rpg enjoyer

Not that their arcs are complete 1-to-1 duplicates at all, but they do both end up hurt by hibiki and have to turn around and forgive him by the end. But when hibiki hurts mirei, it's something that really reaches down vitally into her character. Her idol persona and her perfectionism are both her largest pillars of her personal sense of identity and hibiki breaks them both down, and then she quits. she runs away because she doesn't feel like she belongs anymore. hibiki took that away from her. just like how fuwari quits and runs away when hibiki "takes away" her own fantasy of being a princess to a lovely prince. but I talk more about the fantasy that hibiki took from mirei in my mirei/hibiki perfectionism parallels post, so go read that one too because as you can tell, i love everything that went on between hibiki and mirei in season 2. 

But back to the topic at hand, when fuwari quits she genuinely straight up leaves. bye bye white girl. there's not much laala and crew can do for her (and they do try) when she's straight up on a train, and everyone knows that the main reason she's even in japan is for hibiki, so it makes sense that feeling betrayed by hibiki is enough reason to leave. meanwhile, with mirei, she can't run away to that extent, and we know that she's been an established idol and character loooong before hibiki was ever around, so there's a more active and hands-on effort to bring her back from this broken state. it makes sense that since the running away (specifically from hibiki hurt) is such a large plotpoint for the season's themes, that the bringing back of the person who runs away should also be highlighted in a major way instead of just her being out in some mountains, right? and then it's worked out SO well. the bringing back of mirei ties into everything perfectly. you can't have the show without what happens with underpara and mirei and gaaruru.  mirei is such a vital driving point of the season 2 plot that I simply don't see with fuwari. not that this is supposed to be a fuwari hit piece, but that she's more explicitly presented as the one who forgave hibiki The Most, so it's easy and effective to contrast their story beats together (and illustrate why i personally see mirei as being the one who forgave hibiki "the most"). at the same time, it's easy to see how fuwari would want to come back to hibiki even without such a large emphasis on her recovery process, which brings me to the next point.

i appreciate so much that mirei has no reason to forgive hibiki. fuwari has all the reason to forgive hibiki because he's the person who showed the world of idols to her in the first place. He gave her the fantasy she wants to protect in the first place. she's clearly in love with the guy too, and when you're in love with someone, you want to find a way to forgive them when they've hurt you. And I'm sure that this makes fuwari's arc more relatable to people who experience that, since i've very much seen people in my real life forgive exes for things i would think are grounds to cut someone off for, and then everything works out fine!! but unfortunately i'm arospec so this does nothing for me, which is why i say that mirei's arc simply hits harder for me personally. I never have a natural internal pull to forgive someone due to feelings of a love that i lost or anything. it's always an active effort based on morals, just like with mirei. again, hibiki absolutely ruined her for a hot second and made her want to throw everything away (which is the closest a kids show can get to making a character suicidal, and i do think that both mirei and hibiki represent suicidality at their lowest points), and it's so easy to then look at the person who hurt you fall into despair and think 'haha lol he deserves all that and more.' but she knows she can't ruin the get well soon party. she knows that even though hibiki has hurt her deeply, that doesn't mean that hibiki needs to burn in hell forever. she has to forgive him and coexist with him in the future even if she never really liked him and doesn't plan to like him any time soon simply because she knows they're both human, and 2 wrongs don't make a right.