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Horikita, to Ryuuen, Y2V6

Artfight attack for @onionarchives

As an example, I’m going to talk about Hiyori who is set to begin dating Kiyotaka next novel. My problem is not inherently that dating Kiyotaka is bad (although that IS a problem. Kiyotaka was an awful person in his previous relationship), it’s moreso that Hiyori hardly exists as a character outside of her relationship with Kiyotaka. With an ensemble cast we often get backstories or characters having their own moments to shine without this being somehow related to Kiyotaka, but Hiyori has barely any plot significance and we never get to see her be useful in the main class conflict aside from “she is one of the smart people in Ryuuen’s class.” On top of that, her story thus far has entirely been in regards to her friendship with Kiyotaka, and they bond over both liking books. It is very heavily implied in the text that Hiyori has no friends outside of Kiyotaka, which makes it so that her entire character revolves around him and she does not have any existence in the story outside of this relationship to him. I didn’t have this problem with Kei because she had a ton of depth put into her character and her motivations before she started dating Kiyotaka, but this time that simply isn’t there. Kiyotaka spends two novels thinking about Hiyori like, “I think I actually have a crush, this feeling is different” while not actually doing anything to explore the traits about her that he finds likeable. There’s no “why,” because Hiyori is only a character that exists for him. Also the ship is boring as hell. Do you really think he’s going to be healthy this time in the way that he views a romantic relationship? Just cause there’s feelings at play this time doesn’t erase what he did in the past to everyone else. He was also good friends with Horikita and then he purposefully went out of his way to end their friendship in a way that would be the most harmful for her—leaving without warning to essentially tell her that she never mattered to begin with. Even though she gave him the experience of smiling without forcing it. He broke up with Kei after months of letting Ichinose get closer and closer to him in ways that constitute as cheating. Honestly I don’t really care about Sakura getting expelled but he was easily willing to get rid of one of his friends in a group that filled a similar position as Hiyori. Why is Hiyori different? There is no reason given. She just is, because she has to be.