Literature / Haganai

aka: Boku Wa Tomodachi Ga Sukunai

Attractive people, not so attractive personalities.

"Recruiting Friends."

— Agenda of the Neighbors Club

Kodaka Hasegawa is a second-year transferee to a Catholic school, St. Chronica Academy, and as always, he finds it nigh-impossible to make friends due to his natural blonde hair (inherited from his late English mother) which makes him pass for a delinquent. One day, he runs into the equally solitary and very abrasive Yozora Mikazuki while she's speaking to her Imaginary Friend, "Tomo-chan".^note This is the Japanese equivalent of calling your imaginary friend "Friendy". They decide that the best way to improve their social situation is to found a club — the Neighbors Club — to help them make friends and learn social skills.

Joining them are five others — arrogant school idol Sena Kashiwazaki, daughter of the school chairman, whose popularity with boys naturally earn other girls' ire; Yukimura Kusunoki, an extremely effeminate freshman who joins in the hopes that Kodaka teaches him how to be more manly; Rika Shiguma, a genius (and perverted) freshman; Kobato Hasegawa, Kodaka's younger sister and a second year middle-schooler with an obsession for goth culture and vampires; and Maria Takayama, a 10-year-old nun and teacher, who also serves as club advisor.

One can only hope that these seven social losers can get their act together before the club implodes from their nigh-irreconcilable eccentricities.

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai ("I Don't Have Many Friends") — also known by its canonical portmanteau name Haganai — is a light novel series written by Yomi Hirasaka and illustrated by Buriki, which was published from 2009 to 2015 for 11 volumes. It has a manga adaptation written by Hirasaka and illustrated by Itachi which ran in Monthly Comic Alive from 2010 to 2021, and an anime adaptation by AIC which aired as part of the Fall 2011 lineup with a second season announced. The first season has been picked up for North American home video release by Funimation. The second season (called Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT) aired in the Winter 2013 season and was simulcast by Funimation.

The series also inspired four spinoff mangas: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Plus, a retelling of the story where Sena is the first girl Kodaka runs into and is a co-founder of the Club with Kate; Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Anthology, a series of one-shot stories revolving around the club; Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Shobon! (released in North America with the subtitle Now With 50% More Fail!), a series of one-shots revolving around each club member and his/her relation to the Club; and Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai: Haganai Biyori (released in North America under the subtitle Club Minutes), a series focusing on the club's activities. Seven Seas Entertainment is releasing the main manga and has released the 50% More Fail and Club Minutes spinoffs in North America.

A live-action movie adaptation premiered in theaters on February 1, 2014.

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I don't have many tropes:

# - E

• A-Cup Angst: Rika, Yozora, and Yukimura all feel this after Sena tries out Yukimura's maid outfit in Episode 6 of Season 2, and complains about how tight it is on her. Happens in Episode 3 of Season 2 as well, between Maria and Kobato.
• The Ace: Hinata Hidaka, the Student Council President, who's basically Sena without the arrogance and inability to make friends. Subverted when it turns out she doesn't have the grades to back it up, and she's held back a year due to failing her entrance exams.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Done by Kodaka to Kobato to welcome her back to the club after her remedial classes in Episode 6 of Season 2.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Not that he realizes it, but Kodaka at the very least has this going for him. Yukimura goes without saying, putting his gender aside. Surprisingly, Yozora is also quite susceptible; while playing an otome game, she gets bored to tears by all the nice pretty boys until she comes across a delinquent character — who looks like Kodaka, no less. Further reinforced in that chapter by the rest of the girls also agreeing with Yozora that the 'delinquent' in the otome game is more to their tastes, promptly shooting down Kodaka's reservations about dating that character.
• All Just a Dream: Chapter 1 of the Light Novel, Chapter 1 of the manga, and Episode 0 of the anime — which is absolutely hilarious in light of the series' premise. Then Kodaka wakes up and it all goes downhill from there.
• Almost Kiss: During a King's game^note A game where players draw lots, and whoever gets the "king" card gets to order other players around based on the numbers they drew, such as making two people kiss. In this example, Kodaka also adds a condition of pre-made orders to avoid ridiculous, over-the-top orders such as having one player lick another's toes. they're playing in Episode 3 of Season 2, Sena, who's the king, grabs an order out of the box which appears to be stuck inside. Yozora has a worried look on her face, and when Sena reads it, it says that Number 3 and the King have to kiss. Kodaka turns out to be number 3^note Yozora likely wrote that note, and was hoping to get the King card so she could do the kiss with Kodaka, and as they approach each other, Yozora yells at them and splits them apart, saying its indecent. Kodaka then decides to do the Indirect Kiss route by drinking soda from Sena's glass, which the other girls approve.
• Alternate Continuity: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Plus centers on the idea of "what if Kodaka ran into Sena first instead of Yozora".
• An Adventurer Is You: Sena believes in this trope, to the point of naming galge protagonists (usually male) after herself.
• Animal Theme Naming: The Hasegawa siblings' names translate to "Little Hawk" (Kodaka) and "Little Dove" (Kobato).
• Annoying Younger Sibling:
  • Kobato, or at least that's how Kodaka sees her.
  • In a surrogate way, Maria is this to Yozora.
• Ass Kicks You: One of Kobato's old hobbies was breaking chopsticks with her butt. This wasn't mentioned in the anime.
• Bait-and-Switch: In one of the Connect extra chapters we read about Pegasus taking Kodaka's father on a double date with a pair of blonde girls. This doesn't go quite as planned though, because rather than the busty, confident acquaintance of Pegasus who he'd been set up with, Kodaka's father instead develops an instant and mutual attraction to her shyer, chuunibyou friend. The Generation Xerox is supposed to make it quite clear that the girls are Sena and Kobato's mothers respectively, only for it to turn out that the former is actually Stella's, making her Pegaus's biological daughter and Sena's half sister!
• Balanced Harem: Yozora is the first girl Kodaka interacted with and is his fellow co-founder of the Neighbors Club, as well as his Forgotten Childhood Friend with whom he's reconnecting; Sena displays the most romantic interest in him and later becomes his fiancee; Yukimura has the most physical chemistry with Kodaka, much to his confusion and horror. Any affection from Rika is ambiguous, owing to her overly sexual antics and Kodaka's disdain for them. On the non-romantic side, Kobato and Maria engage in childish squabbles over Kodaka's brotherly attention.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Subverted when anyone is seen topless in the DVD/Bluray releases, though the TV version typically has creative censor methods for it.
• Batman Gambit: Yozora's motive in setting up the Neighbor's Club is to spend time alone with Kodaka. She designs a recruitment poster that is plausible enough to convince Kodaka she is serious (with a hidden message), with the hope that nobody would be able to figure it out. It doesn't work as planned.
• Beach Episode: Episode 10 of the first season.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In Episode 8, Yozora expresses distaste for popular people. She also extends her rant to a pool scene from "St. Joe's Academy Tale", a galge Sena is playing at that moment, claiming had she made the game, she'd make it "godly" by adding a Downer Ending where a shark appears and kills all characters. A few seconds and one bad choice by Sena later, her galge dives straight into a nightmarish Sudden Downer Ending featuring that very scenario. Even Yozora is genuinely horrified at that instant before regaining her composure and claiming it is "godly". Rika remembers that the game is notorious for bad endings where the hero and all his romantic interests die in the most horrific ways should the player mess up with even a single flag, as Sena angrily breaks the disc.
• Berserk Button: When Sena tells Yozora that her Childhood Friend past with Kodaka doesn't matter in Episode 8 of Season 2, Yozora gets extremely angry and confronts her. While they argue a little bit more, Yozora then does what Sena usually does, cries a little then runs out of the room while insulting her rival.
• Betty and Veronica: Arguably, Sena and Yozora respectively. Sena is more conventionally attractive, conformist and popular than Yozora. She doesn't hide any dark secrets. However, her personal issues are just as severe as Yozora's, and few would call her a kind person.
• Beware the Nice Ones: In Episode 5 of Season 2, Yozora tries out an otome game, which Rika describes as a "gal game for girls". It turns out to be a gender reversed game of the one they played back in Episode 2 of the first season, and Yozora tries it out. Sena grabs the controller while she's attempting to put her name in, similarly to Yozora doing it the first time around. Rika then emanates a very dark aura, and speaks in a monotone voice asking Sena why she was attempting to sabotage her attempts to introduce Yozora to otome games. Rika seems so scary that even Kodaka is creeped out by it.
• Big Brother Attraction:
  • Kobato adores her brother (not that she says it out loud) and gets jealous when he starts spending a lot of time at the club (although she ultimately joins). She also behaves particularly territorial of her place as his little sister and dislikes when Maria and later Kate start calling him "Onii-chan". On the flip side, Kodaka feels this way towards Maria, more so than his actual sister who he considers an Annoying Younger Sibling. Naturally, his clubmates accuse him of being a paedophile.
  • Sena has something of a Little Sister Attraction towards Kobato, much to the latter's discomfort. She is often hugging or gushing all over Kobato and on several occasions has attempted to take a bath with her.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • When Kodaka rescued Sena from a group of thugs... then chews her out for provoking them after he saves her.
  • Averted in Episode 5's game. After Maria goes to take a nap, her character is standing still, while the party is fighting a tough boss that could use her character's healing abilities. After everyone but Kodaka's and Maria's characters are killed off, she starts moving again, and for a brief moment it seems they could possibly beat the boss themselves, but then she pulls a Leeroy Jenkins and gets herself killed. Then it turns out Maria wasn't actually playing, but rather Kobato, Kodaka's sister, who was wondering why he was spending so much time in his club.
• Big Eater: Maria, and Kobato turns into one when they eat together at the latter's house.
• Big "NO!": Kobato lets one out near the end of Episode 9, running away from Sena in the process.
• Big Sister Bully:
  • Yozora towards Maria, in a surrogate way.
  • Maria's sister Kate fits this trope nicely.
• Birthday Episode: Episode 7 of Season 2, celebrating Kobato's birthday. The first half spends time showing the Neighbor's club members shopping for birthday presents for her and throwing a party, and the second half shows Kate and Maria celebrating it with her at Kodaka's house.
• Bishie Sparkle: Happens to Sena in Episode 9 as she chases Kobato in the nude, after the latter runs away while taking a bath together.
• Black Comedy Rape: The "relay novel", where Yozora has Sena being raped by monsters in the street.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Tokimeite Memory Days
  • Yafoo Auction
  • Virsual Boy
  • Microsoft -> Largehard
  • Playing States
  • Sister Kate is seen drinking a can of Cochicala in Episode 2 of Season 2 when she runs into Kodaka.
• Blue with Shock:
  • Happens to Yozora and Rika in Episode 8 while they're riding a crowded bus to the pool. It's not entirely clear if they were this way due to the sheer amount of people, if they were getting carsick, or a little of both. Both girls are still this way even after they arrive at the pool.
  • Kobato's face goes pale when Kodaka innocently asks her if she wants to go with him to Sena's house in Episode 1 of Season 2. She quivers as she declines the offer.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: With a chapter about the members of the Neighbor's Club studying and practicing traditional comedy techniques so that they can be funny people to hang around, it was inevitable this would appear.
• Breakfast Club: A band of seven attractive social-idiots, outcasts and sociopaths bound in an attempt to gain friendship.
• Breaking the Fellowship: Happens in Episode 12 of Season 2. After Sena and Yozora thwart Aoi's attempts to disband the Neighbor's Club, Kodaka mentions that those two working together would be quite a force. However, Sena's Love Confession to him causes a huge disruption in the status quo, and Kodaka bolts from the club room. He also avoids going for the next week, and due to his lack of presence, several other club members also stop going. Yozora then leaves them a text message saying she was going to travel for a bit, and to not look for her.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • "Did you forget what happened last chapter?"
  • A separate example by Rika in Chapter 16 of the manga, which also features some Breaking the Fourth Wall via the narration:
    Narration Frame: "...Kodaka suddenly jumps onto Rika, roughly embracing her and stealing her lips..."
    Kodaka: No I didn't! Also, stop making up the narration!
• Broken Ace: Sena. She is wealthy, comes from a powerful, respected family, beautiful, fawned over by all the boys and makes all the girls jealous, extremely gifted in both athletics and other areas (Rika at one point wonders how Sena is able to run so fast without her breasts slowing her down), ridiculously intelligent (she is able to memorize exam questions and their answers in seconds), and has a loving, if quirky, family. However, despite all this, she finds herself unable to make friends, and is constantly shallow, arrogant, and cruel even when she attempts to make some by joining the Neighbors Club.
• Bros Before Hoes: While Kodaka wants to spend time with the Neighbors Club on Christmas Eve, Yukimura gives him an ultimatum: they can fool around and do couple things that night since it is Christmas (a day notorious for hookups in Japan), or she'll let him go to the get-together on the condition that they break up. Kodaka eventually chooses the club, but when he gets there finds that Yukimura was planning on going anyway.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Sena is a subversion — she's beautiful, smart, a fast learner, athletic and very dedicated; her ego as big as her breasts doesn't make her a good friend. Rika plays it straighter — she gets away with her eccentricities for being a genius and doesn't mind being alone (the only reason she's even in the Club is to get close to her "savior" Kodaka).
• But Not Too Foreign: Kodaka (and his younger sister Kobato) is half-English, giving him a Japanese face and blonde hair, which makes everyone else assume he dyed it and is thus some delinquent.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Inverted, at least within the confines of the Neighbor Club — Yozora constantly makes fun of Sena's big breasts and even gives her the nickname "Meat" because of it.
• The Cameo: There is one of the cast of Oreimo in Episode 11 - Saori, Kuroneko, Kirino and Kyousuke can clearly be seen in the bottom right, albeit with their backs turned. This is while the cast is discussing the "doujin festival" (Comiket).
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • Yozora cannot muster the courage to tell Kodaka that she is "Sora", his long-lost childhood friend, because she's frustrated that he doesn't recognize her (which is justifiable, because she has already grown her hair long during those ten years they never met), at least until he finally does after seeing her on the first day of classes after summer break with her hair cut short. Later, she reveals to him that she failed to meet up with him on his last day at Tooya City ten years ago because she was too scared to appear to him dressed as a girl.
  • Played straight with Sena towards Kodaka once she develops feelings for him. She finally averts this trope with a Love Confession to him in Episode 11 of Season 2, although she says it nonchalantly while focusing on playing a game, which throws everyone off.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Sena's father, Tenma.
• Cargo Ship: In-Universe, Rika is a fangirl for mecha-on-mecha pairings.
• Casting Gag: The casting department for the drama CDs and the anime must have clearly thought of Kuroneko and Index when they drafted Kana Hanazawa and Yuka Iguchi to voice Kobato and Maria, respectively.
  • Also, getting Kanae Itō to voice Sena the Kobato-chaser, which brings to mind Sanae the Ika Musume-chaser.
• Chekhov's Gun: Yozora's horror story about a girl who was killed by a ghost for betraying her friend (and driving her to suicide) over a boy they like. Later that night, Kodaka can't fall asleep over the whole "betrayal of friends" thing, wondering if "Sora", his only childhood friend, felt the same way about him when they fail to meet on the day Kodaka has to move as promised.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Kobato towards Kodaka anytime he's not paying enough attention to her. Maria doing The Glomp on him will often set her off as well, to the point where the two girls are bickering with each other.
  • Both Sena and Yozora fall into this trope in Episode 4 after Rika wraps herself around his arm, and talks about being Friends with Benefits towards him. They also fall into this trope later in the series as each tries to one-up the other with their time spent with Kodaka.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Six out of seven members of the Neighbors Club show signs of this in varying degrees of intensity and frequency. This makes the seventh — Kodaka — stick out like a sore thumb in his normalcy, his delinquent image notwithstanding. Taking the cake, however, is Maria, who's clueless even for a ten-year-old kid, such as believing Yozora's "Bible verses" that coerce her into lending her favorite naptime room to the Club (and not learning the truth until it was too late) and swimming naked in the pool upon Yozora's suggestion as "cure" for "vampirism" after Kobato bit her hand (cue punishment from her superior later that day).
• Cluster F-Bomb: Rika does this a few times in the English dub for season 2, such as during the roller coaster ride, as well as when she dresses up in Yukimura's maid outfit and goes overboard in her Tsundere act. In the latter instance, it's also likely she was venting her frustration at him acting Oblivious to Love, as she also kicks and hits him a few times.
• Comedic Spanking: Pegasus' preferred method of punishing Sena (often because she was tricked into doing something stupid by Yozora).
• Comically Missing the Point: In Episode 12, when Yozora playfully "threatens" to eat Kobato, Sena mentions that she wouldn't mind doing it for real and gets a fly swatter to the face it.
  • Everything the Neighbors club members do together is merely a practice run for what to do when they all have "real" friends to do said stuff with, such as going to the beach, a festival, or going out to a karaoke club. It never occurs to any of them that maybe doing it with the club and each other is already a friendship happening, since they seem to enjoy hanging out with each other for the most part.
• Covers Always Lie: In-universe example in Episode 2 of Season 2. Rika brings a movie called "Homo Game Club" into the club room. Yozora takes an immediate dislike to it due to its name, but Rika attempts to convince her to watch it before saying it's bad. Her words immediately click with Kodaka, who suggests they watch it first before judging it based on its appearance and name alone, something he is all too familiar with.
• Crazy-Prepared: When Kodaka and Kobato visit Sena at her house to greet her father, they arrive fairly late, as the sun appears to be setting. During dinner, Sena's father insists that they stay over. Kodaka learns that buses in the area stop running after 8 PM (cue him looking at the clock striking 8 PM). Stella mentions she could drive them home, but that it's a big hassle, and when Kodaka mentions not bringing pajamas, Sena's father says he has clothing they can borrow, and a guest room to sleep in. Kobato nodding off finally convinces Kodaka that maybe they should spend the night.
• Credits Running Sequence: Yozora does this in the opening theme.
• Cringe Comedy:
  • To prove that eroge are "art" and not porn, Yozora makes Sena read out loud the dialogue of an H-scene Yozora and Kodaka walked in on Sena playing through. It turns out to be somewhat different than the beautiful, lovely consummation of the protagonists' love for each other Sena claimed.
    Sena: Like I can do this crap, dammit! (runs off crying)
  • Rika's favorite doujin... which turns out to be graphically explicit mecha-on-mecha H-action.
• Crossover: With Student Council's Discretion.
• Cute Little Fangs: A prominent part of the art style◊.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • Sena's somewhat prone to this around Kobato.
  • Yozora around cats in the novels and Episode 8 of Season 2.
• Deadpan Snarker: Stella, the Kashiwazaki family's stewardess.
• Death Glare:
  • Kodaka, taking advantage of his looks uses one in Episode 3 to save Sena from some guys hitting on her.
  • Other times, he unintentionally does it to other characters, and since they don't know any better, they immediately agree to anything he says, then rumors spread of him bullying said people.
  • Yozora throws them around occasionally as well.
• Debut Queue: The first four episodes show one or two of the girls as they're added to the Neighbor's Club, although Episode 2 gives some Character Development to Yozora and Sena.
• Deep-Immersion Gaming: Never has Monster Hunter been more awesome, and a Dating Sim more weird.
• Delinquent Hair: The unwanted and misunderstood cause of Kodaka's social problems. In reality, he's a natural blonde.
• Demoted to Extra: In-universe example. In Episode 10 of Season 2, while filming Sena's movie, Kodaka finds out that he was just a stand-in for Kobato, and actually wouldn't have any parts in her film at all.
• Deus Angst Machina: Parodied in-universe with one of Sena's eroge games. If even one flag is missed, there will be a bad ending with a horrible massacre, such as a great white shark suddenly appearing in a public pool and eating everybody. It's even lampshaded how incomprehensible and unlikely the bad endings are.
• Development Hell: In-universe example. In Episode 8 of Season 2, Yozora suggests they make a movie, which everyone agrees to. She finishes a decent script, with the roles already set, but some of the other girls don't like that she and Kodaka are the stars and Childhood Friends in it. So Sena suggests they vote on roles, and things get switched around, and Kodaka gets the role of "little sister". Yozora then rewrites the script, and changes Kodaka's role from a support role to having a big role again, to which Sena again objects to. They get into a fight about it as a result. However, Yozora makes some changes again, and this time they deem it acceptable, although Maria comments that she's seen this story before...
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?:
  • In Episode 2 of Season 2, Kodaka runs into a Rika in the club room without her glasses on. She tells him her vision is perfect, and the glasses are actually fake. She then asks him what he thinks of her, and he has a brief Imagine Spot where he says she's like a wildflower blooming on a hill. Rika's face then turns red, and he earns himself some slight scorn from Yozora, Sena, and Yukimura.
  • Kodaka pulls this off in Episode 7 when he comments that regular clothing would look good on her, as opposed to her school uniform which she seemed to wear all the time. Once again, none of the other girls are too pleased about hearing that.
• Die for Our Ship: In-Universe comedic application at the end of Chapter 4/Episode 2. After she and Sena get a Downer Ending on a galge the latter was playing, Yozora storms out the clubroom (while Sena breaks down crying) to find and kill Akari — a video game character — thinking she spread the rumors that their protagonist was a He-Man Woman Hater, causing Yukiko, a girl she and Sena were angling for, to turn him/them down... conveniently forgetting that it was their fault for shooting down Akari's friendly overtures with the most cruel options because they deem her proactive attitude (such as taking the initiative to introduce herself to the protagonist) a sign of being a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Kodaka has trouble focusing on his studies when he's over at Sena's house in Episode 1 of Season 2, due to the fact that she's wearing a tight piece of clothing which makes her chest more apparent.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The scene where Yozora puts lotion on Sena's back. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • Rika's passionate reading of a Super Robot battle in a manga she was carrying around at the time in Episode 4.
  • The Dragon Gobie Soldiers in the virtual reality game.
    Kodaka: Wait! Don't you feel sorry for them, being treated like monsters just because of the way they look? The Dragon Gobies didn't ask to be born looking like this!
• Double Entendre: Every line in the Ultra Mecha Wars Alpha 2 H-doujin:
  Mecha: Ahh! It's going to break! My DT-field is going to break!
  (DT is probably meant to suggest "Doutei", which is Japanese for a male virgin)
• Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: It's probably not as bad as it looks, but there's something to be said about Sena enthusiastically offering to bath Kobato, only to be followed, scenes later, by Kobato running screaming out of the room naked, chased by an equally naked Sena. Kobato is still sincerely freaked by it the following day, though in this case the trope may be subverted in that Kobato has a habit of overreacting and misinterpreting people's actions, and that Kodaka was pretty annoyed with Sena for a bit.
• Downer Ending: Applied in-universe to the games the characters play.
  • Sena gets a really bad ending in the dating game in Episode 2 because of picking bad choices throughout the game.
  • The MMO game in Episode 5, partly due to bugs, partly because the healer (Maria) falling asleep, but mostly due to several characters working against each other rather than together.
  • The other dating game in Episode 8. This ending was so shocking that even Yozora, who wished for it, was shocked by its brutality.
  • In Episode 5 of Season 2, Yozora plays a gender reversed dating game of the one from Episode 2 of Season 1. Like Sena, she makes some rather poor choices, and although successful at school, ends up with no friends nor a boyfriend, much like in her real life.
• Dropping the Bombshell: Maria in the Drama CD, while keeping a perfect Cheerful Child demeanor:
  Kodaka: How about you, Maria? Think you can pull it off?
  Maria: Ya! Despite my appearance, I'm a longtime actor.
  Kodaka: Oh, that's a surprise.
  Maria: At one of the schools I used to go to, I was once told 'It's creepy how a kid like you always wears a fake, shallow smile' by one of my classmates!
  Kodaka: O-Oh, is that right?
  Maria: Ya!
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Yukimura. Kodaka thinks he's actually a girl when they first meet and then it just gets worse when he becomes the club's maid, complete with uniform. Turns out he should have trusted his gut feeling.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Maria displays some in Episode 4 of Season 2 when she hears that the ticket Sena got for the theme park was only good for six adults. Since she was the seventh person, and a child, she just mumbles unhappily, causing Sena to feel sorry for her and buy a child's ticket for her so she could go. Maria immediately perks up again after this.
• Dump Them All: Ultimately, Kodaka individually shoots down every member of his harem, saying he'd rather not change the status quo.
• Dysfunction Junction: There's a reason the seven members of the Neighbor Club don't have many friends.
  • Kodaka frequently gets mistaken for a delinquent, thanks to his (natural) blonde hair and a bad first impression on his first day in class.
  • Yozora is a natural loner who talks to an "air friend" and is a huge jerkass to boot.
  • Sena is an arrogant child of privilege, hated by girls due to her good looks and popularity with boys (or at least a bunch of doormats).
  • Rika is another natural loner, but also a perverted genius.
  • Yukimura looks way too much like a girl for guys to be comfortable with, and is a little too fascinated with the concept of manliness despite really being a girl.
  • Maria is an immature child genius whose wisdom stems not as much from natural talent as from an advance education.
  • Kobato keeps up a constant role-play as a goth-loli vampire.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Yukimura can be seen stalking Kodaka before the intro credits starts for the first episode. She can be seen again in Episode 2, and finally joins the cast in Episode 4.
• Ecchi: This anime is full of Fanservice.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Kobato's usual getup.
• Elephant in the Living Room:
  • It's obvious that by the time the group is fully assembled that they're all friends, but all events and activities are phrased with things like 'This will be useful practice for when we all have friends.' Kodaka is in fact avoiding admitting that he knows they're all friends already. Rika is the only one who has obviously noticed as well and knows that Kodaka is avoiding the subjects. Admitting that would change things up, something he's not comfortable with.
  • Kodaka is perfectly aware of the feelings the girls have towards him and is deliberately ignoring it. All those times he goes "What was that? Couldn't hear you." He did, in fact, hear them but chose to pretend because he is afraid of change. Rika figures this out fairly quickly and calls him out on it in the second season/volume 7, and warns him that even if she doesn't do anything about his charade, eventually one of the other girls is going to get tired of it and confront him directly with it and he needs to be prepared. His response? "——Eh? What'd you say?" That's what I told her, playing dumb once again. However, what I'd said was not a question, it was my answer." and then he walks away. When Sena finally confesses to him he ends up running away because he isn't ready and she refuses to let him play dumb this time.
• Elevator School: Downplayed with St. Chronica Academy, which at the very least has a middle school division and a high school division; most of the main characters are in the high school division, but Kobato attends the middle school.
• Embarrassing First Name:
  • Sena's father does not like being called Pegasus. Except by his first love, Stella's mother.
  • "Semoponume Kashiwazaki", the protagonist's name in "Tokimeite Memorial Days", is random syllables produced by Sena and Yozora bickering over the controller.
• Enemy Mine: When Aoi Yusa of the student council attempts to shut down the Neighbor's Club in Episode 11 of Season 2, Yozora ends up defending the club's legitimacy. When Aoi later tries to use a technicality on them, Sena ends up making a call to her father to fix said technicality. Kodaka later comments that having those two girls ensured the club would be safe from further attempts to shut it down.
• Epic Fail: The only way to describe Kodaka's attempts at being funny in Chapter 11, especially his story "I'm Scared of Manjuus".
• Erotic Eating: Invoked by Rika during the Festival Episode.
• Evolving Credits: In Episode 12 of both seasons, sound effects are added to the opening intro.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Rika's as close to this as one can get sans the sex — finding mecha, arthropods, and Kodaka all sexually attractive, and having attempted to kiss jellyfish and planarians in the past. Hell, she even finds train cart connectors to be incredibly sexy,
• Eye Catch: The anime has a series of these that feature a logo containing a version of the series' title, which is branded on the girls' bodies. In episode order (the first six has them on their uniforms, the last six in bikinis): Yozora's right thigh, Sena's right breast, Kobato's back, Maria's forehead, the underside of Rika's left leg, Yukimura's midriff, Kobato's right hand, the center of Maria's white one-piece swimsuit, Rika's right buttcheek, Yukimura's left palm, Sena's left sideboob, and post-haircut Yozora's right shoulder.

F - O

• Face Palm: Kodaka does one in Episode 3 at the pool, after he defuses a confrontation between three guys and Sena. She then stops them from leaving, only to continue insulting them, and having to save her yet again.
• Face of a Thug: Kodaka. This makes makes his classmates confuse him for a delinquent. Even, or rather, especially by his greatest fan. He's well aware of this, and when necessary, he's perfectly capable of exploiting it.
• First Girl Wins: That is Yozora's plan or at least it was until it was revealed that Sena met Kodaka even earlier and is engaged to him.
• First-Name Basis: Kodaka towards Sena and Yozora. Sena and Yozora, not so much.
• Foe Romance Subtext: Almost certainly invoked in the first episode of the second season of the anime. It's shown that Sena takes pictures of Yozora and has them posted all over the ceiling of her room, and while going to sleep each night she smells (that is to say, deeply inhales) a wig that Yozora once wore, dreaming of her 'revenge'. Sure thing, Sena. Even Kodaka says she's become a perverted stalker. And on top of all of that, while Sena is smelling the wig, the lower part of it and Sena's other hand rest suspiciously between her legs...
• Foreshadowing:
  • Yozora doesn't like to be lumped together with bullies and thinks nicknames are for friends. As a kid, she befriended Kodaka after she saved him from, and then joined him in fighting, a bunch of bullies.
  • In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in the 9th episode: Yozora's contacts list.
• Forgotten First Meeting:
  • Yozora is implied — and ultimately confirmed — to be the "boy" who once saved Kodaka from, and ultimately joined him in fighting, a bunch of bullies when they were kids.
  • Sena met Kodaka long ago since their fathers were friends. However, they were too young to remember it.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the first season of the anime, if you're quick about it, you might get to see what name Yozora has stored Kodaka's number under in her phone. It's Taka.
• Friendless Background: Kodaka isn't good at making friends beyond shallow acquaintances (save for a certain boy who turns out to be Yozora herself), but the rest of the Neighbors Club are even worse.
• Friendlessness Insult: During a Christmas party, Sena is confronted by a group of girls for inadvertently getting the attention of a boy that one of the girls had a crush on. Her attempts to pacify the situation are vehemently spurned, which causes her to badmouth the girls to the point of them crying. The crowd around them soon starts criticizing Sena until someone calls her out for being friendless, making her a laughingstock, much to Sena's embarrassment.
• Friendship Moment: Yozora wasn't there for it, but Sena admits to Kodaka she's secretly happy even to have Yozora calling her "Meat" because nobody's ever given her a nickname before. Volume 8 (and the end of NEXT finally has Kodaka forging a friendship with Rika, while two volumes later Yozora and Sena finally find the courage to admit to each other that all this time they actually liked each other.
• From the Mouths of Babes: In Episode 9 of Season 2, Maria talks about Kodaka and Sena getting married, and thinks nothing of it other than its a good thing. The other girls, however, aren't too pleased about hearing that Wham Line.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: In the light novel series, Pegasus offers Kodaka wine when he visits for the night, and Kodaka proceeds to drink him under the table. In the TV series, Kodaka is given non-alcoholic grape juice instead... or at least that is what Pegasus claims, because it's still clearly wine and Kodaka still gets (a little) drunk from it.
• Farts on Fire: Another one of Kobato's old hobbies was to lighting her farts on fire. This was also not mentioned in the anime.
• Gamer Chick: Sena often stays up late playing her galges.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Kobato carries a patchwork rabbit around with her almost constantly.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: In the Light Novel, the implications of Yukimura's real gender being revealed while she and Kodaka were naked in a public bath together at the time are such that Kodaka can't quite get the concept through his head at first.
  Kodaka: Wait...
  Kodaka: Wait a minute...
  Kodaka: No, wait...
  Kodaka: Wait, wait, wait...
  ...
  Kodaka: Wait...
• Griefer: In Episode 2, while playing the Monster Hunter game, Sena charges up one of her attacks, and then "accidentally" hits Yozora's character, knocking her out. Sena claims that it she pushed the wrong button, and Yozora seems to accept that. However, a few moments later Yozora "accidentally" shoots Sena in the back of the head with an arrow (and we're pretty sure the Great Jaggi was just collateral damage from that bomb), and then the next few minutes shows the two girls fighting each other more than the monsters.
  • Both girls do it again to each other in Episode 5's game. Yozora mentions having an ability which can nullify an attack, and tells Sena to attack the boss head on. Sena does it, but gets killed, because Yozora mentions that she never intended to use it on Sena. Sena gets back at her by tickling Yozora in real life, causing her to lose her concentration and also getting killed by the boss as well.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Applied in-series in Chapter 16 of the manga. Sena has been getting nothing but Downer Endings on a galge she's played five times straight. Rika explains that the galge suffers from a Game-Breaking Bug where it skips a crucial Event Flag unless the player uses the protagonist's Canon Name (or at least temporarily changes the name before said flag). However, Sena is a believer in "An Adventurer Is You" and refuses to let "some other guy" take the fruits of the intense friendship she made with a girl she was rooting for, so what does she do? Shatter the CD and kiss the game goodbye. Then Rika says she could've just fixed the bug. Cue Sena crying on the window in regret.
  • In Episode 8, Sena falls prey to a nightmarish Downer Ending on a galge featuring a shark attack on the pool killing both the hero and his harem girls. According to Rika, said galge is notorious for such bloody bad endings which are very easy to trigger should the player mess up with even a single flag, earning it a "so bad it's good" reputation among gamers. Sena begs to differ, and angrily breaks the disk in half.
• Hate at First Sight: Two examples:
  • Yozora instantly hates Sena the moment she shows up in the first episode. Part of it may have to do with the fact that she could steal Kodaka away which does partly come true when Sena gives him a nonchalant Love Confession later in the series, and a large part is due to Sena being The Ace at sports and academics. Sena, for her part, hates Yozora for constantly mocking her and her interests.
  • Kobato has a very poor first impression of Maria due to the latter being overly friendly towards Kodaka, triggering an episode of Clingy Jealous Girl mode in the former. Unlike Sena and Yozora however, their rivalry slowly and gradually develops into one of Vitriolic Best Friends.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Yozora suffers from one in Episode 9 of Season 2 when she hears about Kodaka and Sena being both Childhood Friends as well as being in an Arranged Marriage, despite both of them denying the latter.
  • Kodaka suffers one when Rika calls him out on deliberately not noticing that all the girls are in love with him. He suffers an even bigger one when Sena openly confesses her attraction to him.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Kodaka fits this trope fairly well. He makes a very poor first impression in class due to being late and out of breath, and his Face of a Thug only seems to reinforce the other students that he's up to no good. Even when he innocently asks for stuff, rumors spread that he forcefully took it from them. In one episode he even laments that his reputation is now even worse after joining the Neighbors Club.
  • Sena arguably fits this trope to a lesser extent. She joined the club because despite being pretty, smart, and somewhat athletic, she doesn't have any female friends, and the boys who followed her around only further spread rumors amongst the girls at school to ostracize her some more. Hanging out with Kodaka only made it worse for her, as now everyone assumed they were going out due to how much time they spend together, although Sena probably wouldn't mind that rumor being true.
• Hero-Worshipper: Kodaka's a stand-up guy and all, and possibly the only admirable person in the Neighbor Club, but according to Yukimura, he's also a paragon of manliness, a veritable "Man Among Men".
• Hidden Purpose Test: The Neighbor Club's recruitment poster has a seemingly nonsensical mission statement below an awful artwork by Yozora. Turns out the statement has the words "recruiting friends" encrypted diagonally. To Kodaka's surprise, there are people who are able to read that.
• Homage: About half of Season 2, Episode 5 is used up for an homage of fujoshi culture, mainly the girl-oriented Visual Novels.
  • Let's Play: In-universe, Yozora do a Let's Play for Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 1. The gang gets to Lampshade, Discuss, Converse, and just plain ridicule the tropes appearing in it (and by extension, tropes common to otome games).
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Sena does exactly what an immature player would do: name the character with something that screams 'this guy is a complete sucker'. Especially because Yozora is the one actually playing the game.
  • Purple Prose: Sena loudly chews out the Narmtacular writings in such games.
    "With the air filled with cherry blossoms, I passed through the school gates, my chest puffed with the hopes of that life. [...] I got to meet someone like that on my first day! My high school life is going to be so rose-colored!"
  • Bromantic Foil: Yozora completely thrashes this kind of overly-familiar character, stating that they are too creepy.
    "She smells of bitch, just like Akari^note Akari Kamigishi, from To Heart Fujibayashi^note Kyou Fujibayashi, from CLANNAD."
    "So when do I get the choice to tell her to die?"
  • Fan Dumb: In-universe, see what Yozora says about Akari? Sena doesn't take it very well. She even equates insulting a 2D character to insulting a real person!
  • Munchkin: Yozora builds a character that maxes out all stats, in a game where you're supposed to have a player character that you're comfortable playing. It backfires because she neglects virtually all flags.
  • Guide Dang It!: Yozora ends up with a character whose Good Ending is difficult to get.
• Humanizing Tears:
  • Frequently pulled off by the otherwise haughty Sena every time her confident aura gets shattered in the most spectacular ways (usually courtesy of Yozora's meddling).
  • Kobato, every time her "vampire-girl" facade breaks (such as running naked to Kodaka because her bathwater has gone cold, and realizing that the air-conditioner was broken).
  • At the end of the third Light Novel and Episode 11, Yozora◊ herself, after she comes to school fresh from summer break with her hair cut short, and Kodaka finally realizing that she used to be "Sora", his Forgotten Childhood Friend.
  • Yozora does it again in Episode 8 of Season 2, although under very different circumstances. This time she gets angry at Sena for insulting her childhood past with Kodaka, and she ends up getting a taste of what she usually made Sena do, run out of the room crying.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Episode 2, both Sena and Yozora think the first girl that shows up in the dating sim game they're playing is actually a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, and immediately pick the most hostile response towards her. Yet they act in the same manner towards other girls at school, and see nothing wrong with it.
  • In Episode 4, Yukimura claims to be the victim of bullying. Yozora starts mentioning things bullies often do, which Kodaka immediately mentions "spoken like a true bully". She then slams the table, and tells him not to lump her in with that group.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: The premise — but thanks to Kodaka, Yozora, Sena, Yukimura, Kobato, Maria and Rika's unusual traits, the only friends they can find are each other.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • Every episode uses the characters for the series' shorthand name, "Haganai" (はがない), throughout the title, followed by a popular ShiftJIS emoticon used in Japanese Message Boards, in episode order:
    00: Black Hotpot Gives Girls a Bad Smell — 闇鍋は美少女が残念な臭い^note Yaminabe wa Bishōjo ga Zannen na Nioi (;´∀`)
    01: We Can't Make Any Friends — 僕達は友達が出来ない<sup>note</sup> Bokutachi wa Tomodachi ga Dekinai (´・ω・`)
    02: There's No God in the Electric World — 電脳世界は神様が居ない^note Dennō Sekai wa Kamisama ga Inai (　ﾟДﾟ)
    03: There Are No Flags at the Swimming Pool — 市民プールはフラグがない^note Shimin Pūru wa Furagu ga Nai (;´Д`)
    04: Underclassmen Don't Hold Back — 後輩達は遠慮がない<sup>note</sup> Kōhai-tachi wa Enryo ga Nai Σ(゜ロ゜;
    05: This Time, the SAGA is in a Serious Battle — 今度はSAGAがガチな戦い<sup>note</sup> Kondo wa SAGA ga Gachi na Tatakai ヽ(`Д´)ノ
    06: There Aren't Many Customers at the Karaoke Box — カラオケボックスは客が少ない^note Karaoke Bokkusu wa Kyaku ga Sukunai (つд⊂)
    07: My Cell Phone Doesn't Get Many Calls — 携帯電話は着信が少ない^note Keitai Denwa wa Chakushin ga Sukunai _|￣|○
    08: School Swimsuits Don't Appear — スクール水着は出番がない^note Sukūru Mizugi wa Deban ga Nai \(^o^)/
    09: The President's Recollections are Painful — 理事長は追想が切ない^note Rijichō wa Tsuisō ga Setsunai (-_-)
    10: No One Sleeps at Camp — 合宿は皆が寝ない^note Gasshuku wa Minna ga Nenai ヽ(ﾟ∀ﾟ)ﾉ
    11: Girls Are Super-Cute in Yukatas — 女子は浴衣姿がな、超かわいい^note Joshi wa Yukatasugata ga na, Chō Kawaii (ﾟ∀ﾟ)
    12: We Don't Have Many Friends — 僕達は友達が少ない^note Bokutachi wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai (`・ω・´)
  • The second season instead references titles of other light novel series (ending with a reference to itself, like the previous season):
    01: Yeah, My Youth Is Seriously Wrong^note Yahari Ore no Seishun wa Machigatteiru = My youth romantic comedy is wrong as I expected.^note Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru.
    02: Homo Game Club^note Homoge Bu = Light Novel Club^note Ranobe Bu
    03: My Little Sisters Are This Cute^note Ore no Imōto-tachi ga Konna ni Kawaii = My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute^note Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai
    04: A Man is Among Them!^note Kono Naka ni Hitori, Otoko ga Iru! = My Little Sister is Among Them!^note Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imōto ga Iru!
    05: That Kind of Play is Not Allowed! ~My Worldview is Disturbed When You Are Around~^note Sonna Asobi wa Ikemasen! ~Kimi ga Iru to Sekaikan ga Midareru~ = You Can't Play Around Like That!^note Sonna Asobi wa Ikemasen!
    06: Unbreakable Strange Girl^note Kikō Shōjo wa Kizutsukanai = Unbreakable Machine-Doll^note Mashindōru wa Kizutsukanai
    07: He’s My Brother, But As Long As There’s Love, It Doesn’t Matter If He Gets More Sisters, Right?^note Onii-chan dekedo Ai sae Areba Imouto ga Fuetemo Kankeinai yo ne = As Long as There's Love, It Doesn't Matter If He's My Brother, Right?^note Onii-chan dakedo Ai sae Areba Kankeinai yo ne
    08: My Childhood Friend is Too Much of a Battleground^note Ore no Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru = Caught in the Battlefield Between My Girlfriend and My Childhood Friend^note Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru
    09: Stray Cats Overheat^note Mayoi Neko Ōbāhīto = Stray Cats Overrun!^note Mayoi Neko Ōbāran!
    10: The Sad-Case King and the Stone-Cold Story^note Zannen Ō to Waraenai Hanashi = The "Hentai" Prince and the Stony Cat^note Hentai Ōji to Warawanai Neko.
    11: Dismay of I, the Chicken^note Mayoeru Chikin na Ore = The Stray Butler and Myself, the Chicken ^note Mayoeru Shitsuji to Chikin na Ore to
    12: I ________ Many Friends^note Boku wa Tomodachi ga... = I Don't Have Many Friends^note Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
• I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: As it turns out, the main reason why Kodaka refuses to answer to any of the girls's feelings and plays dumb.
• I Lied: In Episode 12 of Season 2, Rika attacks Kodaka while simultaneously giving him a scathing lecture on his recent actions. She tells him that the small metal balls she's hurling at him are controlled by the cat ears she's wearing, so he attempts to reach her to take it off. While he manages to do so a few moments later, the balls continue to fly around and smash into him. She then tells him the ears were just toys that react to brainwaves, and showed him a remote that allowed her to control the balls.
• Imaginary Friend: Kodaka first meets Yozora when he comes across her talking to her "air friend" (she explains it as the friend version of an air guitar), "Tomo-chan".
• Imagine Spot: A few characters have these, usually Rika.
• Important Haircut: After accidentally burning her hair at a festival at the end of summer break, Yozora cuts her hair short upon returning to school. At this point Kodaka finally recognizes her as "Sora", his Forgotten Childhood Friend.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Rika's UNIVERSE! and EXCALIBUR!
• Improbable Age:
  • Maria is a teacher and a nun at ten years old. The eighth novel reveals that she's neither. Her sister brings her to school with her because there's no one at home to take care of her. Maria still qualifies for the trope though, as she is capable of doing real teacher work (like grading exams and stuff) and that's the reason why she ended up thinking that she was a teacher in the first place. The child-sized nun's habit? Kate thought it was cute.
  • Kate, Maria's older sister, who is the above at fifteen.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Sena acts this way towards Kobato. She sort of gets to do it too in Episode 9, when both Kodaka and Kobato visit her house to pay their respects to her father who, as the head of their school, helped them to transfer in quickly. Sena tries to feed Kobato during dinner, and later takes a bath with her while the girl is waking up from a short nap, which results in Kobato running around the mansion naked while fleeing from Sena (who is also naked).
• Indirect Kiss: Yukimura apparently can't drink carbonated soda, and nearly passes out after trying to down a whole cup in Episode 3 of Season 2. Kodaka then grabs the glass, and drinks from it to avoid letting it go to waste, and Rika immediately mentions this trope. Kodaka later does it again with Sena's glass to fulfill an order where he had to kiss Sena in a King's game after Yozora stops them from kissing.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Thirteen-year-old Kobato has no qualms being seen by Kodaka naked. Granted, she's his little sister. The same is also true for ten-year-old Maria (granted, she's his little sister).
• Insane Troll Logic: In Episode 6, when the club is going to a Karaoke Box to sing and hang out together, Yozora is shocked to find out that each person has to pay to enter. Both she and Sena agree that the establishment must be ripping them off, since according to Yozora, 30 songs sung by one person is the same as 5 songs sung by 6 people each, so they agree to pay for separate rooms themselves. Kodaka, not understanding what they were trying to do, then pays for a single room for himself, Kobato, Yukimura, and Rika, which causes whatever plan Yozora and Sena were doing to backfire. Both girls end up sitting in a room by themselves while the others get to do what they were originally supposed to be doing.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Sena's "Meat", given by Yozora, on account of her boobs. She's actually happy with the nickname, because nobody has given her one before.
  • For that matter, the series itself has a canonical portmanteau name: "Haganai" (はがない), derived from "Boku wa Tomodachi ga sukunai" ("wa" is written as "ha" in Japanese). It appears on some Eye Catches tattooed on the girls, and its characters are used in episode titles for the anime.
  • Kodaka and Yozora called each other Taka and Sora respectively.
  • Kodaka was nicknamed "Yankee" due to his hair initially, but in the anime at least, its use gradually decreases over time.
• Insistent Terminology: Kobato would rather be called "Reisys V. Felicity Sumeragi".
• Insult Backfire: Sena tries to humiliate Yozora by having her quote lines from the Homo Game Club movie Rika brought in Episode 2 of Season 2. However, Yozora gladly quotes the random scenes Sena picks, and even the latter is disgusted by all the awesome lines in the movie. Yozora then forces Sena to quote the current scene from her game, and after much goading, Sena does it rather loud and passionately, causing all the club members to be shocked at her Covert Pervert tendencies. Yozora legitimately apologizes to Sena, but the sincerity confuses the latter, and she runs out of the room while insulting Yozora as a homo game lover.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Rika. The only reason she's even in St. Chronica is because Tenma, Sena's father and chairman of the school board, specifically drafted her to enroll in order to raise the school's prestige.
• Intimate Lotion Application: When the group visits the beach, Kodaka applies sunscreen on his sisters and offers the same to the other girls. The perverted Rika quickly points out this is a "scandalous" thing for a boy to do to a girl, but the practical Kodaka ignores it and even asks Yukimura to do his own back. Sena is too shy to let Kodaka touch her, so she ends up getting Yozora to do it instead and Yozora ends up playing a mean prank on her by stepping on her and rubbing the lotion with her feet.
• It Amused Me: Yozora's real reason for having Yukimura dress up as a maid. Afterwards, when it is discovered Yukimura is really a girl, Yozora dresses Yukimura up as a butler instead. Only to have it backfire on her again when some of the other club members mention that girls dressing up as butlers is becoming a new fad.
• It's What I Do: Don't bother calling down Rika for being a pervert. She's proud of it.
• Jerkass: Yozora. Sena probably would be one as well if this was a normal series; otherwise she's just a Rich Bitch Gamer Chick.
• Lighter and Softer: The TV series, compared to the light novels or the "official" manga.
• Lightning Glare: Yozora and Sena do this in the opening sequence of the anime.
• Limited Wardrobe: Rika is rarely seen without her lab coat, Kobato is almost always on her vampire cosplay and Yukimura goes everywhere on his maid outfit. And of course, Maria is a nun.
• The Load: Played straight with Kodaka during the gaming sessions in Episodes 2 and 5. To be fair, he's still relatively new to the game (as opposed to Sena and Yozora, who both are familiar with it), and in the case of Episode 5, he was playing a game where his character didn't even have any abilities, compared to the girls, who all had some kind of role or abilities for the group. Averted in real life situations, where he actually does do things and is essentially the linchpin to keeping the group together during said sessions.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Sena. Whether her horrible attitude is caused by this or the cause of this has yet to be shown.
• Lonely Together: The Neighbor's Club's raison d'etre.
• Loners Are Freaks: Heavily implied with several of the Neighbor's Club members, if not all of them.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • When Kobato insists on joining the club, Kodaka says she's still in middle school. Sena immediately points out that there's nothing saying a middle school person couldn't join the club. This comes up again in Episode 11 of Season 2 when Aoi Yusa attempts to use Kobato as a reason the Neighbor's Club isn't a legitimate club.
  • In Episode 7, Kodaka asks Yukimura if its okay to give the lunch he prepared to Maria instead. Yukimura says that he can't serve two masters. So Kodaka says that Maria is like a little sister to him, and technically he wouldn't be serving a different master, to which Yukimura agrees.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Rika.
  Rika: Yes, Rika is a pervert. Rika thinks about naughty things day and night. So what about it?
• Love Confession: One is finally delivered in Episode 11 of Season 2 to Kodaka by Sena. All of the other girls are completely caught off guard by it, along with Kodaka, who "answers" by running out of the room.
• Love Epiphany: Several of the girls seem to fall in love with Kodaka in their introduction episodes:
  • Sena seems to develop this in Episode 3 when Kodaka is the first guy to talk back to her, but he also seems to care about her in a non-superficial way like the men who normally follow her around do.
  • For Yozora it's hinted that she's liked him ever since they were kids, but puts up a Tsundere front towards him because he forgot who she was until Episode 11.
  • Kate has one in Episode 7 of Season 2. After Kodaka catches her spying at his house, he invites her and Maria inside for dinner, and allows them to take a bath and spend the night there. As they're leaving, Kate wishes he really was their brother, then mentions she'd be happy if he was "something else", but then says he already has Sena, before getting into the car.
• Male Gaze: The anime has one too many, including the opening.
• Manipulative Bitch: Yozora slapped Maria twice, then gave her passages from The Bible that doesn't even exist to coerce her into lending her sleeping room to the Neighbors Club. As revealed in Episode 12, however, Maria thrice turned down her polite offers to lend the room for the Club's use, calling her a "poop" in the process, prompting her to take matters to her own hands. This scene isn't present in the light novel, and Yozora's takeover of the club room is implied to be just as advertised.
• Mark of the Supernatural: Kobato... er, Reisys V. Felicity Sumeragi, has a red eye and a blue eye. Though it is just her using contacts as part of the costume she wears due to her persistent delusion that she's a vampire.
• Marshmallow Hell: Poor Kobato, having her face smushed in Sena's ample assets inside a crowded bus. She doesn't enjoy it in the least bit, but many others out there would have loved to be in her position.
• Maybe Ever After: Kodaka ultimately rejects all of the girls because he wants to keep his friendships with them, but eventually goes on to date Yukimura. Eventually she breaks up with him too, leaving him single when he heads off to college. Sena was just about the only one left in the running, as she confesses to him late in the game and decides to follow him into university...which is where the series ends.
• Meaningful Name: Yozora means night sky, Sena means starlet. Coincidence?
• Moment Killer: Near the end of Episode 2 of Season 2, Yozora attempts to get closer to Kodaka by initiating some small talk with him by talking about their test scores. It seems to be going well for her until Sena shows up and starts answering everything, causing Yozora to walk away and start talking to Tomo-chan instead.
• Mood Whiplash: Volume 7 on. While the humor is still there, the romantic scenes with Yozora and Sena are more and sooner, the insults between the two are more pathological than humorous, outside characters start appearing, providing a warped reflection of the club members, and "comic relief" characters Rika and Yukimura become "get pissed because Kodaka isn't getting it" characters instead.
  • The show in general can be a somewhat difficult watch simply because its depiction of people who utterly lack social skills or the means to gain them can be surprisingly realistic in between the comedy.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • Transferring cell phone addresses. Kodaka and Yozora were so thrilled at having their first contacts outside home (though the manual way, both being not so tech-savvy) Rika, who easily shared hers with Yukimura through infrared, admits she feels as though she's "behind the times". This does not sit well with Sena who, for such a rich kid, does not have a cell phone. Especially when Yozora promptly calls Kodaka (while both are in the same room) and has a conversation with "meat" as the only non-mumbled term.
  • Pegasus does a rather dramatic run away from Kodaka after the latter clears a misunderstanding with Sena for him in Episode 9 of Season 2.
  • Index vs. Kuroneko, a.k.a. Maria vs. Kobato.
  • In the first episode, when Kodaka first meets Yozora, she points and introduces him to her air friend, Tomo-chan. Cue a waft of air blowing on the curtains in a dramatic fashion. Cue Kodaka continuing to look confused at Yozora.
• Never My Fault:
  • In Episode 12, after Kodaka finds out Yozora was Sora, his childhood friend, Yozora blames him for not recognizing her right away. He blames her hair, which is justified since he always saw Sora with short hair and honestly thought Sora was a guy. She then says she was going to show up in a dress for the first time, but didn't have the courage to go to him wearing it (hence why Kodaka ended up waiting all day and never seeing his friend before he moved away). But somehow its still Kodaka's fault for not recognizing Yozora, at least according to her.
  • In Episode 2, when playing the gal game, and getting the Downer Ending, Kodaka tries to warn them early on that constantly being mean to Akari in the game would result in bad rumors going around, but both Yozora and Sena brush the warning off, figuring Akari is at fault for simply being outgoing during their first meeting in the game.
• New Transfer Student: Kodaka is a second-year high school transferee. So does Kobato, who's in second-year junior high.
• Nighttime Bathroom Phobia: In episode 10, Sena comes to Kodaka's room to ask him to walk with her to the bathroom. She insists that she's not scared and keeps asking Kodaka if he's still there. After that, Kobata and Maria have him take them there. When Kodaka goes to use the bathroom himself, he finds Yozora and she says she'll go with him. He asks if she's also nervous, and though she denies it at first, she admits that she scared herself with her own spooky story she had told earlier.
• No Romantic Resolution: Both in the anime and in the overall series. Season 2 doesn't resolve which girl Kodaka ends up with, although it subtly hints at Sena at the end. Meanwhile, the light novels end with Kodaka rejecting everyone, dating Yukimura, and then dumping her when he decides to hang out with the club one last time on Christmas Eve.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Sena sometimes does this to Kodaka when talking about games. When done in Yozora's presence, she tends to get a bit jealous and smacks Sena with a fly swatter if Kodaka doesn't make her back up first.
• No Social Skills: Many chapters revolve around the members of the Neighbors Club consciously attempting to learn some social skills, usually at Yozora's suggestion.
• Not a Date: Yozora does one with Kodaka in Episode 8 of Season 2. She does it under the guise of "researching", but only invites Kodaka, and afterward they go to a cafe with cats.
• Not So Above It All: In Episode 6 of Season 2, Rika and Sena take turns wearing Yukimura's maid outfit to test out being maids for a possible maid cafe at the school festival. Afterwards, Yozora is all alone in the room with the maid outfit, and Kodaka seems to have forgotten something in the room. He heads back there, only to find Yozora also trying on the maid outfit, then steps back out while she attempts to explain herself.
• Nuns Are Mikos:
  • As a rule, the Catholic church does not make nuns out of 10- and 15-year old girls. This is a much more common age for Mikos.
  • And Catholic nuns usually don't wear◊ a dangerously short dress.
  • In fact, the author doesn't even pretend they're catholic: the symbol they wear is a key, not a cross. It's very Crystal Dragon Jesus (though that not true for the manga, where it actually is a cross).
• Obvious Beta: invoked The game the characters play in Episode 5. The initial enemies they encounter don't have any attacks programmed in yet, and Kodaka's class "wizard" doesn't even have any abilities. To be fair, Rika does tell them the game is still unfinished, but does comment that there are a lot of balancing issues to work out later in the episode.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Maria has this look on her face when she sees her older sister Kate talking to Kodaka in Episode 2 of Season 2.
  • "If you were dreaming of something ten years ago, why was Yozora in it?"
• The Ojou: Sena, of the arrogant kind. And a Fallen Princess of sorts because of overdoing it.
• Older Than She Looks: Kobato looks like a ten-year-old; she's actually thirteen.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations:
  • In Episode 2, when playing the Monster Hunter game, Kodaka tells Sena and Yozora that since its a co-op game, they should try playing more cooperatively. Both girls immediately "agree" they should "play more cooperatively" from that point on, and in the next scene they're just fighting each other more than the monsters.
  • In season 2, Sena is given tickets to an amusement park by her father so she could go on a date with Kodaka and move their relationship along. Sena mentions something about making Kobato her younger sister, which to Pegasus meant things were going along fine with Kodaka. However, Sena meant another thing regarding that, having more paedophile tendencies...
• One of the Boys: Yozora was one as a kid.
• Only Six Faces:
  • Quite apparent in the anime - the difference between the girls mostly consists of the variety of their expressions. Yozora and Sena, for example, have practically the same face, but Sena pouts much more, and Yozora sneers a lot. Quite apparent in the first episode of the second season, where Yozora wears a wig that looks like Sena's hair.
  • In Episode 8 of Season 2, Kobato is in the room with them while they're discussing the movie they plan to shoot. However, Sena immediately discovers something wrong, and it turns out Kobato is actually Rika dressed up as Kodaka's sister. Other than the voice and a few flaws in the outfit, she looks almost exactly like Kobato.
• Only Sane Man: Kodaka stands as the Neighbor Club's sole voice of reason. All his clubmates don't have friends due to their unusual and/or unpleasant personalities — he just has his appearance to blame. After a while, it turns out that this is not quite true. He actually has a problem with getting close to people, and tends to push them away or act oblivious when they get too close to him.
• ...Or So I Heard: Sena about doujinshi.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Reisys V. Felicity Sumeragi (mistakenly known to some as Kobato Hasegawa, Kodaka's younger sister of three years) drinks tomato juice (and resorts only to Pepsi whenever it's unavailable), claims to be thousands of years old (though that doesn't stop her from carrying around a patchwork stuffed rabbit), and believes vampires already had an advanced magical culture while humans were still cavemen. She also claims to have a weakness to cold water — not that it stops her from doing well in swimming class (which presumably involves a lot of cold water), though, claiming she "uses a lot of magic" to adapt. And then there's those moments where her facade completely breaks and she devolves into cute little Kobato, speaking in Kyuushuu dialect and calling Kodaka "An-chan" instead of her usual "my kindred".
• Out-of-Character Moment: Kobato tries to stay in-character most of the time pretending to be a vampire, but she sometimes breaks out of it, such as when being chased by Sena or the latter asking Kobato to do stuff with her, when Kodaka makes, or promises to make, her favorite foods, and especially when she goes into Clingy Jealous Girl mode after Maria gives him The Glomp or calls him "Onii-chan" (big brother).

P - Z

• Paper Fan of Doom: Well, Yozora uses a fly swatter instead, but otherwise utilizes it for this trope, usually to smack Sena either for saying or doing something stupid.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Kodaka and Kobato's English mother Airi is dead, and their father Hayato works in America, leaving Kodaka to take care of Kobato all by himself.
  • Sena's father Tenma gives a Take That! to this trope in the anime, calling Hayato trash for doing it. Kodaka is none too pleased.
• Perpetual Frowner: Yozora. Lampshaded by Kodaka.
• Perspective Flip: The first half of Episode 12 shows the events from Kodaka's transfer until the formation of the Neighbors Club from Yozora's perspective, where it is revealed that she instantly recognized him as "Taka", but she Cannot Spit It Out because Kodaka can't recognize her in return as "Sora".
• Plagiarism in Fiction: Yozora does this in a rewrite of her screenplay for the club's movie in Episode 9 of Season 2. While Maria mentions at the end of Episode 8 that the story seems familiar, it's not until Episode 9 and after they've already shot some scenes that Kate points out to Kodaka the similarities with an obscure movie. He then checks the movie and finds out their film was a shot-for-shot remake of that obscure film. Yozora is forced to kneel while wearing a sign saying she plagiarized, and the club goes with Sena's script which she wrote as a backup just in case Yozora's script didn't work out.
• Player Killing: Sena and Yozora can't really play nice.
• Playing a Tree: Kodaka is forced to play a tree in the Neighbors Club's production of Momotaro. This is after Yozora cut out a bunch of parts to accommodate the club's small size. Somehow she overshot the mark by one, so she added a tree back in.
• Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: For much of the series, Kodaka has trouble remembering his childhood friend's name. A dream sequence has his friend mention his name, but it's inaudible.
• Potty Emergency: The end of Episode 10 has Sena coming to Kodaka and Yukimura's room and asking the former to escort her to the bathroom. He'd eventually do the same for Kobato and Maria, then kicks Rika out when it turns out she just wants to sleep with him. And when he goes out for the bathroom himself, he encounters Yozora at the doorstep.
• Power of Trust: Yozora has a hard time with this trope, because her best friend left her suddenly when they were kids after promising they'd be best friends. Though to be fair, Kodaka did want to tell her, but she never showed up on the last day he was in town. Even when playing a Dating Sim game in Episode 5 of Season 2, when she runs across an overly friendly NPC, she mutters to herself that the NPC is going to betray her. She does seem to slowly warm up to the other characters over time however.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • Rika says the F word right before the roller coaster ride goes down for the first time after climbing a long way. She then releases a rather humorous Cluster F-Bomb during the ride, while the other girls are screaming.
  • Yukimura says the F word as well in Episode 6 of Season 2 after seeing Sena in a maid outfit, and having her complain about it being too tight in the chest area. As she does so in the exact same exceedingly polite monotone she always uses, with the exact same intonation, the result is both surreal and side-burstingly hilarious.
    "Fuck. Western porn."
  • In the last episode of NEXT, in the English dub, Kodaka yells 'Fuck you' to Rika after her speech and then proceeds to break her down in less than a minute. It's a very dark scene for such a light-hearted anime.
• Pretty Butterflies: Sena's butterfly hair clip.
• Product Placement: Whenever they don't use a Bland-Name Product it's fairly obvious as this (or maybe the author just hoping to be sent one for free for his service). While many of the games like "Tokimeite Memorial Days" and so on are blanded, they explicitly play Monster Hunter and use PSPs, and one game they're talking about even gets a little out-of-panel "Out now!" Shout-Out.
• Pun: Maria is a lot younger and smaller than Kodaka, wears a habit, and calls him Big Brother. In other words, she's... his "little sister".
• Real Men Wear Pink: The reason Yozora used to convince Yukimura to dress like a maid.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Kodaka gives Sena a somewhat nasty one after he's forced to save Sena twice from some guys hitting on her. At first she's confused as to why he's upset at her, but then gets hit by a Love Epiphany when she realizes this is the first time a boy her age ever talked back to her and showed they were concerned for her well-being, compared to other guys at school who followed her around like a bunch of Yes-Man.
  • Rika gives several of these to Kodaka when the harem story starts to kick into high gear. In Episode 10 of Season 2, she flat out states all the things that she's finding with him frustrating, such as acting like he doesn't want to be alone, yet at the same time rebuffing or ignoring all of their obvious affections towards him. Kodaka, in attempting to maintain Status Quo Is God, wonders if she was talking about Kobato.
  • Rika does it again in Episode 12 of Season 2. She's finally had enough of Kodaka's antics and attacks him with some steel metal ball bearings she controls remotely. She admitted that Sena's Love Confession from Episode 11 understandably caught him off guard, but was angry at what he did next; hanging out with the student council and helping out Aoi Yusa, the girl who tried to take down the Neighbor's Club, as well as hanging out with the student council president and having a naughty misunderstanding or two with her. When he accidentally verifies the last thing, it causes Rika to toss even more ball bearings at him.
  • Yozora tells Sena "If only you didn't exist", in Episode 8 of Season 2. While it has some Yandere tendencies, she really meant that if Sena wasn't in her and Kodaka's life, they'd probably be dating already by that point. After saying it, she runs out of the room crying, and afterward Sena comments that while she may hate Yozora, its not to the extent that she wished for the latter to have never existed.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Sena is the red, Yozora is the blue. In between is Kodaka, who stands as the blue to their red.
• Red String of Fate: Invoked during the opening for the first season, and played with during the ending for the second season's ending, utilizing a Tin-Can Telephone.
• Rescue Romance: Sena's Love Epiphany towards Kodaka happens right after he saves her in Episode 3. See "The Reason You Suck" Speech above for further details.
• The Reveal: Several examples:
  • Kodaka finding out Yozora was his Childhood Friend Sora at the end of Episode 11 in Season 1.
  • The club members finding out Yukimura was really a girl at the end of Episode 4 in Season 2.
  • After Kodaka yells out her name in Episode 5 while using Rika's invention, the club members were curious about any previous relations with Yozora. In the beginning of Episode 6, Yozora doesn't deny it, and states that they did indeed play and hang out with each other when they were kids.
• Round Robin: The club members try their hands at a "relay novel". It's a train wreck.
• RPG Episode: Episodes 2 and 5 and Chapter 17 of the manga, as well as a volume in the light novel.
• The Runaway: Maria does this in Episode 3 of Season 2. Kodaka is understandably confused at first when she shows up, but when he asks her how she knew where he lived, Maria says the "old hag" (her sister, Kate) showed her where she lived. Kate constantly calls to check up on her, and after spending the night Maria goes back, largely because Kobato telling her running away the night before was childish.
• Running Gag: Yozora says or does something cruel to Sena. Sena yells childish insults back at her and runs away crying. Usually happens once an episode.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • In Episode 6 Sena tells Kodaka that her father is looking forward to meeting him. However, she tells him to keep his reason to see him a secret. Kodaka assumes it's because her father, who's in charge of their school, knew his father, and pulled some strings to get him into the school quickly. Yozora, on the other hand, assumes they're secretly dating and that meeting her father is taking it to the next step in furthering their relationship. Sena seems to enjoy letting her imagine the worst.
  • Kodaka and Sena talk about her father's misconception in Episode 9 of Season 2 that they were getting married. They agree not to tell the other girls about it since it didn't concern them. At least until Maria blurts it out, forcing both of them to come clean.
• Second Year Protagonist: The main trio — Kodaka, Yozora and Sena — complete with two underclassmen (Yukimura and Rika), a junior-high kid (Kobato), a ten-year-old advisor (Maria), and no need to worry about graduation, though no third-years of note.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • After getting bitten by Kobato, Maria fears she'll turn into a vampire. Yozora tells her if she bathes in the sun naked, she won't turn, which the girl happily does. Then one of the other nuns catches her in the act, and a few scenes later she's being punished by wearing a sign saying she did something indecent, and kneeling in front of the church hall.
  • In Episode 1 of Season 2, Yozora casually mentions having read in a magazine that "heaping" was all the rage with women's hairstyles. Rika then comments on it as well, and they both start talking about how only noble people's hair would suffice. Kodaka instantly imagines this trope, and Sena ends up believing them. They put all sorts of crazy things in her hair and raise it up and decorate it with summer-themed implements ^note think Marge Simpson meets Carmen Miranda, by Trolls Я Us, then tell her with a straight face how awesome she looks. While Sena has some trouble balancing her new hairstyle, she manages to get home with it, only to get disciplined by her father. Although Rika and Yozora apologize the next day, Sena gets upset at them.
  • Sena again falls for one of Yozora's tricks in Episode 6 of Season 2. While pretending to be a fortune teller, Yozora gives off some things that seem to connect with Sena, and she wholeheartedly agrees. She then tells the latter to do something incredibly embarrassing ^note To go on the top of the roof of her house, spin around three times while balancing a dish of water on her head naked, then scream "Sexy Beam" loud enough for others to hear.. Afterwards Sena texts Kodaka about doing it and getting punished for it, and Kodaka tells her to ''google the barnum effect.'' Sena comes back the next day incredibly upset at Yozora, but snaps out of it due to Kobato's presence in the club room.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: In Episode 11 of Season 2, when Aoi Yusa attempts to disband the Neighbor's Club, mostly because her rival Sena is in it, she attempts to use a technicality as a rule, by stating that Maria isn't actually a teacher, which Kate nonchalantly confirms. Sena then makes a phone call to her father, the Chairman of their school, and gets approval for Maria to be a part time teacher. When Aoi attempts to call Sena out on this trope, the latter simply threatens to ruin the former's reputation along with getting her expelled if she attempts to pursue the matter any further.
• Scooby Stack: One is done at the preview for episode 2 of season 2. As Yozora talks about stuff, the other members gradually peek inside the club room in this fashion.
• Serious Business:
  • Sena and her games.
  • Exchanging cell phone numbers for Kodaka and Yozora.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Kodaka's "I'm Scared of Manjuus".
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Kodaka tries to explain to Sena's father about this. Prior to the explanation, Pegasus had been telling a lot of other people that they were engaged.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Sena's father seems okay with Kodaka being with Sena. Of course, having Sena mention his name to her father constantly, Tenma seeing how happy Sena looks when he visits their house in Episode 9, Kodaka being the son of one of his friends, and being a genuinely Nice Guy helps.
  • Stella, Sena's maid, does this to him as well. In Episode 1 of Season 2, she hands him something^note a condom, and Sena seems a bit too eager to find out what she gave him, going so far as to attempt prying it out of his hand.
  • There's Stella humming "Here Comes the Bride" while going back inside the house after Kodaka leaves.
• Shout-Out: The members of the Neighbors Club may not have many friends, but the show does have many Shout-Outs.
• Show Within a Show: Two examples:
  • Iron Necromancer, the show that Kobato watches a lot, and bases much of her outfit/lifestyle on one of the characters of the show.
  • Rika in Episode 2 of Season 2 shows the Homo Game Club movie in the club room.
• Signature Headgear: Sena's butterfly hair piece. Yozora also has several ribbons tied to the ends of her hair. Kobato wears a barette as part of her Elegant Gothic Lolita clothing, and Yukimura wears a flower in his hair.
• Sitcom Archnemesis:
  • Yozora and Sena all the way.
  • Kobato and Maria, playing on their Dark vs. Light (i.e., vampire vs. nun) dichotomy.
• Slasher Smile: Kodaka's smile appears to be this to other people.
• So Bad, It's Good: Invoked In-Universe in the third Light Novel with Rika describing "St. Joe's Academy Tale" as this word for word, being a lighthearted galge notorious for plunging straight into outright nightmarish Downer Endings where both the hero and ALL his potential love interests die in the most horrifying ways should the player mess up with even a single flag.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Rika in the fourth novel.
  Rika: Oh, yeah, now Rika is supposed to behave in a more refined way. Would you care for a fuck, sempai?
• Spit Take: Rika does one in Episode 11 after Sena's Wham Line to Kodaka that they should get married anyway even disregarding the Arranged Marriage their fathers set up.
• Springtime for Hitler: Yozora's recruitment poster was meant to be unreadable, but it ended up attracting about half a dozen weirdos in no time at all. What's worse, they all seem to develop a crush on Kodaka in pretty short order, making them even stronger competition for her.
• Start My Own: Yozora forms the Neighbors club so that people without friends could learn what friends do together. Unfortunately, since Loners Are Freaks, they only get weirdos like themselves to join.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • Kodaka in season 2 seems to want this trope enforced regarding the Neighbor's Club. More specifically, he's starting to realize that several of the girls, if not all of them like him, and want a Relationship Upgrade with him. He acts Oblivious to Love largely because he suspects if he starts to date one of them, it would change the dynamics of how everyone acts in the club with each other, namely that whichever girl he picks would likely get ostracized by the other girls, and they probably wouldn't want to spend time with him or each other the way they do now. However, Rika gets increasingly flustered by his attitude towards them, and even attempts to point it out to him several times.
  • The final volume of the series ends with this. Kodaka turns down both Yukimura and, finally, Yozora, because he's not comfortable with the changes that a long-term romantic relationship with anyone would have on the rest of the Neighbor's Club. Indeed, things start at where they began: at a mystery hotpot, with the main difference that rather than an outsider, Yukimura is now considered a "friend".
• Stripperiffic: The outfit Kobato is forced to wear in the King's game during Episode 3 of Season 2 after it turns out no one has a swimsuit she has to wear.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: Yukimura gets this reaction from every other male.
• Suicide as Comedy: In Episode 7, after Yukimura lays out the food he prepared, Kodaka mentions that he already had lunch. Yukimura suspects that he's being relieved of duty, and immediately contemplates seppuku, forcing Kodaka to tell him he still needs him for other things.
• Super-Deformed: The characters at the end of the episode when they're discussing the next episode.
• Super Drowning Skills: Sena claims she cannot swim, blaming her primary school's lack of swimming lessons for it. This factors into her plea to Kodaka, who, for a harem protagonist, averts this trope by being a decent swimmer, to teach her how to swim.
• Sustained Misunderstanding: Sena's father has one when he assumes that Sena and Kodaka are dating. When he finally asks Kodaka about it upfront in Episode 9 of Season 2, the latter clears it up for him.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • After Maria runs away to Kodaka's house in Episode 3 of Season 2, her older sister Kate calls his house almost every hour. At one point Kodaka asks if she's worried about Maria, and Kate angrily denies it while hanging up. Then she calls him a few more times to check up on Maria.
  • In Episode 6 of Season 2, Sena serves Kodaka some coffee as they try out being maids for a possible maid cafe at the school festival. She seems too good at it however, and when asked about it, she claims that she learned it from Stella. Yozora gives her a Death Glare and wonders how she learned to be a maid from watching a butler. Sena then claims she doesn't go to maid cafes during the weekends before falling down, then running out of the room.
• Take That!:
  • Kodaka wears a stereotypical otaku virgin outfit with a shirt that has a Bland-Name Product version of the Mayo Chiki! logo on it.
  • During Kobato's turn at writing the relay novel, she turns Kodaka into a vampire. In the dub, he sarcastically tells her, "Ok, please don't tell me I also sparkle in the sunlight."
  • When one very unambiguous confession is made in volume 11, the story temporarily breaks to mock both people who would take pictures of the confession scene and upload it online, but also the people who only look at the isolated scene out of context and sneer at LN quality from it.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome:
  • Yozora prefers to sabotage everyone else rather than put forward any effort regarding Kodaka herself if she ever feels someone is doing or looking better than her. This frequently backfires on her. This syndrome also serves as the basis of her disdain for "popular" people, as she'd rather make death wishes to them rather than improve her own image.
  • Aoi Yusa admits this to Kodoka. She claims that her reasoning for going after Sena and the Neighbor Club was because she has all this talent but would rather waste it playing games. She confesses right after that her true motive was to bring her down a notch since she believes Sena has everything, from intelligence to good looks.
  • Sena herself is a victim of this. Not just Aoi, but the entire school resents her for being The Ace. While part of it is her being Unintentionally Unsympathetic, it's also because of her arrogant and depreciative view of people. In spite of this, she insists that people should try to work themselves up to her level rather than try to bring her down.
• The Tease: Rika can't talk without slipping a Double Entendre or saying something outright naughty.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In Episode 8, while playing one of her gal games, the scene is at the pool. Yozora mentions hating such a place, and that had she of developed the game, she would put a shark in that scene. Sena brushes her comment off, and in the very next scene after she makes a selection, a shark shows up at the pool. Sena then feels its there for the hero to take down, only to have her get eaten by the shark, and a bad end in the game. Rika mentions that this is the game she heard where you can get a bad end if you don't get the right event flags triggered. Meanwhile an angry Sena snaps the disc in half.
  • In Episode 11 of season 2, after watching Sena and Yozora both team up against Aoi's attempts to disband the Neighbor's Club, he thinks to himself that those two working together is a force to be reckoned with. Shortly afterwards however, Sena then gives him a nonchalant Love Confession, which causes him to run away from the clubroom and subsequently avoid it for the next week, which causes Yozora to leave a text saying she was going to travel around for a while.
• That Came Out Wrong: In Episode 3 of Season 2, Maria shows up at Kodaka's house. She at first tells him she's "Running a gay home", but after his understandably confused reaction, she says she's "running away from home". He too acts shocked at that.
• Theme Song Reveal: Season 2's opening credits. It lampshades the Elephant In The Room listed above.
• There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: Sena in Chapter 16.
  Sena: ...There are two types of women. Ones that I can get along with, and all the other bitches.
• Third-Person Person: Rika.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Maria finds Kodaka's jokes hilarious.
• Troll: Yozora likes to do this to Sena, usually causing the latter to run out of the room crying. But it backfires on her in Episode 7, after Sena runs back crying to Kodaka about her phone getting text-bombed (getting a ton of texts at once) by Yozora, and Kodaka seemingly getting closer to Sena when their hands seem to touch as he tries to help her with the phone.
• Tin-Can Telephone: A string-and-paper-cup version is featured prominently in the second season's ending. The string connecting the phone is red, which may symbolize the Red String of Fate.
• Tsundere:
  • Yozora and Sena display traits of this in varying degrees. Sometimes the cast will also discuss this trope or accuse a person of being one. At one point they ponder about having a "tsundere omniscient narrator". It didn't make much sense.
  • Pegasus acts tsundere-like towards Kodaka as well.
  • Rika puts this trope into use in Episode 6 of Season 2, combined with kicking him. However, she seems a bit too into it, and may also be venting frustration at Kodaka's Oblivious to Love attitude, which she's commented on in prior episodes.
• Tsurime Eyes: Sena and Yozora accuse each other of having them.
• Unreliable Narrator: Kodaka in the books, in light of something we eventually find out (see Status Quo Is God). He's not REALLY Oblivious to Love, but he narrates for us as if he were: a girl will "seem upset for some reason" instead of being jealous, for instance. It's rather unsettling to realize we weren't privy to his real thoughts at all.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal:
  • Yozora does this to Rika by revealing Yukimura's gender.
  • Mari does it to Kodaka by revealing Yukimura's real gender. Emphasis on 'unsettling' because they were in a public bath at the time.
• Unusual Euphemism: "Universe!!!" (uttered twice, once by Rika while climaxing while reading aloud her EVA x Gundam ero-doujin, and then by Sena running out of her house crying after being seen naked by Kodaka). Probably doubles as a Shout-Out to ∀ Gundam.
• Unwanted Harem: Every single main girl in the show is interested in Kodaka, although some are more explicit about it than others. This even starts to include "normal" characters as of Volumes 7 and 8.
• Verbal Tic: Kobato often begins sentences with "Kukuku," imitating the speech-pattern of a character in her favorite anime, Fullmetal Necromancer. (Also translates as Iron Necromancer.)
• Video Game Caring Potential: Sena becomes addicted to dating sims because of this, to the point of referring to the characters in them casually as if they were her actual friends.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • Played for Laughs in Chapter 4/Episode 2. While playing "Tokimeite Memorial Days", Yozora and Sena agree — for once — to court shy Yukiko Nagata, while they continue to shoot down overtures by Akari Fujibayashi, whom they deem a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing just because she's proactive, with the most cruel options. Kodaka is none too amused. Their choices come back to bite them in the ass when Video Game Cruelty Punishment kicks in and rumors that their protagonist, "Semoponume Kashiwazaki", is a He-Man Woman Hater becomes so widespread — whose spread Yozora and Sena directly attribute to Akari — Yukiko eventually shoots him down. They ultimately get a Downer Ending so depressing Sena breaks down crying, while Yozora storms out of the clubroom threatening to kill Akari.
  • While playing Monster Hunter Sena and Yozora spend most of their time griefing each other and ignoring everything else, including their mission and Kodaka.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Yozora and Sena are implied to be an extreme type, sprinkled with a little bit of "With Friends Like These...". Yozora says that nicknames are only reserved for friends, even if it's an Embarrassing Nickname such as Sena's "Meat". On Sena's side, she confides to Kodaka that she is secretly happy with that nickname, because that was the first one she received. Volume 4 of the light novel makes the subtext all the more obvious when Sena reveals that she has five pictures of Yozora, and comments that the latter, post-haircut, looks stupidly handsome on a male school uniform. And come Volume 10 they finally come out into the open and accepted each other as best friends.
  • Kobato and Maria gradually develop into this. Despite the bickering they do, they do seem to enjoy each other's company. In NEXT Episode 10, Maria seemed quite upset when one of Kobato's classmates mentioned how, despite her seemingly cold attitude towards them, Kobato is actually pretty popular. However, in the next scene, when Kobato arrives in the club room, Maria is quite happy to see her, and both of them seem to enjoy playfully mocking each other.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
  • Poor Kodaka is on the receiving end of a double helping of regurgitated yaminabe ("black hot pot," where the participants each add ingredients to the pot and eat in the dark) from Yozora and Sena in Episode 0.
  • Averted in NEXT: Yozora and Sena ride the Black Dragon eight times in Episode 4, and end up splattering themselves (and Kodaka) with sick; bonus points for the camera cutting to a Nice Boat! parody right after their regurgitated lunches splatter it.
• Walking the Earth: At the end of the anime Yozora tells the entire group that "I'm going on a journey. Please don't look for me." And the last real scenes are her walking with a bag and looking at a picture of the Neighbor's Club. Although the blink-and-you'll-miss-it expression on her face and she looks back at the very end may imply she isn't going after all. The novels then subvert it — she gets Kobato (who apparently looks up to Yozora) to help her hide out at the Hasegawa residence, where Kodaka finds her a day or so later.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 3 in the first season, when Sena first learns that she can't always talk her way out of every situation, and Kodaka is forced to rescue her twice. Its also the moment where Sena has a Love Epiphany towards him, and where she becomes a rival to Yozora for Kodaka.
  • Episode 11 of Season 1 has Kodaka finally realize that Yozora was his Childhood Friend after she cut her hair short due to the incident at the festival.
  • Episode 4 of Season 2. The club learns that Yukimura really is a girl.
  • Episode 5 of Season 2. The club learns about Kodaka and Yozora being Childhood Friends when he subconsciously calls out her name while using one of Rika's inventions.
  • Episode 9 of Season 2 has two major reveals. First, Sena's dad finds out that Kodaka and Sena aren't actually dating, and Sena and Kodaka finding out that they also were Childhood Friends, and that it predates Kodaka's friendship with Yozora. And to quell any doubts, there was also a picture of the two playing together as youngsters. They try to keep it secret, but Maria accidentally blabs about it.
  • Episode 11 of Season 2 has Sena give Kodaka a Love Confession, and says they should still get married anyway, creating a huge rift in the status quo for the club. So much so that in the next episode, he ends up not going to the clubroom the following week, causing the other members to gradually to go off in various directions.
• Wham Line: A few examples from Season 2:
  • Kodaka's father says one to Kodaka over the phone at the end of Episode 3 in Season 2. He asks Kodaka if he's going to marry Sena, his best friend's daughter.
  • At the end of Episode 5, Sena asks him about going back ten years, and why Yozora was in it. She asked this because of Rika's time machine which turned out to be a dream machine that lets the user dream about any scenario they wish, and he imagined going back to the last time he met Sora. Kodaka probably blurted her name out while he was using the machine.
  • Sena telling Yozora that her Childhood Friend past with Kodaka doesn't matter anymore in Episode 8 of Season 2. She hits Yozora's Berserk Button pretty hard with that line.
  • Maria says one in Episode 9 of Season 2 when she innocently talks about Kodaka and Sena getting married.
  • Sena delivers a whopper in Episode 11 of season 2 when she nonchalantly tells Kodaka that they should get married anyway, because even disregarding their father's Arranged Marriage they set up, she loves him. It shocks everyone in the room, Kodaka most of all.
  • A lighter one compared to the others, but Maria gets one when, while taking a bath with Yukimura and Kodaka, asks Kodaka why he has a penis and Yukimura doesn't.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Kodaka's "ability/spell" in Episode 5, which doesn't do anything even when he uses it.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: The basic enemies the club encounters in Episode 5's MMORPG are derived from a fish species that Kodaka mentions is quite tasty. He wonders if they truly have to kill these things, and that its not like they asked to be born/created this way. The girls hesitate momentarily, then they go all out and attack the creatures. Yozora says that she understands what he was trying to say, and that they'll live on in them, in the form of experience points. Made more hilarious by the fact that the creatures haven't been programmed with attacks yet, so they all get mercilessly slaughtered by the party, much to Kodaka's lament.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Rika attacks Kodaka in Episode 12, Season 2 using steel ball bearings partly due to frustration at his Oblivious to Love attutide he's been showing the girls, and partly because of what he did in the club room and was doing in the first half of Episode 12^note He ran away when Sena gave a Love Confession to him, then spent the following week helping out the girls of the student council.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Yukimura. Subverted; "he" is somehow convinced that she's a boy and doesn't actually realize that she's female.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Sena's father has a seemingly normal name (天馬, usually read as Tenma, "ten" as in sky and "ma" as in horse) except that in this case it's because that's the literal translation into Japanese. The correct reading in its original English is "Pegasus", and he does not like being called like that.
• Wise Beyond Their Years:
  • Averted by Maria, who's only educated beyond her years. She knows the contents of a high school textbook and is a teacher, but in every other respect she looks, acts, and is as intelligent as the 10-year-old child she is.
  • Turns out her education completely and totally skipped sex-ed, as she apparently doesn't even know what a penis is until Rika ^note  who apparently got her own sex education from yaoi doujinshis and actually believes that men have something called a "yaoi hole" explains how sex works to her. Plausible, given her education by what's apparently a fairly strict and uptight sect of Christianity/Catholicism (or the Japanese version of it anyway).
    • In one of the episode previews, she starts talking about how she knows about a lot of adult things like sex. She is interrupted by Kobato, but she finishes talking about sex anyways - according to her, it's when you get into a bed with a guy you like and...count the stains on the ceiling.
• Yaoi Fangirl/Yuri Fan: Rika mostly subscribes to the former, but can also swing to the latter, as evidenced by her writing a Les Yay doujin starring her and Yozora.
• You Won't Like How I Taste: When Maria enters the club room in Episode 9, she bumps into Yozora, who's wearing a horse head mask. She freaks out when she sees it, then Yozora jokingly says she's going to eat the girl. Maria claims she won't taste good and has been eating vegetables, but Yozora says she doesn't mind, and says she's a vegetarian.

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