And Our Next Light Novel Club Selection Is… My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong as I Expected (Oregairu) Vol. 1

You didn’t really think we’d skip this one, did you?

I’m on the record, over and over and over again, in saying that Oregairu is my favorite anime series. In addition to writing some two dozen articles about it, Oregairu is the one show that’s pushed this video-shy guy to film himself and post on YouTube (a review of MAX coffee, of course). More importantly for you is the reason why the anime is good—it’s because, with a few notable exceptions, it sticks very closely to Wataru Watari’s light novels. And I’m so excited that our light novel club prez selected the first volume of the series for our next session! Here’s how Yen Press, which releases the books as My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong as I Expected, rather than by it’s common abbreviation or the SNAFU title used in the DVD release, describes volume one:

Hachiman Hikigaya is a cynic. “Youth” is a crock, he believes–a sucker’s game, an illusion woven from failure and hypocrisy. But when he turns in an essay for a school assignment espousing this view, he’s sentenced to work in the Service Club, an organization dedicated to helping students with problems in their lives! How will Hachiman the Cynic cope with a job that requires–gasp!–optimism?

Oregairu is a common story written uncommonly well, and we hope you’ll join us as we take on volume one for our thirteenth light novel club meeting! We’ll convene the meeting on August 23rd, giving you plenty of time to pick up the book, available at most brick and mortar book retailers and online:

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Featured art by Hfp～Kubiao (reprinted w/permission)

Twwk
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6 thoughts on “And Our Next Light Novel Club Selection Is… My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong as I Expected (Oregairu) Vol. 1”

  1. Speaking as someone who watched the anime and was…underwhelmed…I was so disappointed by this: “More importantly for you is the reason why the anime is good…” It raised my expectations that you would explain the appeal of this series. And I read the rest of the sentence: “it’s because, with a few notable exceptions, it sticks very closely to Wataru Watari’s light novels.” This explains…nothing. 😀 I look forward to hearing why you think the light novels are good.

  3. Yeah… I thought it was a very…okay…series. Some amusing elements, but a lack of resolution or character growth.

  4. I love the series, and I’ve always wanted to know what happens next. Yet, the covers are so horrible that I’m having my doubts. Guess I’ll wait.

    About the discussion, well, to each his own, but it’s hard for me to understand how the Oregairu anime could be accused of lack of character growth. Everyone changes during the two seasons, and some of them in interesting ways. Perhaps it’s a matter of the way they change being not so overt and less common in the fiction of the West (it’s similar to what happens to the characters of Hyouka or Haruhi Suzuyima), though I personally like them better for that.

    1. I think the character growth was, to steal a word, “genuine.” Perhaps that’s what I like most about the series—at where it is right now, there’s no marvelous 180 that’s occurred, yet the minutes steps for some of our characters are like giant leaps for them, as they often are for us. The character growth in Oregairu is incredibly “real,” and I’ve appreciated that so much.

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