Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru. Kan

(TLDR at the bottom and spoilers ahead) Each season on oregairu has a distinct identity, while not much happens in the first season it is enjoyable seeing the constant back and forth between Hachiman and Yukino while Yui tries to mediate between the two personalities. The second season has the bonds between the characters deepen, so it’s kind of enjoyable as a character drama. If the first season is the comedy part of the title the second season is the love part of it. So how does season 3 create its own identity? It doesn’t, it is a an overgrown tumour ripped of the back of the secondseasons back and presented as its own season and were forced to see It crawl to what can hardly be considered ending. The third season can be split into two distinct sections, Yui getting over the fact that she won’t be with Hachiman and the club will eventually grow apart and the rest of the series. This first part conceptually sounds quite interesting but then why does some thing that could be solved in a few episodes take up the majority of the series? I'll tell you why pacing. Season 1 adapted 6 light novels, season 2 adapted 5 and season 6 adapts 2. Because of this the final season is a slog, stretching every moment as far as it can go, and because of it the final season isn’t a triumphant finale but a boring conclusion that takes too long to finish. “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” This also largely revolves around Yukino's ability to decide things for herself and stop being "co-dependent" the issue with this, apart from taking the whole season to sort out, is that it is nothing new. In the second season Hachiman had to learn not to shoulder everyone's burdens so we have seen these struggles before, making the season just feel even similar to the previous season, further preventing this season to have its own identity. Oregairu is often praised for its deep philosophical themes, but I ask you what are they? The so-called "philosophical themes" are just surface level nonsense that you can get an even better Idea about by reading a Wikipedia page on it, which would take significantly less time and probably be more interesting. And then the ending, what this called "love story" has been building up to for 38 episodes (Ignoring the ova's) is a confusion and then Yukino runs away, 38 episodes for this. No satisfying payoff, no conclusive finale, just this and then a minute of extra stuff that purposely avoids giving us any information about Hachiman and Yukino and then credits roll leaving nothing but disappointment. TLDR: If you like the previous seasons you'll like this. For everyone else though it is a boring slog through uneventful arcs leading to a disappointing conclusion.

TLDR: A very poor buildup to what is a generally good ending to an outstanding anime series. Sprinkled with some emotional moments supported by the amazing production done by Studio feel. I will miss this series for the experience for the foreseeable future. [Light Spoilers Ahead] Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru, or My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected is many things. A pilgrimage destination for people who set out to quench their thirst for finding something genuine masterfully created genre-breaking romantic comedy full of ironic tension and witty dialogue, a journey exploring the themes of self-realization, inferiority complex, cynicism, and socialawkwardness. At least, that was what we were promised. The first two seasons of Oregairu did this well by introducing its characters, showing how each of them interacts with each other, unpacking everyone's secret desires and motivations with a conclusion of a competition overarching this entire series/ So now, after five years of waiting, we get our conclusion, and all I can say is that Oregairu Kan (meaning climax in Japanese by the way) is one massive letdown. Let's break it down, shall we? Story: (3/10) Starting with the positives, the most remarkable aspect of Oregairu is how deep the superficial scenarios are. I'm not going to spoil anything because I want you to read this knowing nothing but a general analysis, but many scenes in the stories, if you look hard enough, have profound significance all surrounding one central concept, "there is no happy ending for everyone in a romantic comedy." So if you're going to watch Oregairu Kan, keep a mindful eye and notice how the characters interact, the environment around them, and the relationship dynamic everyone has with each other to notice trends you don't usually see in romance dramas. Now we get to the bad stuff. As good as Oregairu is at making their scenarios have deeper meanings, it also screams melodrama. The main goal of the entirety of Oregairu Kan is nothing special, planning a high school prom, but they made it seem like a life or death scenario that it was almost laughable. The worst part of it was that the whole planning of the high school prom lost focus and at some points, forgot about what they were trying to do. At one point, it jumped quickly from "we're concerned about how this will turn out" to "okay, it's fine let's just do it" out of nowhere. I thought I missed something, so I went back, but no, I was right that it jumped the gun on the prom idea without much resistance with the "main antagonist" saying that "you know, the people will still get mad over this", which is basically saying that the conflict was never even resolved in the first place. The story also focused way too much on one character and essentially, the story became about her when she shouldn't have become the focus because she's not the love interest in the end. A lot of the story evolved from a story about acceptance about losing your love to becoming a cry bait for audiences over the fact that she lost. But I'll talk more about this in characters. Characters: (2/10) Not enough Saika this season? Automatic one. Okay, but on a serious note, my statement has some truth in it. But not just Saika, just everyone else. A lot of the characters we saw and were built upon in the previous seasons were all rendered useless in this season. Either the characters have no plot significance or impact, plot devices to remind Hachiman of one fact that he forgot, or literally background noise to what's going on. But the largest offender was that Yukino, the main girl of this story, was pushed to the sides. No, the main focus of this story was Yui, or as the light novel readers will say, "Yui cry bait." I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, a few episodes dedicated to that should have been good enough, but the worst part was that so much of the airtime was dedicated to Yui and Hachiman together, implying that they will be together in the end. But no, in the last-gasp effort, Studio felt realized that this story was entirely about Yukino and quickly wrapped it up towards the end with no buildup at all of the chemistry between Yukino and Hachiman. Art: (10/10) As for art, I can describe it as "unnecessarily beautiful." We saw it with the drastic art style change in Zoku: the subtle facial expressions from the characters, ESPECIALLY Yui, the sunset shading on all of the characters' faces and setting, even the iconic finger/hand animations, all of it is unnecessarily beautiful. I understand the fantastic animation is to bring out how tangible the emotional scenes are between the character interactions, so I'm going to keep the art at a 10 because of how effectively Studio feel pulled it off, but it still doesn't take away the fact that Oregairu is unnecessarily beautiful. Sound (9/10): I think out of all the OSTs even from the first and second seasons, this season definitely stood out the most. The opening and ending themes doesn't only sound good with the seiyuu singing spectacularly, but the lyrics as well have a special connection to the message of the anime itself. Take the example from the opening theme: "One after another, Happy ever after, At the end credits roll, What I hoped for, Won't appear on the screen, No matter how long I wait" just talking about how Oregairu needs a conclusion, but it won't damn right be a happy one. I also can't mention sound direction without talking about the ending theme. The cherry ending theme with both Yukino and Yui sings speaks volumes, especially when the more mellow single seiyuu versions of the ending theme plays in the more emotionally impactful scenes. And oh, do those scenes hit like a truck(-Kun)! Besides the openings and endings, the rest of the OST was also really good, even at times calling back to some old themes and OSTs from the past Oregairu seasons. Enjoyment (4/10): All in all, I can say that Oregairu Kan could have been great. The art and sound direction were impeccable, the past two seasons had good buildup to this point, all for it to be "destroyed" in the final season, the "Kan" as you can say. It wasn't bad by any means, the emotional scenes hit hard, the art was outstanding, the soundtrack was great, and everything was wrapped up very nicely. I'm just saying that this season could have been so much better. Now would you excuse me while I go read the light novel so I could have a better experience with a writer that actually knows how to write a good buildup to a good conclusion. My Equation Total Overall: 4/10

I will preface this by saying that I'm not a fan of dramas but I do find one occasionally that is written so well that I actually enjoy it, so take that how you will. Having watched the entire show I can say that this season is more of the same as the second season, so if you didn't like that like I didn't then don't put yourself through this like I did. Story 1 Story is rather nonexistent, as is expected of a slice of life. This show is all about the characters. Art 3 The art is bland and still worse than first season which at least hadsome flair to it. sound 5 Sound design is mostly mediocre, that's about all I can say for that. character 2 The characters are at best stupid, and at worst boring. Most of the show is characters talking, which I find ironic, when you take into account that any forced drama in the show could be fixed in a span of one conversation, but that never happens. The conversations the characters have are not interesting, and for the most part how the characters have the conversations is not interesting either, which I feel is a genuine problem in a show about people talking. The show shows you that not everything is alright between the characters, but never actually gives any reason for why that is. The author really seemed to want to write smart characters that are good at reading people. At this point I really have to ask, why did it seem like a good idea to make the most antisocial characters in the show be these gods at reading people and talking? This makes no sense at all since you really can't be good at talking and reading people if you never talk to any of them, this is not however the biggest problem in the writing. Second terrible thing about the writing of the characters is that they are not good at reading people, or good at talking, they are omniscient, and everybody else just believes what the main characters say no matter if it makes sense or not. These characters just walk up to any situation and immediately know everything that is going on, and then state something and everything the characters say is just taken as a fact. Hachiman has few genuinely well written bits in conversations, but I feel that those are more few and far between the further into the show I get. Yukinoshita has the personality of wet tissue paper, I really don't get why people like her. Komachi brings the only point to raise the character score above 1. Enjoyment 1 This show has a few enjoyable bits, but when I can count those bits from all twelve episodes on one hand I really have to wonder why I even bothered with this show. Closing thoughts This show tries to be realistic but it ends up boring, it tries to be a romance but I've seen better chemistry in hentai, it says that its a comedy but the funny bits stopped at season 1, and it tries to be a human drama but there is no conflict even though the characters act like there is. The main character has any chemistry with maybe 2-3 side characters we barely see, and the side characters we do see are frustratingly badly written. You might like this show, and more power to you if you do, but I could not recommend this to anyone with a clear conscience.

To me Oregairu has always been the Rick and Morty of anime. It's pretentious, it's pseudo deep, it wants to be so intelligent and clever yet fails to do so. For the life of me I have tried to understand what people see in this series besides waifus and I really can't. Oregairu Kan offers no real change in that regard, other than more Yui, which for me is the only reason I didn't give this a 1/10. Everyone who reads my MAL reviews knows I am very generous when it comes to scoring and hand out 9s and 10s very easily. Yet, I've giventhis season of Oregairu my 2nd lowest score ever. Why? Simple. The main point of this season is the kids trying to plan a prom, which doesn't even exist in Japan in the first place. But, ok. I can see doing something fresh and original for your senior year. The PTA don't want the kids throwing a prom, and it's literally 6-7 episodes of this pseudo deep, melodramatic garbage about them convincing the parents to consent to a prom. On top of a weak story, I am incredibly petty. Meaning that if my waifu loses, I will lower my score of a series. I won't go into details on the winner for risk of spoiling people, but when a character with little to no development, characterisation or personality wins, I immediately become disinterested. It's not even just about who won, it's about them getting no real development. Oregairu wants to shove so much down your throat and the fans want for you to just accept it as good writing. Well, I am here to disagree with that narrative. I think Oregairu at best is a decent series. I feel most of what Oregairu fans think Oregairu is, can be found done better in other series. I am well aware that my opinion of the story/show will not be popular and people will be upset, but it is what it is. I'm never going to sugarcoat how I feel about something. Speaking of Feel, the animation, art and everything are all really well done as we've come to expect from the 2nd season. Overall, Oregairu-Kan was a very hard watch and painful experience for me. If you liked the first two seasons and or the books, you'll probably enjoy this one. I just couldn't and am glad it's over to be able to forget it. Oregairu-Kan gets 4 Yahallo's out of 10.

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