“If it’s just you, I’d find it much easier to manip-… I’d be much more at ease!”
Impression
Oh Yukinon… must you make such a sad smile?
It has been a bruising few episodes for the Service Club, and the wounds still have yet to heal. The general atmosphere isn’t getting any worse, but it’s not like it’s improving either – and most of all, it feels dead. Yui is doing her best as always, but Yui can only do so much when there’s practically an unwritten rule amongst the three of them to not be honest about their feelings and keep everything bottled up inside. And Yui also has to grapple with the fact that she’s feeling increasingly conscious of Hikki, more so than ever before. A perhaps decisive nail in the coffin is the fact that both Hikki and Yukinon are now questioning the club’s existence – and we can probably say that Orimoto is as well, even if it was uttered out of shallow ignorance. I mean, it really does take the piss to hear her run her mouth like that, but with the club in the state that it currently is, her words do ring true in a hollow sense. And amidst this precarious situation, the cracks are cheerfully widened even further by a certain first-year minx. Stop it, Irohasu! It’s already dead!
I’m slightly confused by why Hikki chose to go solo. Yui had a good point in that it’s been ages since they’ve had a request – the implication, of course, being that it’s been ages since they’ve had one which didn’t involve them all working against each other. So would a joint effort not have brought them closer? It’s true it may not have solved the underlying problem, especially as we’re not completely sure what ails Yukinon at the moment – but Yukinon herself wanted to accept the request. And I wanted to see her destroy her plebeian counterparts at the meeting. The only reason I can think of is that Hikki is taking responsibility for going down the route of helping Iroha – and that the problems and issues that may arise from it are his to bear, and his alone. It would be a straightforward Hikki decision. Or maybe he wanted to monopolize Irohasu for himself. Are you making passes at her, senpai?
I will admit that Irohasu has grown on me. In her own twisted way, she is really adorable. I suppose it’s the fact that she openly acknowledges that she’s a rotten bitch – in her interactions with Hikki she makes no secret of the fact that it’s all a mask, and that the innocence is a sham. Yanagi Yuuri from the light novel series Hakomari does pretty much the same thing. So Irohasu doesn’t have that air of superiority about her – she doesn’t pretend to be perfection incarnate like Haruno, and isn’t blindly arrogant like Orimoto. Or at least, she does so whilst fully aware that Hikki is fully aware it’s fake. If she’s willing to put her truer face on for Hikki as well, then she isn’t too bad. Not as good as Yui, but SS Irohasu is kind of cute as well. And I’ll be eagerly anticipating Hikki doing more impressions of her on a regular basis from now, those one-liners make my day.
If nothing else, Irohasu is certainly the most agreeable person of everyone sitting in that community centre room. Hikki would agree. I initially started off wondering why they would bother introducing a new school with a new set of characters, when the social issues rife in our current set are far from being resolved. And then I saw Orimoto, and realized why. I don’t understand why she acted like nothing was wrong though – did she not remember how their last meeting ended? It might just be that she has thick skin or something, because this time round she didn’t seek to publicly shame Hikki in front of the committee. Irohasu would probably have said something to help him out, but it was for the best that a confrontation didn’t happen at all. Not that Orimoto didn’t get on my nerves, though – she was as useless as ever in endorsing extra suffering for the student council. And we could do without random interjections of ‘DAYO NE~?’ and ‘SORE ARU!’
All that being said, and I hate to say this, Orimoto was the lesser of two evils. I, uh… what exactly is wrong with Tamanawa?
It’s like he came across a couple of fancy words and decided to spell them out in katakana like a pretentious twat. He needs a good Yukinoshita slap to bring him to his senses. My expression was identical to Hikki’s look of disgust during their brainstorming as they tried to achieve synergy and outsourcing and win-win and whatever other crap it was. It’s not just him, either – the ikemen council opposite Sobu High are all exactly the same. Hikki couldn’t even communicate with them properly until he joined the fray. And that’s not even the worst of it – what was up with the creepy hand movements? Were they fondling the air? How did these people even get elected onto their council? I feel like Irohasu is only having Hikki sit in as her emotional support more than anything else – both to keep her sane from Tamanawa (she was horrified when Hikki started moving his hands as well) and in light of the growing unspoken dissent from her student council underlings. For all her skills with manipulation, it’s surprising that she hasn’t instead gotten them wrapped around her finger – they look like overworked office staff, which is practically what they are. I do feel sorry for them, having to sit on a council with a president who’s basically acting as a mascot. Well, it’s important for the president to have an image after all.
And that’s what Irohasu is best at doing, right?
Hikki’s going solo because of Yukino. Well, also because Iroha becoming president was his fault so it’s his responsibility. He’s doing so in consideration for Yukino’s feelings. He’s becoming more aware of them, and that’s a good thing. He said there’s one more person he needs to take responsibility for, and that’s Yukino. It’s pretty obvious that smile is plastered on Yukino’s face and it’s fake. Yukino at the current point in time is very passive and just goes along with whatever the other two say. A joint effort wouldn’t fix anything, as Yukino’s pretty much given up on Hachiman and Yui (See last episode with her line “And here I thought you two would understand”). What she’s doing (by not leaving the service club) is equivalent to her sending gifts to Haruno. She hates Haruno, but she doesn’t want to be hated. I don’t think Yukino really cared about the request as she just asked Yui what she thought and agreed with her instead of being assertive. Lol, I really don’t think he’s making passes at her.
Well, her willing to take off her mask pretty much means she doesn’t care about being liked by Hikki.
It’s not that easy to manipulate people, unless you happen to be a psychopath. She did say it was easier to use Hikki- I mean she’d be much more at ease! Besides she has that precious image to maintain.
I think Hikki’s going solo because he is still haven’t workout that problem with Yukino yet. If another request came and they slove it with the same method as before – the only way Hikki knows, the club will broke for sure.
Well actually Hikki proved that he didn’t have to sacrifice/hurt himself to fulfill requests. Making Iroha president didn’t hurt him at all.
Actually the club’s already kind of broken. It’s really that he needs to fix the service club relationships first before working together with Yui and Yukino. There’s no point in working together if they can’t agree. The sad part is that all of this could’ve been avoided had he did what Komachi said and sat down and talked with Yukino and actually asked her what she wanted.
After Episode 7, it is now clear that the Service Club’s relationships have to be fixed first, and fast – and not only because it’s most important to Hikki. Of his many problems, it’s easily the most perilous one that could result in some severe consequences for his relations with Yukino and Yui if not sorted out before long.
Komachi is a wise imouto. It could have gotten him somewhere – but I wonder if Yukinon would have so easily opened up to him and revealed it. I have a fairly good idea of what’s been troubling her now, and it feels like her pride would prevent her from saying anything so directly.