The finale was great. Perfect way to end it. Love how we got extended views and montages of the characters in their lives post-highschool. It warmed my heart seeing that final photo, where they are all happy.
I had only one big gripe, being the removal of the dialogue from the Tairazuma car ride to make space for the Tani POV (which arguably shouldn’t have been that long). I endeavor any anime-onlies to read chapter 65.5 to read the full car scene because I believe it’s a perfect display of why the Tairazuma ending is amazing.
But even without it, it still works.
I’ve yapped about it in many posts before, but I believe Tairazuma has a perfect ending. I think when the other couples got together, it set up this precedent that Tairazuma NEEDED to have a confession and romantic conclusion. And I feel like along the way, some fans got too lost in the potential payoff of a romantic confession instead of fully understanding the characters within it.
The Tairazuma relationship is more than just the romance. The core of this relationship is two jaded people finding hope and happiness again through companionship and shared vulnerability. Over the course of the show, they grew from acquaintances to the bestest of friends. They helped one another grow and change for the better, forming a relationship that Azuma even spells out as a special one that doesn’t need a label.
The conversation between Azuma and Sato in S2E11 should be remembered more because of how important it was for Azuma to understand her relationship with Taira. Sato suggested that Azuma should find out if she likes Taira as a person and not just a guy that she crushes on. Azuma realizes this quickly that she does indeed love Taira as a person, and as we can see from his actions over the course of the story, Taira loves and appreciates her as a person too.
Especially after the girls told her about how she always got into fast and insubstantial relationships in middle school, Azuma learns that she has to walk at Taira’s pace. She already showed that when she intentionally withdrew her feelings after catching on that Taira was avoiding her in S2E9. But here she now not only realizes how much she cherishes their relationship without the label, but cherishes the bigger picture of their relationship. Not saying that she wouldn’t mind if their relationship went a step forward, but under any romantic relationship, there should be a strong friendship and Azuma has learnt to take it slow and even start getting to know more sides of Taira as a person like his music tastes.
This “being seen as a person” theme extends to their graduation scene where Taira thanks her for everything she’s been to him and everything she’s done for him. This “thank you” was something Taira was mulling over as early as S2E4 and then E6 during the White Day segment. To hear the person she loves bear his heart fully to her meant so much to her and left her content, especially since she probably never had anybody from her past connections be this honest.
And when she was content with letting their hangouts end at highschool, Taira dragged her back and asked if he could still see her after graduation. Taira’s vulnerability meant so much to her and showed how much he cares about their relationship. She complained internally on how she was always the one always initiating their hangouts, but now she has become fully aware that Taira wants her in his life just as much as she wants him in hers.
This right here is the culmination of all their growth, where both are now genuinely hopeful about relationships and life in general. They have grown so much throughout the whole story, and as the title of E12 implied, this is their starting line. They both finally realize the importance of their connection and can now live that shared reality to the fullest by crying together, laughing together, and singing together as the car scene showed. Genuinely never seen Taira look so happy. Just look at his joy when talking to his uni friends in slide 2!
High school isn’t the end all be all, and all these characters still have the rest of their lives to live. We only see a blip in their lives and it’s up to us to wish them well and make inferences as to how they all will turn out. Sure, Polar Opposites is a romance anime, but that shouldn’t detract from its positive message about connection, friendships, finding yourself, moving on from the past, living in the moment etc. Any story can continue on forever, but it’s always poetic when the author trusts our intelligence and attachment to these characters to build the rest of their lives in our minds.
Tairazuma has a happy ending regardless of romance or not. It isn’t unhappy because they didn’t get together romantically. That just reduces all their growth to a checkbox, as I said before.
Tairazuma is peak. Polar Opposites is peak.
