she’s such an incredible friend ! present, perceptive, deeply invested in the people she loves. but what i appreciated the most is that, unlike in so many stories where the “best friend” is just a plot device, we actually get to explore her emotions.

her loneliness. the way she feels like she can’t be loved beyond her looks. how she craves a real, meaningful connection but somehow never quite finds it.

to me, she’s the most interesting, the most mature, and also one of the most emotionally complex characters in the series.

i’m not fully convinced by her romance with Kento Miura though. it kind of bothered me that after having a crush on sawako, he ends up falling for one of her friends… i don’t know, i wish there had been a different direction there.

i’ve heard that Pin is also a love interest for her in the manga, so i’m curious to see how that plays out. but honestly, what i loved the most in the anime wasn’t her romance, it was her as a character, her arc, her inner world.

i didn’t expect to get this invested in them, but here we are. the way ryu shows up, steady and understated, and chizuru slowly lets her guard down… it was simple but so effective.