#rivalry trope

just watched episode 1 and 2 of love through a prism.

it’s been a while since an anime really grabbed me like this.

i love the art style, the way art itself is depicted, the characters are immediately endearing, and i’m weak for the rivalry trope, especially broody guy x studious girlie.

for now, i’m genuinely enjoying myself, but i can already feel that little voice in my head going “oh no, historical setting detected, i’m going to overthink everything.” more on that in another post.

Keep your friends close but enemies closer.

If your rival is your enemy, you’re suppose to keep them the closest to you, which is exactly what you want because you have an underlying crush on them.

the romanticised london of the early 1900s, completely detached from colonial reality, felt… unsettling. yes, anglo-japanese relations at the time were pragmatic and strategic rather than openly hostile, but still, presenting england as a purely enlightened cultural heaven while it was colonising half the world is a choice.

the bicycle scene especially annoyed me. england being framed as “more evolved” because women could ride bikes freely, while japan supposedly couldn’t, felt very white-colonial in tone. historically, yes, cycling became common earlier in england, including for women, while in japan it was rarer, expensive, and often socially frowned upon for women until later. but calling that “progress” while ignoring imperial violence is… meh.

same with the pants discourse. trousers were already standard for men in england, while women wearing them was rare and controversial, and japanese men were also increasingly adopting western trousers as part of modernisation. framing pants as inherently masculine and modern just reinforces a very eurocentric idea of progress.