⋆ xeno ⋆

marin kitagawa isn't written to be an object. she's radiant because she's free. she loves cute things, sexy outfits, anime, games, and she doesn't apologize for any of it. she's a teenage girl exploring identity and expression in a world that constantly tells girls to be less. she isn't ashamed of her interests or her sexuality, and that's what makes her powerful. her confidence isn't fanservice, it's liberation.

and gojo? he's the quiet heart of the show. the way he blushes, the way he trembles, the way he treats marin with such gentle care, it's real and he's not used to someone seeing him and calling what he loves beautiful. his awkwardness and his nervousness, it's not played for laughs. it's honesty. it's what growing up feels like when you've never felt enough.

the "fanservice" moments in the anime aren't meaningless. they're filled with nervous breaths, quick heartbeats, the raw feeling of being a teenager who doesn't quite know what to do with all this emotion and desire. the camera doesn't leer, it lingers, softly. it captures that fragile mix of admiration and confusion that comes with realizing you care about someone.

and that's what makes my dress-up darling special. it's about intimacy without shame. it's about expression without fear. it's about two people discovering themselves through each other, in a way that feels natural and sincere.

beneath the bright colors and pretty clothes, it's a story about connection, the kind that makes you feel seen, even in your most awkward and vulnerable moments.

denji's obsession with sex isn't because he's some over the top perv. it's because he's desperate for connection, and sex is the only form of "love" he's ever been told exists. he equates being wanted physically with being wanted emotionally, and that's heartbreaking. the world around him just keeps proving that people don't care about him, they want his body, his power, or what he can do for them. and he keeps chasing the idea that maybe if he gives enough, if he's wanted enough, someone might finally love him back.

chainsaw man uses lust as a way to show how hollow and painful that kind of search for meaning can be. it's not about desire, it's about loneliness. it’s about how trauma warps the way you see love until you can't tell the difference between affection and exploitation. denji isn't horny because he's free, he's horny because he's empty.

yes, she grooms shinji. yes, it's messed up. eva wants you to feel disturbed by that. but flattening her entire character into "pedophile" misses what's actually going on with her writing.

misato is written as hypersexual, but not in a way that's empowering. it's survival. it's her crutch. she uses sex and flirtation as coping mechanisms, the only way she knows how to build intimacy after a life defined by abandonment, second impact trauma, and the death of her father. her relationships (with kaji, with shinji, even her casual joking) show how she's stuck in this loop where she equates intimacy with sex, because genuine vulnerability feels impossible.

her "hypersexuality" isn't meant to be titillating, it's meant to be tragic. it's messy, it's inappropriate, it's self-destructive. eva keeps showing us how she drinks too much, pushes boundaries too far, hides behind seduction instead of honesty. and when she offers herself to shinji, it's not some secret truth of "oh she’s a pedophile," it's a breakdown of everything she's been holding in. her fear of dying, her terror of being alone, her inability to connect in any way that isn't sexual.

that's why her character is important. she embodies adulthood in eva's world. not wise or put-together, but broken people dragging their baggage into every relationship. misato hurts shinji, but not because she's only predatory, it's because she's caught in the same cycles of trauma he is.

and what makes it so tragic is the timing. for once, asuka finds that fire again, that will to live. she says she doesn't want to die, she digs deeper than ever before, and she unleashes everything she has in this final stand. and then, despite her strength, despite her determination, she's consumed anyway. it's not just cruel, it's poetic in the way evangelion so often is: showing us the fragility of human will when faced with forces too vast and indifferent to care.

and the show doesn't treat that lightly. it shows how exhausting it is for her to hold herself together, how fragile that confidence really is, and how devastating it is when she starts to lose her place as "the best." you watch her spiral not because she's weak, but because she's human desperately trying to live up to an impossible image she built to protect herself.

asuka's anger, pride, and cruelty are just as real as her loneliness, vulnerability, and need for love. she's not easy to love, but that's what makes her so painfully real. eva doesn't give you the comfort of one-dimensional archetypes; it gives you a girl who's fifteen, traumatized, brilliant, and self-destructive, all at once.

mutsuki was abused growing up physically, emotionally, and sexually. he was never taught what real love or affection looks like. so when haise showed him any kindness, he latched onto it and convinced himself haise loved him romantically. that's why he misinterpreted things like haise accidentally walking in on him naked. in mutsuki's mind, that meant haise wanted him too.

when haise left, mutsuki felt betrayed not just as a friend or teammate, but as someone he thought he was in love with. he spiraled. he thought haise had "abandoned" him, just like everyone else who had ever used him or claimed to love him.

so in chapter 114, when he attacks uta (thinking it's haise), he's not trying to rape him. he's trying to prove he's desirable. he takes off his shirt, arches his chest, because that's what every other man in his life wanted from him. he thinks that's how you get someone back. he doesn't touch uta in a sexual way, only hugs the body and confesses he loves him. it's messed up, but it's not rape.