You and I Are Polar Opposites Season 2 ‒ Episode 9
So let's start off with the largest bit of progression, which is that after several episodes of being in denial, Azuma has finally admitted to herself that she's in love with Taira. Unfortunately, just because she's finally admitted it doesn't mean she's actually ready to do anything about it, and the fact that they have college entrance exams to worry about is all the excuse she needs to tell herself that dating isn't in the cards for them. It's pretty frustrating considering how long it took for her to even get this far, but this show is nothing if not honest in its depiction of teenagers, so try as she might to psyche herself out it, Azuma still can't help but get giddy in his presence, and even looking at pictures of Taira in middle school only ends up showing just how hard she's crushing. By the time she's ready to try going to one of her friends for advice, she's so much of a mess that it's clear she needs to go ahead and ask Taira out already, but this does come with its own hurdles. The first, as established before, is that Azuma isn't used to having to be the one to make the first move, and in addition to having never confessed to anyone else before, she's also never actually been confessed to herself, as all her previous relationships were ones that both parties just sort of fell into, leaving this kind of one-sided crush as a completely new experience for her. The other issue is that, as far as she knows, it is one-sided, and the closer she gets to Taira, the more frustrated she gets by how little interest he seems to have in her beyond their friendship.
It does go without saying that Azuma's assumptions are off. While all the time we've previously spent in Taira's head hasn't quite exposed how he feels about her, this episode offers the perspective on how he views all of Azuma's recent changes. As it turns out, Taira has actually started to pick up on the possibility that Azuma has a crush on him, which would be a shock coming from someone as self-deprecating as him, but for all his faults, he is pretty good at reading other people's feelings so him being quick on the uptake isn't too unreasonable (not to mention that Azuma asking Taira to take a selfie with her is such an obvious sign she's into him, that even he'd have to be practically blind to miss it). Much like Azuma, he simply can't help but make excuses as to why dating is off the table, but whereas hers are a result of her trying to badly suppress her feelings, Taira is seemingly all too aware of how he feels. He hasn't quite gotten over the sense of inferiority he was left with from the girl who dumped him for being too awkward, and even though he acknowledges that he feels more comfortable around Azuma, he sees this based less in romantic love and more so in being happy to have someone reaffirm his existence. Being someone who also tends to get easily crippled by an extreme sense of self-awareness, I can really feel for Taira here, and this feels like a pretty earnest depiction of what it can be like to be all too familiar with yourself to the point of struggling to take any risks because of it. Still, even though his assessment of his feelings may not be entirely wrong, he spends so much time worrying over whether or not he could see himself dating Azuma that he never stops to consider that thinking about it so deeply just means he likes her the same way, and it's hard to watch him spend so much time angsting over it all without piecing that together.
Azuma isn't exactly making it easy for him, as when she invites him to hang out only to reveal that it's a group event, it leaves him convinced that she's only been trying to get closer to him to make some final high school memories. This is all apparently intentional on Azuma's part, as she's decided that until she can parse out how Taira feels, her best move is to wait to avoid damaging their relationship, but if her goal is to better expose how Taira feels about her, this is probably going to hurt her chances more than it'll help, and that makes this decision pretty nerve-wracking. I haven't quite reached the full limits of my patience, but if there's one thing I've taken away from this episode, it's that I just need Taira and Azuma to hurry up and smooch already before all their tapdancing around their feelings gives me a stroke.
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You and I Are Polar Opposites Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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