My latest obsession is OreGairu (aka My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU) (aka My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, as I Expected). I watched the first 2 seasons over 3 days and before I watch the final season I want to write about the season 2 finale. I’ve seen Uncut Gems, I’ve been an hour late for a final in college, I’m Tottenham Hotspur fan, and tense is the most tense experience I’ve ever had in my life and all it does is have three characters hanging out at an aquarium. I’m going to tell you how and why it’s so satisfying.
The show revolves around our triangle of main characters, Hachiman Hikigaya is our aloof protagonist who holds himself up as someone who is above the triviality of youth as a cover for his loneliness. Yukino Yukinoshita is the beautiful, but cold, head of the Service Club who has been isolated because of her seeming perfection. Yui Yuigahama is the bubbly, outgoing one in the group, but her fear of losing friends causes her to mask her true feelings. Through the course of the first 2 seasons we follow the three as they grow closer to each other. Their relationship comes to a head in the penultimate episode of season 2 as Yukino’s sister, and my messy ass waifu, Haruno forces the group to face their feelings after the two girls give Hikigaya cookies they baked together for Valentines Day. This is the setup for our pulse pounding finale.
Yui tricks Yukino and Hikigaya into coming to the aquarium and from there the stage is set. Every line, every character movement is dripping with tension. Anytime two characters are alone you feel like anything could happen and you are begging for and dreading it happening. Will one of the girls confess their feelings? Will Hikigaya reveal his feelings for one of them? Will they fight? Will they be happy for the other? The entire time you feel that anything could happen and it has you on the edge of your seat. In the end the episode ends on a cliffhanger and sets us up for a doozy of a final season, but that’s not what this article is about.
So the question this episode makes me ask is why does this work so well? Well the answer is quite simple, the show has mastered the love triangle. Most love triangles honestly don’t have that much mystery in who will end up together. Most love triangles don’t spend time investing us not just in the individual relationship dynamics between characters, but the group dynamic between the three. OreGairu does both. I can honestly say that at this point I have no idea how it’s going to play out. And even more significantly I don’t know how I want it to end. Much like the characters themselves I am equally invested in the individual friendships and the romantic feelings between the three.
The reason there is so much tension in the finale is because the desires of the characters are being pulled in diametrically opposite directions. They all want to push forward and change, but at the same time they are terrified of losing what they have. What they have now is the first real thing these characters have had. They are all for the first time experiencing true human connection and losing that would be devastating. At the same time they know that things can’t keep on as they are because they can’t ignore their feelings and keep their relationships genuine at the same time.
This is storytelling at its finest. At this point in the story there are no winners and everyone’s going to get hurt, but there’s no way around that. The setup for the final season could not have me more in and I look forward to sharing my thoughts on the final season when I’m done.
Leave a comment below and give some of your thoughts on the show and love triangles in general. Thanks for reading.