot. He is also an excellent observer of overall trends and tones, a skill he is picked up from people watching from the outside of the social groups. What he isn’t good at is understanding individuals, mostly because he seldom deals with them. This allows him to understand mob mentality, and how to figure out who is causing social unrest within a group, but makes him completely oblivious to the girl who would really like to thank him for saving her dog’s life.
By himself he would be entertaining enough but I guess the story would have become pretty stagnant so we also have the two girls in the story who make up the rest of the service club. The cool, Yukino, and the bubbly crowd follower, Yui. These two characters couldn’t be more different as Yukino is smart, thinks and speaks deliberately, isn’t afraid to upset someone with an honest observation, and prioritizes results over social niceties. Yui on the other hand honestly admires Yukino but also realises she can’t be her. For Yui, it is too important that she doesn’t upset her friends or rock the boat.
What this means is that all three come at every job they are given from a very different perspective. Where Hikigaya looks for a low energy, underhanded solution, Yukino comes at the problem head on and tries to deal with it efficiently and with hard-work and dedication, while Yui seldom gets to put her view forward but that’s okay because she’d probably want to talk about the problem with others and would never get around to implementing a solution anyway.
There are other characters and events in this story. Mostly we go through all the usual high school shenanigans including festivals, bullying, class trips, giving a boy cookies, geeky guy writing a novel, effeminate looking guy wanting to play tennis, the cool group with their usual petty group dynamics, and so on and so forth. There isn’t anything we haven’t seen before but when Hikigaya and Yukino get involved they manage to turn even the most normal situation into a battleground of ideologies and the result is usually entertaining.
The unfortunate thing of course is that these three characters are connected by a ‘mystery’ revolving around the accident Hikigaya had before the series started. It isn’t much of a mystery but they keep coming back to it and dragging out the effect of it and I guess that is one way to string together the otherwise fairly disconnect series of events that befall the cast.
The other unfortunate part is that at the end of season 1, the characters have made some individual progress, though fortunately no complete 180’s – they are all very real characters in that progress is slow – but the story just kind of leaves them mid-character transformation. You would think maybe the second season would provide some closure but tragically that is not necessarily the case though it does continue the journey and I will get around to reviewing it eventually.
Still, this show is full of wonderful inner monologues, great one-liners, some biting commentary and thought-provoking moments. The support cast all serve their needed roles, the pace moves well enough, and visually it is fun to look at. The only real issue is the overall plot but the characters more than make up for it, provided you find them entertaining. So, if you haven’t, give the first five minutes of episode 1 a go. If Hikigaya makes you smile, watch the series. If not, well, you’ll still have listened to an interesting opening monologue.
I’d love to know your thoughts on the series.
Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James
Did you ever get round to reviewing the second series Karandi? I can’t find anything by using the search bar. I’ve just finished watching and would be interested in your views on what I found rather a confusing ending!
I still haven’t done season 2 because every time I think about watching it again to review it, I just remember I very much found the ending frustrating and so I put it off. It is still in my review list and I will get to it, but yeah, the absence of the review is probably review enough at this point.
I’m about halfway through the first series of this one, and I think it’s a great series, tackling some important issues. It baffles me that it hasn’t been dubbed.
It always makes me happy when people get to enjoy SNAFU. It really is an underrated show.
OreGairu is one of those series that I deeply enjoy, for most of the reasons that you’ve already stated here. Lots of commentary on society itself and how social circles actually work. The first season does a lot more episodic stuff, which is cool, but I feel that season 2 really delves into the heart of some real social issues that I’m sure everyone has faced at some point, and the high school setting combined with these particular characters can really shove lots of those experiences to the forefront, which can be both enjoyable and awkward to watch at times.
I personally enjoy season 2 a lot more, simply because of its more dramatic tone change, but there’s definitely merit to both seasons of the show, and I definitely would say they’re pretty much about the same sort of things; just told in different ways.
Definitely will keep an eye out for your season 2 review, as I’m curious as to what your thoughts will be!
Probably be awhile coming but I will definitely get to it. Thanks for reading and commenting.
I hadn’t thought of it that way before but you are right in that the first season is more episodic in that they set up a case and deal with and move on whereas season 2 really does have a more cohesive feel.
People love this one but I just don’t see it. Maybe I’m missing something? Granted I haven’t seen it yet, but nothing about it screams that I’ll enjoy it. Still, your review has me curious. Maybe I should give it a shot sometime.
You could just check out some YouTube clips of Hikigaya’s monolgoues. They’ll either amuse you or bore you silly and either way you’ll know whether to try the show.
That’s a good idea. I’ll do that then 🙂
tbh i wonder how the actual progression of the books went, since in anime we expect a season finale with a conclusion, but the point the second season makes only works because it grows upon the immature point concluded at the end of the first.
I enjoyed the show as well. The main character was interesting despite the fact that he was massively over the top and edgy. Even if his ridiculous rants were wrong they were still interesting to think about.
There was always a kind of logic behind his reasoning so that even if his fundamental argument was flawed, it sounded in the moment fairly sensible. Which then of course makes it interesting to think about.
SNAFU is a great show, one of my favorite RomComs, and just an all-around great watch, in my opinion. The social commentary, character interactions, and just the general humor is witty and funny, and it’s really just a joy.
This is one of those shows that I keep getting tempted to watch but never seem to find the time to. It looks entertaining enough though.
As I said, watch the first five minutes and you’ll know whether this show works for you or not. So it is worth trying because it isn’t one that takes awhile to find its feet. They drop you head first into Hikigaya’s mindset and that will either amuse you or not.
Umu, I love this series! It’s one of my favourite Anime (and LN). I usually enjoy a lot monologue and inner thinking filled show, but here we reached some peaks I would dare to say I was enlightened. I owe Hikigaya for changing my mindset from a costantly worried teen about social anxiety and related issues, to a proud loner wanting to become a slave corporative.
Yeah, he’s my idol. On a side note, I’m not little hyped to hear author-sama finally decided a date for the 12th volume, which should begin the last arc or something akin to that.
I’ve kind of wondered what it would be like reading about these characters. This is probably one story where I wouldn’t mind chasing down the source material at some point because I kind of do want more of their story.
Hey a review, what a coincidence! I just happened to blindly buy this show. Now I’m looking to it more than ever. Convincing review!
As I said, you’ll know in the first five minutes whether this show will amuse you or not. Hopefully you enjoy it.
It’s reviews like this that keep making me think I missed something about this show. To me Hikigaya was the only one who made any sense. Everone else was just irrational (maybe that says more about me than the show).
I think it is because each character so strongly represents a typs of person rather than being a character it makes them seem a bit off-kilter (but then again, Hikigaya has the same issue but given the story is from his perspective he comes off feeling ‘normal’). I liked the show because each of those ‘types’ of people were identifiable even if they weren’t the best of characters.