I've been reading the light novels behind SNAFU, trying to understand the implied subtext in the current season that's so much more complicated than the previous one. The first two episodes are a story arc where the hero is asked to solve a problem for two people who want opposite things. And he does this, with the encouragement of the two girls he's in service club with, after a couple days of dates in Kyoto, considered a romantic city in Japan. Its full of history and architecture and temples, so people go there on vacation. Schools also do trips there, and in this case, its the setting for potential romance, and foiled romance, and failed romance. This is important because all the weight of this situation comes down on Hikkigaya, the unfortunate hero of the story. And its not very nice how he's the one to humiliate himself to solve everyone's problems, and then he's blamed for the solution working. It never should have happened, but this is an obligation culture, where the very symbol for "people" is one figure LEANING OVER another. The abuse is implied, right in the language. He's been right, from the very beginning, that people are horrible monsters. They even call him a monster of logic. And his classmates resent him for this.
It's really sad how Yui, a girl that's almost certainly based on a real girl the author knew in high school because her actions are too varied to be a purely invented character, likes Hikki, acts like she cares about him, even acts like she might love him, but we know, as the audience, and from Hikki's point of view that this is a temporarily high school feeling that she'll get over. Women don't love, or if they do, not for long. Whatever feelings Yui expresses to Hikki, he's smart enough to realize she will change her mind soon enough, and these feelings, even her tears, are just momentary experiences girls have. She's not going to stick around when it matters. Its just high school. EDIT: Even moreso as I read volume 9 do I see this to be the case. I suspect that the initial essay in EP 1 S1 about youth being a lie? I think he was actually referring to this specific situation with Yui, because its entirely possible the entire series is referential to that essay's rejection of people. I don't think that Hikki is going to get a happy ending here.
This leaves Yukinoshita. She's pretty, and knows it. She's arrogant and distant, and runs this service club to help people, but it mostly just makes them dependent and grateful, and for what? In the books, after the Kyoto fail-romance and the anger over Hikki solving their problem by playing a role, they deal with the student council vote. Its in the books, and an unconventional solution, and it backfires on the club. And Hikki is left feeling more cut off, and feels actual regret over his solution and the long-term outcome, for the first time. At this point in my reading I'm not sure this is going to get better. Much like the characters in Golden Time, things can get worse, but they probably won't get better. Continued efforts to spare the feelings of the girls results in Hikki dealing with even more irritating problems, and a Rental American (tm) with a taser or cattle prod would be completely justified. Maybe some duct tape so a certain idiot would be unable to talk.
If I met Hikki, if he was a person, and we had a translator, I am not sure I could offer him any real and useful advice to his situation. He already knows that high school is hell, which is a good baseline. He's going to get out of this prison soon enough. And then he's off to college, and can hopefully avoid making any friends and enemies there by using his skills to keep his distance, which is what he wanted in the first place, and maybe have any easier time of it. Things aren't going to get better with people. I can't tell Hikki's character to stay positive because that's a really cruel lie, and its wrong to lie to children. Hikki has come really far to understand these things, and his popularity as a character in this book series indicates a LOT of Japanese people, millions of them, agree with his assertions. The entire point of the series seems to be to justify his initial essay as right after all. Youth is a lie.
I really think that SNAFU has been an important series for this honesty that's so incredibly rare in Japanese media. Maybe the culture is finally moving on past the violence and the ridiculous optimism. I wonder if its too late to matter? Japan is the first place to literally have a quadrillion dollars in debt. Its 100 quadrillion yen, in case you wondered. It was just in the financial news on Monday. Ain't that a thing?
I still feel like I should be rewatching the episodes with the scenes where Yuki's sister turns up, because she's so political her insults are deviously twisted and hidden contexts and subtle meanings. She even mocks Hikki for being perceptive enough to recognize that other's motivations are evil. This is something she knows to be true because her Dad is a crooked Japanese politician. Bribery in Japan is not a scandal. It is SOP. It is normal behavior.
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