Oregairu: UPDATED Season 1 + Season 2

Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Com wa Machigatteiru (2013)
          My Teenage Romantic Comedy SNAFU
Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Com wa Machigatteiru. Zoku (2015)
          My Teenage Romantic Comedy SNAFU TOO!
          

Studio: Brain's Base (Season 1)
              Feel (Season 2)

Licensed By (NA): Sentai Filmworks
                      (Aus): Madman Entertainment

                     

Director: Ai Yoshimura (Season 1)
                Kei Oikawa (Season 2)

Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life, Drama

Main Cast:

Hachiman Hikigaya - Voiced by Takuya Eguchi

Yukino Yukinoshita - Voiced by Saori Hayami

Yui Yuigahama - Voiced by Nao Tōyama

Iroha Isshiki - Voiced by Ayane Sakura

          
          Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. (lit: My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong as I Expected.) is based off of the light novel series of the same name, written by Wataru Watari. Oregairu was licensed by Sentai Filmworks and, even though an English dub has not been released, the official English title of the anime is My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU (For anyone who doesn’t know, SNAFU is an acronym for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.) A second season was released in 2015 by Feel. Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru is often shortened to Oregairu which is what I will be using here.
           
          Hachiman Hikigaya is not what you’d call a ‘normal’ high school boy; he has a very cynical view of the world, he is often shunned and ignored by his peers, he is unlucky with love, and he doesn’t even have a friend to speak of. In other words he is a loner. Shizuka Hiratsuka, his counselor, notices his warped view of the world because of an essay he wrote. She then forces persuades Hachiman to join the Volunteers Club, which she believes will ‘rehabilitate’ Hachiman into becoming a more normal and productive member of society.

She's very forceful -- I mean, uh, persuasive.

          Hachiman instantly doesn’t get along with the only other member of the club, Yukino Yukinoshita, a beautiful ‘ice queen’ who also has a somewhat skewed view of the world. They have an argument and Shizuka tells them to decide it by who can help the clubs first customer, Yui Yuigahama. After the Yukino and Hachiman help Yui, she joins the club and the Voulunteers Club is ready to help people. The rest of the series is all about the Volunteers club helping various clients and they come up with solutions, usually involving Hachiman committing social seppuku.

Writing

          The overall writing of both seasons remain mainly unchanged. The series follows the volunteers club while they help various people with their problems, all while filling the in between moments with character development for the main characters. This is a series that thrives on character interaction and is also quite serious for a romantic comedy. 

          There is really only one gripe I have about the writing overall, which doesn't come in until the last episode of the second season: The ending is far too ambiguous. The ending is left far too open ended and much of the last episode requires the audience to read between the lines. Now, I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent individual, but when an episode that is 23 minutes long has 18 minutes of ambiguous dialogue, I tend to get confused. I had to watch the episode a couple of times to really understand what was going on. *SPOILER ALERT* Also, ending the episode right before Yukino stated her request really bugs me. Oregairu better get a season 3 because I really don't want to self translate the novels.

Season 1

Season 2

Characters

          I quite liked the characters in OreGairu, especially Hachiman. Even though he has a twisted personality, he is very relatable (especially to the average male anime fan). He is a loner, and it seems as though his entire life he has been the butt end of jokes and bullying. This leads to him having a twisted personality and often spouts out bits of wisdom to which he follows up with his catch phrase, “Source: Me.” He is often described by the other characters as having ‘dead fish-like’ eyes.

          Yukino is the intelligent, cold person of the series. She is considered exceptionally beautiful and thus is popular with the boys and hated by the girls. Because of this, she was often bullied by the other girls in the schools she attended. As such, she is a loner and has a somewhat twisted personality albeit not nearly as twisted as Hachiman. She holds animosity towards her older sister whom is more exceptional than Yukino. Yui is the popular girl of the club. Her problems are not with her personality, but her inability to express herself because she is afraid to lose friends. She is friendly and gets along with basically anyone, and while I don’t thinks she’s really dumb, she is a bit naïve at times.

          Season 2 Adds on one more frequently reoccurring character in Iroha Isshiki. I really like the extra dynamic that she brings to the group and with the other three taking a few levels in seriousness, she is really the driving force of most of the humor in the second season.

          

Visuals

          The artwork in OreGairu season 1 is good, if a little boring. They do not use any extreme expressions and tend to keep the art a little more realistic. The only time it breaks from this is when the chūnibyō character, Zaimokuza, goes into his chūnibyō mode. I think this really works for the series, however, because this series is a bit more serious. That is not to say that the series does not have its funny moments, but they are not artwork driven (most of the time.) I’d say OreGairu is really story driven, the artwork is technically good, but just not anything to write home about.

          Season 2 turns this completely around. With the studio change, the art style changed, and for the better, no less. Watch the first episode of season 2 and you will see scenes from episode 12 of the first season redrawn for the new style. Every single scene has improved not only the detail, but the fluidity of the movement, almost as if Feel used twice as many in betweens as Brain's Base did. There is also never a point that there appears to be any 'off model' characters, which did happen quite a bit in season 1. All in all, if there is a season 3, I would hope that Feel would return for it.

And in other news, Saika is still a Hideyoshi level trap.

          

Season 1

Season 2

Audio

         The voice acting in OreGairu is well done, and it was very well cast. I suppose the best one is Zaimokuza, who makes just about everything he says sound epic. Season 2 remains much the same as season 1 in this regard. All the voice actors from season 1 return and the new characters were cast quite well.

          The opening is “Yukitoki” by Nagi Yanagi, and the ending is "Hello Alone" by Saori Hayami and Nao Tōyama (as their respective characters.) Nagi Yanagi returns for the opening, "Harumodoki," and Saori Hayami and Nao Tōyama once again sing the ending song, "Everyday World."

Personal Enjoyment

          I personally really loved this series. I think the real reason this one is so good is the story and the characters. This series is a really great example of how a story can really drive a series to be great.

Another perfect example of the artwork upgrade.

          

You can almost see the jealousy.

Season 1

Season 2

Overall

The Final Word

          The score really reflects my high opinion of this series, this is not just my favorite series of the seasons that it aired, Oregairu is one of my favorite series OF ALL TIME. 

You thought you'd get away without a "preach it" reference?