What They Say:
So exactly what’s going to happen when Hachiman Hikigaya, an isolated high school student with no friends, no interest in making any and a belief that everyone else’s supposedly great high school experiences are either delusions or outright lies, is coerced by a well meaning faculty member into joining the one member “Services Club” run by Yukino Yukinoshita, who’s smart, attractive and generally considers everyone in her school to be her complete inferior?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the gang off at a training camp, there’s all sorts of things that come up and happen that you never expect. For someone like Hachiman, one of the more surprising things to happen is that he ends up getting more use out of his phone than he ever expected. Being such an introvert and away from everyone, he’s only used it for an alarm clock basically, but now he’s getting his first email contact in it. Which just points to how disconnected he is from the world in so many ways since it is so easy to make even basic connections along the way of life. Saika’s rather adorable in how he handles this in sending Hachiman his first one, but it’s Hachiman reactions that just win you over since it’s almost child-like.
With Hachiman and the others helping out in running the camp, they get to deal with some of the upcoming events that can be a bit mind numbing at their age, such as the test of courage and so forth. The day is filled with free time for the kids, but the counselors have to do a lot of the big work in setting up for it, including the campfire. Thankfully, the counselors get some time to themselves as well, which includes getting all the girls into bathing suits and heading down to the river for some fun. It’s fanservice galore and while it’s kind of forced in some ways, it’s a welcome bit of change for the group since things have been pretty tame in the show so far. If it had flashed the skin and skimpy clothes from the start, it would just be insult to injury, But here, it feels a bit more natural overall when it gets rolling, especially since Hachiman just watches from the side since he didn’t bring a swimsuit.
When it comes to the test of courage aspect, the prelude to it is comical as the outfits that they’re choosing from as the counselors are going to be monsters are mostly big on fanservice and skimpy nature, which is hilarious and fun in its own way. Some act it up more than others and the layout of it certainly makes for a lot of fun for the kids. Of course, as we go through the motions of the camp, it’s interesting to see/hear the narrative that Hachiman continues to build with his view of the world and people in general, which serves to show us the way that the kids themselves get to demonstrate the right way to live and interact with others through things like the test of courage. It’s a bit cruel in a way, but it works better than coddling them in other ways which helps.
In Summary:
While there are no real surprises here when it comes to some of the actual story ideas that are used, it’s watching the characters interact that’s the real fun. Hachiman’s negative and low key vibe is one that’s hard to get away from since it’s always there and can be difficult to deal with, but I enjoy seeing not only the way the various girls deal with him, but also that Hayato has managed to make some inroads with him. Something that I don’t think I expected to have happen as the show revealed itself. This episode deals with plenty of familiar things with the camp, but it does it from a different perspective with the high school students working as counselors and dealing with younger kids, which changes the dynamic in a fairly fun way. Hachiman’s mindset is one that I continue to enjoy watching since he’s unlike most other leads and his views provide a different outlook than we usually get, which helps to make it feel all the more real even as it deals in familiar tropes.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
