On the Palmtop Tiger of Happiness

On November 11^th, 2011, I was counting down the seconds to the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour in my eleventh grade Law class. Several weeks before, word had spread that this one moment in time would be where you could have one wish to come true. Or at least that was the hope. I was reminded of this particular moment in my long and embarrassing history of painful naivety in high school after revisiting a certain beloved series of mine once more, earlier this year. The series was Toradora and the episode was the titled “The Palmtop Tiger of Happiness”.

Somehow, I made it: Updates and Thoughts on Weekly Blogging

At last we’ve arrived at the epilogue.

Happily Ever After. Oregairu Kan – Episode 12

I never quite know what to say whenever the shows that I watch come to an end. And I mean a proper end here, none of that “to be continued, except in the manga” sort of thing. Across seven long years and forty some-odd episodes, Oregairu had finally come to a close with this week’s episode and I found myself once again having trouble coming to terms with it all. Part of it came from my feelings for the finale itself but it having been a show that started at the end of a clear period of my life and ending in the middle of another was something special in itself.

This week’s write-up is going to be a bit of a weird one. Partially because of the format of the episode itself and partially because of all that I wanted to say before we closed up shop here in these weekly posts. I’ve still got another one planned as a sort of post-mortem, meta-review afterwards but archived here for the foreseeable future will be my thoughts on this, the final episode of a much beloved series of mine. Let’s get started.

The Setting Sun and the Falling Snow. Oregairu Kan – Episode 11

These past eleven weeks have felt both extremely long and unexpectedly short and before I realized it, we had arrived at this, the penultimate episode of Oregairu. The experience of it all with this writing experiment of mine has been both fun and extremely exhausting and so the soon-to-be arrival of the finale brings me some very mixed feelings. Though, it is still way too early to reminisce over it all with two whole episodes left to go. This week’s one was, as expected, a doozy with all that was left over from the end of the last one. As you might expect then, there was a lot to cover so let’s get started.

Her False Wish: Oregairu Kan – Episode 10

Every couple episodes or so of Oregairu, I almost always feel the need to sit down and re-evaluate all that’s happened thus far in the season. It’s a problem that I’ve almost only ever had with this series in particular and it’s probably the case for a couple reasons. There’s a lot that goes on in the show despite the slow pace of the actual chronology and there’s just so much left unsaid. On top of this, the sheer amount of content that’s being adapted from episode to episode (according to a stat I saw on twitter) even outpaced SAO’s currently airing season. So given all that, I wanted to start this week with a little bit of a recap on where everyone was at coming into this week’s episode.

Bitter Bitter Sweet. Oregairu Kan – Episode 9

Coming off the back of last week’s heavy episode, this week’s one was surprisingly light. Or, at least on the surface. I came out of my first viewing of the episode expecting the writing for this one to be pretty quick but contextualized against the events of the last one, this week’s scenes were surprisingly barbed. Yukino had made her decision to shut down the relationship she had with Hachiman and Hachiman now had a goal in mind that he needed to achieve: to grant Yui’s wish and by proxy, grant Yukino’s. Of course, he first needed to figure what exactly Yui’s wish was and this is around where we would start.

Yukino’s Ending: Oregairu Kan – Episode 8

As much as I spoke last week of the culling of unimportant scenes in these posts, this week’s episode brought us right back with a veritable mix of small and big moments that built up the mountain of complexity that is the cast of Oregairu. By my estimations, perhaps one of the least important scenes was the one that led to the resolution of the entire prom situation and that, in itself, says a lot about this episode. As you might expect then, there’s much to be covered this week so let’s get into things.

What Will April Bring? Oregairu Kan – Episode 7

What a weird episode, this week’s one was. As excited as I wanted to be with the arrival of the season’s first yahallo what came with it was a lot of fun but an equal amount of heartbreak. The latter has been, for me, the real highlights of the season thus far which is a fact that has more than likely leaked into my writing with the format of these things. And so, as fun as the first half of this episode was, I’ll be putting my thoughts on them in the footnotes for this one. This week, I wanted to turn the spotlight onto that very important final scene of the episode.

So, without any further ado, let’s talk Oregairu.

Yuigahama’s Lie: Oregairu Kan – Episode 6

Another week and still zero yahallos. Why even live? Welcome back to yet another one of my weekly write-ups. I left this week’s episode feeling very much like I did with week four’s which just meant a lot of sadness for a certain someone. As is tradition with this show, there’s much to get through with this week’s episode so let’s get started.

The Long Road to Yukino: Oregairu Kan – Episode 5

Oh, how quickly the days pass in times like these. Hello and welcome back once again to another one of my weekly write-ups. This week’s episode was a rather condensed one as it was a continuation from the events of last week and thankfully this meant a shorter post on my end. This episode solidified the trajectory of the kids of the service club this week as they barrel towards yet another inevitable conflict between the main trio. However short in comparison this episode may have been though, there is much still to cover, so let’s talk Oregairu.