I feel like the only person who likes the main character.
I'm with you, insofar as I can totally empathize with what he's going through. I've done the my-world-has-crumbled thing to varying degrees on more than one occasion. I don't think I manged to be quite as...socially tolerable as Kazyua's being, at the time.
As others have said, the show doesn't quite give this the focus it deserves, so it diminishes the impact that his realistic weakness and sorrow might otherwise have. Which is a shame. Not just because it's something we don't see much of, in anime (especially not in non-"serious" anime, perhaps for obvious reasons), but because it undercuts the depth of Kazuya's character. Because we don't see the story through the lens of his pain, we just see the
signs of his pain as outsiders. Which, as I'm sure literally everyone in my life will attest, gets old. And, outside of his sadness, he's just sort of...y'know, some dude.
It's why I'm fairly neutral (in a good way) on him: I think his unique points balance out his generic points.
I think the show is doing a good job of balancing how unhappy Kazuya is with the rest of the people around him who are all very cherry.
I know this is a typo, but given the emphasis placed on Kazuya's virginity, I found this a particularly funny--and, frankly, ironic--typo.
So I've spent the last like....20-30 minutes going back through and analyzing the hotness of these girls.
This is just...
Hang on I'm trying to find an applause gif that's not political or full of trash celebrities. This is...harder than I would have tho--wait, here's one:
Elizabethan peasants. Nice and neutral.
But, yeah!
That, my dear Crafty, is some stellar analysis. I knew the first shot of Chizuru in the series had been specially crafted to make her seem as stunning as possible without relying on the special effects that shows typically use to
tell us the girl is beautiful. But now we know why it's stayed that way. (Though, honestly, I think freckles girl is pretty cute, in her own right. If, y'know, there's ever a moment where I'd notice she's around.)
+50 interregnum points.
Speaking of the main girls being made to stand out, I'm now reconsidering the outfit Mami wore in Ep. 2, and whether the outfit was designed to flatter and accentuate her physical features, like a girl might do in real life.
I mean, her clothes immediately reminded me of the classic Oktoberfest beer wench (yes, the google machine told me it's called a
dirndl, but "beer wench" sound sexier), which, certainly in modern times, is a look that draws attention to the bust while also emphasizing the hourglass figure with its cinching at the waist and flare of the skirt. I mean, clearly Mami's got a rockin' bod, but did the outfit work to accentuate what was there, rather than having her deliberately drawn as super-curvy?
I can't say I've noticed stuff like this is many other shows (but i'm sure they're all doing it, to some degree), I've just never been paying attention until now.
Actually, I wonder how true that is. Like, I wonder how frequently anime uses these kinds of tactics to draw the eye or affect our feelings about a character. I mean, we certainly get characters who are meant to look generic because they don't matter as much, but I don't know that they're drawn to look less significant so much as not given as many special details as the major characters. Like, if you gave Throwaway Student #3 a fancier coat to wear, he'd certainly pass as a rival love interest, no?
I probably didn't express any of those last points that very well, but...that's my rumination on the matter.
