Recap: This week, the gang is called upon to clear up a nasty chain letter about the friends of popular everyman Hayama.

SNAFU looks to really be trying to separate itself from the pack. First minute in, we find out Hachiman actually has an imouto of his very own, but like an actual brother, he doesn’t care when she’s half naked or when she tries to act cutesy to disarm him, for the obvious reason that he’s her brother. While I have no experience, Lifesong quickly echoed the sentiments of Hachiman when I described how he acted towards her. It was hilarious to see him try to use some cutesy expressions on his teacher, only to make him look even weirder, making her punch him for a great s-CRY-ed reference. I also found something pretty funny about Hachiman’s aspirations to be a stay at home dad.

We get a bit more backstory from Hachiman this episode although this time it’s actually relevant to the plot. It’s pretty obvious from her look that Yui is the girl who’s dog he saved. How long they’re going to keep that a secret? I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. Yui is definitely my favorite girl, even if it seems that Yukino is starting to soften up herself and starting to open up to the trio. Connection is always a strong bond in romcom stories, and this finally explains why Yui seems to care about Hachiman in the first place.

The more I watch the show, the more I am surprised as to how accurate this show is about the way young people behave and form groups. Every school has the kind of dude Hayama models. Speaking as someone pretty low on the high school totem pole in his day, I know the idea of a popular dude being a man that anyone can get along with is definitely a reality.

I also love this week’s lesson on human interactions. It doesn’t paint the entire student body as a bland faceless crowd like most shows do, it’s actually giving us some time to know everyone in Hachiman’s world, and how they are connected as a student body. I look at Hachiman’s explanation as to why Hayama’s other friends don’t get along and it makes perfect sense. I know at least two circles I have where my only tie is one person, and even though I have fun with the group it’s obviously their presence which is a catalyst of conversation and entertainment.

SNAFU continues to impress. The animation wasn’t as noticeably bad this week, and we even had a bit of the old My Little Monster style patterns and colors this week. Every episode I find another reason to like this show. The way it deals with its characters is way more realistic than any anime I can think of. While eventually I imagine the RomCom part of this story will come, I’m enjoying the treatises on human interactions enormously, and I definitely won’t mind seeing more.