anime review: Yahari ore no seishun love comedy wa machigatteiru

or Oregairu for short. it just a fad for Japanese visual novel this days to have a long titles.

i watched this anime a few days back on a recommendation by some people. and, let me be honest. i totally can relate to hikigaya hachiman. his views on youth is twisted yet for me he was more on the realistic side, plus a bit of pessimistic attitude.

hachiman was forced to join a club by his teacher and there he met with the school ice queen, Yukino Yukinoshita. the purpose of the club is to help any students that ask for help (the volunteer club). then they met Yui yuigahama, a cheerful girl. together, they started to help various students settled various issues.

plot:

i don't think highschoolers can settle this =_=''

the plot in this anime is big on yuigahama (jk :3). the plot is the usual 'introduction, climax and ending' formula, yet to me the ending was quite shallow and it din't really wrap up the story (season 2, incoming? maybe?) however i like it. i find the story is easy to understand. it maybe centered around quite a difficult issue but they made it easy to understand. i  like how Hachiman tried to help the students that came to the club and at the same time didn't really lost his character. he became from the unknown student to hated students just so that he can express his ideas and feeling. and truthfully, the words he spouted is the same that other students are thinking yet only he is able to say it out loud. along the way, we can see Hachiman slowly build a friendship with Yukino and Yui and some other character.

art:
the art was nice but it has nothing to write home about. is the same old anime style.

music:
the opening and ending fit with the anime quite well. but i wasn't really hyped about it.

characters: (i decided to copy paste the description from myanimelist.com because i don't want to lose the real point of this anime.

hachiman hikigaya

Hachiman is the story's main protagonist, an isolated, friendless boy who is pragmatic to a fault. His most prominent feature is his set of "dead fish-eyes". He firmly believes that "youth" is simply an illusion created by hypocrites, for hypocrites, born from the ashes of past failures. In this state of apparent corruption, he is coerced into joining the Service Club by his futures advisor in the hopes that exposing him to the world will change his personality, and ultimately make him a "better person". He is called "Hikki" affectionally by Yui.

(Source: Vistrans, yahari wikia)
Read more at http://myanimelist.net/character/67065/Hachiman_Hikigaya#rCbGBZPZjHET3SBd.99

to me, i can relate ti hikigaya especially his blunt/ sharp tongued character. i'm like that too..

Yukino yukinoshita:

Yukino is the leader of the Service Club, of which she is the sole member until Hachiman joins her. She is smart, beautiful, and is nicknamed the "Ice-cold Beauty" for her icy demeanor. She has a twisted sense of "noblesse oblige", and believes that it is the duty of the exceptional (in other words, herself) to help the "lost lambs" of the world. Her personality often leads her to be disgusted at the naivety of others, particularly Yui's, and she does not hesitate to show it. Despite this, Yui still affectionately calls her "Yukinon".
Read more at http://myanimelist.net/character/67067/Yukino_Yukinoshita#6DjIW2ytaXAU3SRw.99

yui yuigahama

Yui is a cheerful, outgoing girl who becomes the Service Club's first "customer", asking them to help her bake cookies for "a certain someone". Her problems lie not with her personality, but with her inability to deal with issues by herself. She believes that talent is inborn, and often aspired to be like others until Yukino changed her way of thinking. Following her experience with the Service Club, Yui begins to attend Service Club sessions after school as well, despite Yukino's objections early on.

Read more at http://myanimelist.net/character/67069/Yui_Yuigahama#pd2wTEoIQCSCWsx6.99


all in all, i say that this is a good anime and really recommend it especially to teenagers that still looking for their own place in this world with the message GET REAL!

and oh, i LOVE the quotes in this anime, especially Hachiman's.

light novel review: toradora

toradora! is technically among my favourite romantic comedy anime. and when i started to like something i tend to look for every information available about it, which lead me to the original light novel, Toradora!
as a reader myself, i began searching for the translated version and found it. it was translated and hosted by baka-tsuki, one of the best anime translator. but the download version is in epub so i can read it without epub reader. however it didn't stop me because i saved the source and read it there. i can't go online much lately so i resort to that method, for now.

now back to the story. all i can say is reading the light novel helps me understand each character, especially Ami (which i don't really understand in anime). the writing was smooth and enjoyable that had me read it continuously for hours.

the anime pretty much used all the scene in the novel, so it left less room to complain (i am the "the book is better that the movie ' type) all i can say is that the anime really did the light novel justice.

the ending is slightly different. in the light novel, taiga's family circumstances is explained almost thoroughly yet the separation between taiga and ryuuji was short. in a way, taiga got her almost happy ending. i guess the anime just wanted to make it much more dramatic by lengthening the separation between taiga and ryuuji with no explanation whatsoever on taiga's family circumstances.

in all, the light novel really focus on relationship between friends, lovers and family. i love how they stress on the familial relationship in this novel. it wasn't the cliche "parents works far away" setting that anime love to use to explain the absence of parents. this light novel really emphasis on the relationship or the lack thereof between child and parents.

a total recommendation to those who would mind spending some time reading this. and also for those who watched the anime, please try to take sometime to read it :)