Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatteiru - 8

"One Day, They Shall Learn the Truth"

I'm on the HikkixTrap ship. We need more of those in romcoms.

I'm pretty impressed with what happened in Yahari this episode, though it's not entirely surprising that this is the case. For all the romcom fluff, I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the tidbits of unconventionality that pop up from time to time. Sure, this episode was saturated in imouto buttshots and kawaii charms, as well as Hikki's usual dilemmas over his crush on Saika and clashes with everyone else, but his solution to little Rumi's problem is about as unique as it gets. I suppose this is chalked up to Hikki's unique spin on things; for him, Rumi isn't the problem, and while all the popular kids seem to think she needs to fit in some how, Hikki sees it all quite clearly, and from her perspective. Sometimes everyone else is the problem, and occasionally there's a way to deal with that as well.

Though effective, Hikki's plan isn't to have Rumi make friends; he simply wants to alleviate her suffering, and since her friends will never talk to her, that can only be solved by getting rid of the bullying group. And as per his usual negative and observant self, he quickly notes that the easiest way to do this is by sowing discord among the girls. To be fair, his methods are rather cruel, and I'm surprised everyone followed a plan that demented considering how little attention they pay Hachiman in the first place, but it works, to some degree. If it weren't for Rumi herself, who stepped up to save them all even as the other girls abandoned her, it would have gone exactly as he predicted. The end result, though, is the same. Rumi is alone, but the bullying girls are no longer the same.

I like that there is no quick and easy way to make the girls be friends with Rumi-chan, because in real life it's true that if someone is dead set to dislike you, there's not much you can do to change that. It's that little nod to reality that I really find wonderful in this show, that little piece of the truth among all the usual stuff we see in anime of this brand. But of course that can't be apparent every moment, and we get one of those fluffy anime coincidences that's too good to be true to close off the otherwise stark nature of the episode. It seems that Yukino's flashy black limo could very well be the limo that ran Hiki over when he saved Yui's dog, and if so, he may find himself much less forgiving to the former than he was to the latter, cool though he seems over the whole issue now.