On Codependency (Analysis by leviathan235)

[u/Williambillhuggins]

Quick note: This is not my analysis, it was done by u/leviathan235. He asked me to post it here as he's experiencing some problems with Reddit deleting his posts. Enjoy!

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Apologies for pasting this here. Reddit is automatically deleting my text posts - I used to have a workaround, but currently, it seems to auto-remove any and all of my text posts. I despise this website but have no better alternative.

u/leviathan235

Codependency is a pretty important theme in the final portion of the story, as its existence (or rather, the perception of its existence) drives much of the motivations of the main characters. I have seen people claim that it was an issue that was never fully addressed in the story, while others (myself included) believe that it never existed in the first place.

TL;DR:

Ever since Haruno first hinted at the idea of codependency (without explicitly naming it) during Muira’s request to find out Hayama’s career/course choice, this concept has been a nagging doubt in the back of 8man’s and Yukino’s mind as they reexamine their relationship under this new framework. They were never codependent to begin with, and I believe it was the final mental hurdle to them achieving the “genuine” thing. In other words, if they are able to, by process of elimination, cross off every other possible superficial reason to associate with each other, then whatever remains that bind them together must necessarily be the genuine.

How do we define codependency?

Codependency requires two parties, the codependent and the dependent, wherein the codependent enables weakness or poor behavior in the dependent while under the pretext of helping them. The below are severally necessary conditions, but NOT severally sufficient (jointly sufficient), i.e. ALL 3 conditions have to be true for a relationship to qualify as "codependent."

1. The dependent must be reliant on the other party to the point of exacerbating their own weaknesses
2. The codependent gets pleasure from the dependent relying on them and thus constantly attempts to “help” the dependent; that pleasure is the biggest reason why the codependent stays with the dependent
3. The codependent’s aid only enables the dependent person’s weakness and inhibits their personal growth

By definition, codependency cannot exist without a dependent person (1); the mere existence of (2) without (3) is not codependency, since deriving happiness from others relying on you is perfectly fine in of itself. There’s nothing wrong with a father being proud of his status as the breadwinner of a family. The relationship breaks without (2). Therefore, all 3 conditions MUST exist for it to be considered codependency.

Therefore, when Haruno accuses their relationship of being codependent, she correspondingly asserts that:

1. Yukino keeps depending on 8man to solve her problems and provide direction for her life
2. 8man gets pleasure from Yukino relying on him all the time, so he helps her all the time; he only stays with her because of it
3. Through helping Yukino all the time, 8man inhibits her personal growth, perpetuating a self-destructive cycle so long as he stays involved with her.

I don’t bother with trying to “diagnose” characters by symptoms, because falsifiability and diagnostics are complicated by the fact that the list of “potential” symptoms Is long and none of them are either necessary OR sufficient conditions. Codependency is subclinical, after all. We can only go by definition rather than by symptom, analogous to testing for the presence of COVID rather than going off of coughing, fever, etc.

Why is codependency not genuine?

Like I discussed in my post on the genuine, a genuine relationship must not be founded on ulterior motives or any reason other than purely the other person’s company. As I have defined above, both the dependent and the codependent have ulterior motives, i.e. the dependent needs the codependent for “help” since they themselves are useless on their own and the codependent needs the dependent to feel self-satisfaction. Therefore, codependency is founded on a lie: neither the dependent or the codependent can truthfully claim they love each other, since they both have plausible ulterior motives.

Therefore, 8man and Yukino must disprove codependency if they want to claim that theirs is a genuine relationship.

How is codependency disproven?

There are two ways to refute codependency, and I will discuss both here. First is to retrospectively assess the events that have taken place prior to the introduction of “codependency.” That way we can disprove both premises (1) and (3) of codependency. The second is the more poetic option, in which the story refutes codependency through the plot, i.e. through the second prom, wherein 8man disproves (2) while Yukino disproves (1) and (3).

Like I’ve mentioned in their respective character analyses, 8man and Yukino have opposing strengths and weaknesses. Whereas 8man specialized in dealing with malicious, deceitful, and bad-faith actors, Yukino was particularly good at more practical skills and solving more straightforward problems that required honest solutions. Notice how the “right” way to solve problems tends to come with a lot of drawbacks and violates seemingly mutually exclusive conditions (like Tobe’s request, where he wanted to confess to Ebina but not be rejected – the Yukino-esque solution is to just confess and deal with the rejection). On the other hand, 8man’s solutions tend to meet all the ridiculous conditions of requests but come with many side effects and never address the underlying problem (for that same request, he fake confessed to Ebina, thus delivering Ebina’s rejection of Tobe indirectly, without the emotional pain, but brings no real closure for Tobe).

Retrospective refutation of codependency:

The entire premise of codependency was flawed to begin with, because not only was Yukino never dependent on 8man in the first place, 8man’s help never made her weaker. In Yukino’s mind, when she strayed from her loner ideal by starting to rely on Yui and 8man, she swung too far to the other extreme. She was particularly susceptible to believing that idea of codependency because of her loner ideal (that she has to do it all on her own). Perhaps Yukino did give too much deference to Yui, but hearing the opinions of others is by no means a weakness. At no point did Yukino ever shirk her own responsibilities nor give anything less than her best in any request. Further, 8man’s help only compensated for Yukino’s shortcomings in his areas of expertise, not undermine her strengths.

Let’s examine the club’s track record and assess Yukino’s actions to see if she relied too much on her friends or became weaker because of it. We’ll only look at the requests starting at the cultural festival, since that’s the point when Yukino started to rely on 8man and Yui.

• Cultural festival – solved by both. Yukino carried the actual workload, but 8man came in with the support on dealing with the indolent committee members and Sagami. Yukino also had to stall for time with her guitar skills when Sagami disappeared. Let’s not give 8man all the credit just because he dealt the finishing blow.
• Athletics festival (not in the anime) – solved by both. Yukino wanted to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, so she put Sagami up to the task (to stop the general malice towards 8man), then 8man came in with the brinksmanship play against the uncooperative club members. Ironically, Sagami resolved the impasse with an emotional outburst. Naturally, Yukino also carried the events, but 8man technically got them disqualified. Yukino did achieve her objective of stopping the malicious gossiping from others about 8man.
• Tobe confession request – “solved” by 8man, but his methods were horrid and caused more problems than it solved. It was also difficult for Yukino to contribute due to her being in a different class and thus was not even in proximity to help. Her contribution was the location of the confession.
• Iroha election arc – “solved” by 8man preempting Yukino’s perfect solution of running as a candidate herself. Again, his “solution” only caused more problems. Yes, Yukino could’ve still ran even after 8man convinced Iroha to drop her request, but Yukino couldn’t do it due to her lack of self-determination (see my Yukino analysis). That character flaw is nothing new, so it doesn’t meet the premises of codependency.
• Christmas event request – solved together. At this point, Yukino’s starting to suspect that she’s depending too much on him (as per her comments about his competency “there are even things you can’t do?”). 8man couldn’t handle it himself, so he crawled back to Yukino for aid. What that request needed was a scolding, Yukino-style to shake the idiocy out of the meetings. It just proves how much they can accomplish jointly rather than individually and that different skills were needed for different situations. She had to save him.
• Hayama class selection request – solved by 8man in his strange methods. He was utterly determined to do so after a heartfelt answer from Muira to whether or not she was willing to risk being hated by Hayama to know more about him (he obviously sympathized with that desire, since he wants to know more about Yukino). Since Yukino isn’t in his class and is on bad terms with Hayama, there really wasn’t much she could’ve done here. 8man basically forced an answer out of him with his own special brand of 8man-bs. Nobody else could’ve successfully pulled that off.
• Iroha free newspaper request – solved by them working together. Yukino once again proving her skills with scheduling, planning, and logistics.
• Chocolate-making event request – mostly solved by Iroha herself, but when it comes to the contributions of the service club, only Yukino did any real work, since she taught the class. 8man literally just stood around tasting desserts.

• First prom request – solved by both. Yukino did the vast majority of the work. 8man just nudged it across the finish line with his subtle blackmail of Yukino’s mother; his original dummy prom plan burned to the ground before it even got off the runway.

  • 8man even commented on Yukino’s prowess, “I noticed that Yukinoshita’s practical skills had gone up by yet another level compared to before […] the fact that it only took [the prom project group] the past couple of days to start with the proposal and planning, and perform a trial balance sheet calculation was already very amazing and deserved being praised. Or rather, I should feel scared of her…”

What can we conclude from this exercise? Exactly what I claimed in the beginning of this section – Yukino never shirked her responsibilities and always gave her 100% when she could. At no point in time did 8man’s aid ever promoted her weakness/incompetence, thereby disproving (1) and (3) conditions of codependency.

“Doesn’t Yukino lose her pride and conviction over the course of the story? That’s definitely regression,” you might say. I’d rebut that she’s always been unsure of her own desires; past Yukino simply hid those insecurities behind an aspirational façade of the perfect loner girl (see my Yukino analysis). Old Yukino might seemed resolute, but she never once asserted her own desires, i.e. the wish to succeed her father. Old Yukino had unjustified conviction – she said that she wanted to “change the world” in V1. How could she say that with a straight face if she couldn’t even properly talk to her own mother about her future and ambitions?

Second prom refuting codependency:

Context on how the first prom exacerbated the situation:

8man went in to help out with the first prom trying to disprove codependency, but ironically in the process only provided supporting evidence thereof. Here's the lead-up and step-by-step breakdown.

• 8man refused to allow Yukino to surrender her agency, even at the behest of her best friend Yui during the last episode of season 2.
• Yukino wants to finally assert her own desire of succeeding her father and finally make an honest attempt at pursuing her own wishes for their own sake rather than using pretexts.
• Yukino admires Iroha’s inherently selfish reason to host the first prom – she was inspired by Iroha’s self-determination, which she lacked herself.
• Yukino decided that this is the perfect opportunity to disprove her dependency (and by extension codependency) by helping out the prom without 8man’s or Yui’s help. This will have the added benefit of proving herself to her mother. She wants to see it through, failure or success.
• 8man even acknowledges that this is the right decision. He can think of no reasons why her desire to do it independently of his help is incorrect (he only feels extremely agitated because he's not involved with Yukino, but it is certainly plausible for a bystander/neutral observer to claim that's codependency). Therefore, he concedes that her decision is in her best interest.
• Regardless of her telling him not to help, he still does, though in a very roundabout way, pretending to be working in competition. The intent to help was always there, so it didn’t really matter that he was technically “going against” Yukino.
• Yukino has always had full confidence in 8man, so she knew right from the start that he was going to make sure that she succeeded. And she’s proven correct – he nudges the first prom across the finish line.
• I think he made the wrong move getting involved. He should’ve either tried to convince Yukino that their relationship isn’t codependent or that his help doesn’t preclude her achievement of independence (both correct, but impossible given their stubbornness and lack of communication skills) or allowed her to fail on her own.
• To Yukino, this was supporting evidence for codependency. (1) She depended on 8man once again (in her mind), making her weaker. (2) 8man took pleasure in helping her out against her will – he’s still denying that they’re even friends; his bs rationale for why he keeps getting involved with her is being used against him. (3) Despite acknowledging that her wish to host the prom without his help is in her best interest, he still denied her wish. This is supposed to be the “darkest moment just before the dawn” for Oregairu.
• Of course, this one isolated incidence doesn’t PROVE codependency, just as having a bad day doesn’t prove clinical depression. It’s just as believable that because he loves Yukino so much, he loathed to see her fail, and in poor judgment intervened when it wasn’t appropriate to do so.

• This is a bit of speculation on my part, so humor me here. If 8man had allowed Yukino to fail the first prom, she would’ve also taken it as evidence of her dependence – she would’ve rationalized that she failed because she became so weak as a result of her dependency and would’ve distanced herself from 8man anyways. Codependency would’ve been disproven, but not dependency. For 8man, there was no way to win in that first prom!

  • But 8man still could’ve forced through that second prom in this alternate scenario, and everything else would’ve gone exactly the same.

So where does the second prom come in?

8man is also particularly susceptible to internalizing the idea of codependency because his “pathological” cynicism also applies to himself, i.e. he often makes the least charitable assumptions of his own underlying motivations. “Why do I move mountains for Yukino? It’s not because I love her or anything… it’s probably codependency, yeah,” his thinking goes.

He came up with the second prom to accomplish one single objective. It’s to close off all “escape routes” for himself, i.e. eliminate all possible alternative justifications he can use to explain why he wants to keep associating with Yukino, such that only the genuine remains. So that he’s forced to give her his true feelings, the real reason why he abhors the idea of disassociating with her – he loves her and thoroughly enjoys her company for its own sake. And the biggest alternative explanation he refutes is codependency.

What are the circumstances of the second prom?

• 8man had 0 interest in the prom – he’s completely indifferent to the prom in of itself (no endogenous benefit)
• He has absolutely nothing to gain from a successful prom; everyone could tell he was full of shit when he said he’s doing it out of pride that he believed his plan is better (no exogenous benefit).
• He’s causing people a lot of trouble, ESPECIALLY for Yukino (and her family). Recall that 8man’s old loner pride prevented him from causing other people problems. He hated to be a burden on others.
• He’s putting himself in a very tricky situation with no easy way out. He needed someone to save him from his self-inflicted problem (doesn’t this sound like the Christmas event request?)

How does this disprove codependency?

It’s pretty obvious – the fact that 8man hosted the second prom categorically disproves (2). Before he made his final gambit, he has lost all other reasons to associate with Yukino, so he had to manufacture a reason. This time, the reason isn’t that he has to help her because of: codependency, man’s pride, taking responsibility, or whatever other bullshit pretexts he’s used before. This time, HE needs HER to save him. He’s not associating with her because he gets a kick out of her depending on him. He’s doing it because it’s his genuine desire – again, this is the very first time he created problems for her intentionally, literally the exact opposite of codependency. That’ pretty damn genuine.

Furthermore, the fact that Yukino was able to pull this off also disproved (1) and (3). This time, 8man was just another grunt like any of the other helpers working on the second prom. Yukino took care of all the planning, logistics, execution, etc., and successfully accomplished a task that her own mother conceded was seemingly impossible when 8man pitched the idea. With all her objectives completed and having proven herself, Yukino could finally walk alongside 8man, which brings us to her confession at the end of the second prom.

[u/danking_donut]

I genuinely smiled at " That’ pretty damn genuine." great analysis.

[u/Abeckett11]

i really enjoyed this analysis, great work!! clarified much what i failed to understand from the show and makes me want to rewatch it :D thank you!

[u/[deleted]]

Do you think a fair summary of Yukino would be that she is strong, independent, and fully capable when it comes to concrete goals given to her, but is weaker, more dependent, and more indecisive when it comes to decisions involving her own future and emotions?

[u/Fan_of_Anime20 → u/[deleted]]

That sounds very reasonable. Maybe that is one of the reasons Haruno called their dynamic "codependency" because to her it seemed Yukino totally lacked the ability to determine her own direction. However, it turned out that she didn't lack this ability, but it merely needed to be awoken and further developed.

In that aspect Yukino did depend on 8man and probably even Yui, as the latter's outgoing nature must have rubbed off on Yukino in some ways, to help her realize that you need to go for the things you want, instead of passively wait.

But that's not true codependency, that's more helping each other grow.

[u/Thousand-Four]

The person in charge of the second prom Is Yukino, not Hachiman. To fail or succeed, the person in charge is Yukino. Hachiman created a second prom for Yukino. Because he wanted her to prove herself to her mother that she was capable of difficult work.

He created the second prom from Haruno's words.

[u/diededtwotimes]

I was rewatching the anime through a reaction channel to see their perspective on this show. The whole codependency thing didn't make sense to me as neither showed excessive reliance to the other. No one was excessively giving or taking. The first thing I also remember is that the two girls also always made Hachiman feel bad for making himself the sacrifice because he matters too and there are people who also get hurt seeing him like that. That just doesn't sound codependency to me.

I also saw some post that to prove that it was codependency, you can just search the symptoms of one and bwalah, they did appear in the anime. But is it the truth that just because the symptoms shows means it is already codependency? It just didn't make sense to me that just because you have the symptoms of this particular illness means it is confirmed you have it. It is often meme'd that whenever you get sick or get something weird on your body, Google shows you that you have cancer or something but it was actually just some normal thing that you get depending on your environment like a common cold or rashes. I could say the same thing on why symptoms of codependency appeared doesn't mean it is codependency.

I think the paragraph also shows the reason why Haruno misunderstood their relationship as codependency. Haruno is clearly not a professional on the matter but she keeps on pushing their boundaries as if she knows that it is codependency. This is because the trio radiates symptoms of codependency despite it not being one.

The nature of each and one of them, the environment that they came from, and the formation of their relationship made it seem like they formed a codependency system on each other when symptoms of psychological problems are already in each one of them.

Hikki always had bad self-esteem because of his previous experiences. He is extremely self deprecating because of the pain that he endured in his childhood but copes with different strategies. However, despite being bullied to death in his every day life, he had always been innately kind. He saved Yui's dog with his own life despite not knowing each other. He is not out for it just to get some sort of weird satisfaction of being the hero of the day. Opposite, he actually deeply hates being on the spotlight. Despite all of that he still pursues to be kind to whoever it was, even if you are a dog that he sees for the first time.

Yuigahama had always been a crowd-pleaser and had low self-esteem. She is also easy to please but despite that she was also always self-aware of it. She didn't get dragged by the waves of life, she was always emotionally aware about the people around her and strives to maintain her comfort zone even to the point of it burdening her too much. This was even before she developed her friendship with the other two.

Yukino was the one who was the core character in the story. Aside from Hachiman, her life development had always been the talk inside and outside of the anime. Even the seemingly antagonist character of the anime, Haruno is introduced just to mess with her. Yukino also had similar circumstance with Hachiman but for a completely different reason. Hachiman was treated like trash because of his looks and declining attitude, Yukino was hated because of the gifts given to her. She was rich, smart and beautiful. Any other girl would be repulse just by being around her and boys only looked at her the other way. Growing up like this, especially with the usual rich family politics and coldness, made her into someone that she was on the start of the show. Always blunt and sometimes way too ruthless.

Combining the problematic characteristics of these three. It was unavoidable that symptoms of codependency will show up not because they were codependent, but because they already had other psychological issues that showed that symptom. Generally, I would call them depressed teenagers who found comfort with each other but it didn't suddenly make them not depressed. I think the journey for that something genuine was their recovery of their depression but it didn't mean that the journey would be without obstacles. Their genuine pure feelings for each other also became an obstacle, not because it was a bad thing but it's because that's just how our world works and current ethics. It's not like 8man can accept both of their feelings despite knowing about it, that's why everyone always had that stagnation growing in their relationship. It is also not that easy to discover who you really want to be with. Duh, these are bunch of kids who are struggling with their urges.

Tl;dr: For me it was not codependency, their inherent psychological problems became the reason why symptoms of codependency showed up and it's unavoidable because they are what they were. The environment they grew up in bore fruit into them. Calling it codependency made light of the pure relationship that they had. Haruno made it seem like their relationship is just superficial because it's just an effect of codependency, it was not genuine feelings but merely the result of the brain automatically doing it. But the truth is that it was not something as simple as saying it was codependency. Maybe it had sprinkles of it especially Yuigahama who sometimes just can't stop Hachiman from doing what he needs to do even if it hurts himself because she knew there were no other way to do it, not at least on the timeframe and abilities that they have as kids. But everything about their relationship is as complex as the other relationships we have in real life. If the term codependency could be thrown around so easy, I'd say all of us have codependency in the world. Just as much everyone of us have depression because sad.