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)
Festival segments of high school series can be difficult to watch and there is some of that to be had even with this series. There have been some high points with it as it’s dealt with the kinds of problems that come from personalities like Hachiman being involved in all of it and that definitely helped, especially when he lashed out in his own way over how some of the girls were taking advantage of others. Seeing that unfold in the previous episode and how the pushy and popular girls started to falter when it comes to the performances on the stage itself and the problems was rewarding in a way, but you also felt bad for them with what they were going through. But in the end, the festival must go on, and that’s what this episode delves into decently enough.
With a whole lot of decorations around, which really shows off what the kids did well, it’s all moving towards the closing ceremonies and the big nature of it, which is rather nicely done as well. While everyone is having a lot of fun, some tension does enter the picture as Sagami has disappeared and she’s needed to close out the ceremonies and announce the winners from the various votes that were held. Hachiman is comical in his solution to that, but he’s also logical about the right way to go looking for her. With Hachiman setting off to find her and get her back on track, the others have to try and stall for time a bit which is pretty amusing since they’re doing the best they can to stretch things out. What’s welcome though as it goes on is that it’s not just Hachiman that manages to find her and tries to sway her, but others such as Hayama do as well in order to get through to her and help her past the problems she feels very responsible and ashamed about now.
Having that more dramatic and character driven side play out is definitely what this series is like, and it works well, but I also rather enjoyed the time on stage with Yui and Yukino participating in the band experience by singing and playing an instrument and just having a blast at it. It’s one of those revelatory moments where others see someone very different than who they through they were and that’s always a great thing to have happen. This provides for the big, fun moment in the episode before it digs into the smaller stuff a bit, mostly focused on the relationship between Hachiman and Yukino in the club room. We’ve had a lot of good conversations in here from two very different yet similar people and this is no different as they talk a bit about their future in an abstract way and get down to what needs to be done. When you bring in Yui for a bit, it gets a bit lighter, but it’s still good to just watch these kids together, even if it doesn’t really go anywhere.
In Summary:
Dealing with the festival and some of its problems is pretty much par for the course and in a way there are no real surprises here. What makes the episode welcome is that we once again see how Hachiman has been forced into being involved in these kinds of things and the resigned way he does go through with it all. We also get to see Yui and Yukino really break out of their comfort zones, which is a lot of fun, as they get to do some main stage performances. But as we’ve seen before, it’s the small moments with the characters, the internal dialogue and just the way the main trio are so comfortable around each other that makes it so much fun to see. It may not go as far or do as much as I would have liked, but it handles things well here overall.
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.
