© Kocha Agasawa/SHUEISHA, You and I Are Polar Opposites Committee
Last week’s episode was so definitive of a conclusion that I frankly couldn’t begin to imagine what we could possibly get out of an extra one beyond a typical epilogue to see all these characters as adults. The answer was a bit unexpected. Most of this finale ends up going backwards in time, as it jumps back to the very beginning of Tani and Miyu’s relationship to show it from Tani’s point of view. It’s not exactly the most dramatic way to close out this show, but since this has never been all that dramatic of a series to begin with, I can’t say it doesn’t fit.
Delving into the past, we see that prior to meeting Miyu, Tani was a person who had a hard time understanding others or taking interest in them. Being someone who also has these same struggles, I could really sympathize with how easy it is for others to mistake it for total indifference. All that makes him understandably perplexed when Miyu keeps talking to him, and in hindsight it’s pretty funny to see that Miyu’s first attempts to approach him were entirely casual. As it turns out, she only started talking to him to put down any misgivings she thought he was having about her friends for constantly dragging him into their conversations. It wasn’t until Miyu started getting frustrated with how seemingly unresponsive he was that it turned into a crush, and seeing that shift play out in real time is pretty cute. It was also just as cute to see that while Tani didn’t realize right away he was falling for Miyu, talking to her started adding a bit more color to his life. Tani only ever realized he liked her during Miyu’s attempt to walk home with him all the way back in episode one, which made Miyu’s poor attempt to deny her crush in front of her friends even more awkward. While Tani was almost willing to let go of his crush out of fear he put Miyu in a bad spot, it was sweet to see that even by that point, he’d already fallen for her hard enough that he couldn’t let go of all the time they’d spent together. Of course, we know that worked out. Since we’ve already seen the confession scene from Tani’s perspective before, I appreciate the show avoiding showing that a second time.
Instead, we see all of Tani and Miyu’s happy memories as a couple, and some of those happy memories include the future, so the show ends up circling back around to a standard epilogue after all. Nothing in that epilogue is too surprising, but given my worries that some part of it might imply that Taira and Azuma’s relationship never changed, I am at least relieved that we got a scene of them enjoying a night ride together (I’ll just take that as a sign they started dating in college and leave it at that). As far as an actual ending goes, what we got last week was more of a proper climax, but this was a nice little bonus, and either way, I’m glad it went out on a high note. You and I Are Polar Opposites was a cozy little ride from beginning to end, and considering I sometimes struggle to stay invested in lower-stakes rom-coms, it says a lot that I had a good time the whole way through. It goes to show that an aggressive amount of charm is sometimes all an anime rom-com needs to hit, and when it comes to raw charm, there are few as good as this one.
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You and I Are Polar Opposites Season 2 is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.
