#bro when hikigaya was like 'you just have to make sure no one suffers' over a clip of him right after intentionally being a dick

[its-no-biggie]

almost ended that with "and no i will not elaborate" but we all know thats a fuckin lie

okay i just started season 2 of oregairu so if theres something i didnt mention thats probably why. no spoilers please! also i wont be spoiling any specific major events in either story but i am talking a lot about the structural similarities so. anyway lets get into it

starts off as fairly conventional for the genre, albeit more self aware than usual and with a slightly off-center protagonist

as you learn more about the protagonist you realize that hes perhaps less reliable as a narrator than you anticipated - he has a tendency to downplay his own suffering despite being very open (with both his peers and the audience) about the things he has gone through

as the plot starts ramping up, the protagonist is revealed to have a very specific method of problem solving: he will put himself through hell or become the enemy of the whole world in order to save someone else. he does not consider this to be heroic, but merely logical, as he considers the suffering of others to hold more weight than his own.

his peers catch on to his methods fairly quickly and are obviously upset by it, because they love him and hate to see him get hurt, but he refuses to accept that it hurts anyone aside from himself because he believes himself to be fundamentally unlovable

due to the unreliable nature of the narrator and the first person pov, you are forced to sit and watch the protagonists loved ones suffer on his behalf from behind the wall he has put up around himself, while he tells himself, and you, that they'll be fine.

um. i havent finished oregairu but. im guessing the general formula will be a bit different from here given that. orv resolves this conflict metatextually. anyway who was gonna tell me that oregairu had such a kim dokja-ass protagonist huh???? i was not fucking PREPARED. im grabbing these sad pathetic little guys by the collar and shaking some sense into them fr

anyway heres some more cosmetic/lighthearted similarities to end it off

insane banter between the protagonist and the tsundere love interest

chuuni gets absolutely annihilated after very little screentime (but dw he comes back later)

romance bait (complete with sparkly shoujo filter) with a fairly minor side character who is classically the protagonists type but who only likes him platonically.

oregairu is like if orv was a romcom. send tweet