Re:Zero, Mushoku Tensei, and SNAFU. These three anime are heavily talked about with two friends of mine, and while I've always and continue to enjoying talking about these stories with them, SNAFU was the odd duck to me. Putting aside that it's not even a iseaki, on the outside, I assumed it to be a comedy about loners in high school. I was only half right in that assumption.
The core of SNAFU leaves within it's protagonist and heroine, Hikigaya and Yukinoshita. Hikigaya is a scummy loser who has had many awful experiences in the past. When I say awful, I mean that he was mostly ignored, insulted, and rejected by the girls he had interests in. Those experiences turned him into the prideful loner that he is with the core belief of, "Stay yourself and rebel against the world!" He then encounters his natural opposite but most closely resembled in terms of that scummy attitude where her core belief is, "Improve yourself and the world will come naturally to you." These two themes are challenged throughout these episodes where we see how unjust the world can be through situations that occur on a daily basis. The best example is the where the cast volunteer at a summer camp, and see a loner blooming in sight. The ones that have had no worries of being bullied and such approach the situation with the bare bones and lackluster solution while the ones that are loners go with an extreme solution. It not only shows how social butterflies react to dilemmas like this, but how loners are formed with no real cause at times. Having been a loner (who am I kidding, I'm still a loner), it touches me and makes this anime all the more interesting to watch with that theme alone.
The moment he started to call Yuigahama a bitch for no reason is where I started to dislike him. I mean, he's an asshole to everyone around him (expect Totsuka, the prince among princes) making worse and worse insults as he goes. But I started to like him when I thought from my own perspective. Thinking about how people act in my life, and how people act in his, it's hard not to feel that way. Everyone acts like their in a Disney channel movie at times while Hikigaya is speaking the truth even if everyone hates him for doing so that. He almost gets beaten for that very trait of his. It makes me think that Hikigaya dislikes himself from time to time, but still gets back to liking himself. For that, I can only respect him
All this is well and good, but having a great main character and great themes don't make a great story. If that were the case, almost all anime would be amazing. But the main flaw in SNAFU is not only how boring the stories can be, but the rest of the cast is a bit dull. They're there either to help make the theme better or as a comedy relief (expect Totsuka as he is our lord and savior), and added with the fact that the pacing is less then a drag, it only brings the show down. If there were more episodes about the theme instead of slice of life stuff or improved some of the episodes plot lines (like the drag that was the final arc of the season) then it would have been more enjoyable.
Usually, I won;t want to watch the next season of SNAFU due to being really saifisted with one season, but due to forcing my friend to watch all of Haruhi with it's endless eight arc (I feel no guilt at all), I can only be a good friend back and finish all of SNAFU. Not like I'm forcing myself to since I did enjoy myself even if it was a drag. So, I leave you with two quotes:
Yahello!!!
It's a must buy! NO! A musta gay!!!
Look forward to my next review of S2 in September
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