Sunflower Hearted

You,

I think it’s easy to forget or disregard Kaede’s character flaws and think of her as a fully developed character (and therefore boring, as she has no potential for growth) because, after chapter one, we are playing from the perspective of Shuichi who very much idolizes Kaede.

Shuichi says at the end of chapter 1 that Kaede killed Rantaro because she was selfless, because she cared more about the group than herself. This is neither entirely correct or entirely incorrect. Based on Kaede’s thought process and actions I think it’s more likely that she backed herself into a corner with her own stubbornness and self reliance. Where Shuichi is quick to depend on others, Kaede regards herself as a leader (“the protagonist”) and thus pressured herself into drastic action. This isn’t to say she doesn’t care for the others, simply that her motivation wasn’t entirely selfless.

And I think this is something the narrative actually addresses pretty well in the short time that we get to see Kaede as a character. Shuichi has his own personal view of Kaede but the game has no fears of contradicting that view to highlight that the way he sees things isn’t necessarily the truth. Which plays well into the over all theme of truth versus lies.

@dreamtofbluebirds

I have a lot of questions about the ending in general and I’m still wishing for some sort of follow up. Either in the form of some sort of spin off game or another anime or a light novel

And honestly I get that the ending isn’t supposed to be hope or despair but that doesn’t really excuse the big gaping plot holes imo. There’s a lot that’s not explained.

I liked that she was different from the other protags, not unflawed; but different

Both Hinata and Matoko had some serious self esteem issues which Shuichi fits into. Kaede almost had the opposite problem, she was stubborn and kinda bossy and her pushing too hard actually caused friction in the group

It would have been great to see her start at that point and gradually learn to depend on others and not take the burden all on herself, to listen and be more compromising

I’m not necessarily saying it would have been better for Shuichi to have died because I think he served as a good foil and they’re both more interesting in contrast to each other

But the idea that Kaede’s encouragement could cause him to take drastic enough action to actually kill Rantaro would have been an interesting way to go about it

As well as spur on Kaede’s eventual growth. They could have even kept the protag twist by having you start as Shuichi.

-info dumps

-physically incapable of bringing up her hyperfixation every 5 minutes

-executive dysfunction

-see button, push button

-bad at personal boundaries

-empathetic but has a hard time reading/perceiving emotions

-first instinct in any situation is to touch everything