Disliked.
As someone previously mentionned, there's the part in the beggining where Hori is angry at Miyamura 'cause he's ''popular'' because of the way she arranged his hair. So, yeah, logically speaking, she has no reason to be angry at him. I do get that emotions are high though, but she still reacts too harshly.
Then, there's the whole 'kink' thing. I do understand that it's ''the opposite of what Miyamura is like, so Hori likes that'', but hitting people? Watching the sub, and understanding a bit of Japanese, I get that he's rude to het, just not at all to the same extent the swearing in the subs would bring us to believe. So when he actually hits her, it came out of nowhere. Not at all happy about it.
Just gonna go in depths.
Yeah, I'm writing paragraphs about it, because it's not something that I think should be popularized. If you just go through the other (5) pages of comments for this episode, you'll see that whilst there are quite a few that share my opinion, there seem to be more that like the situation. And, given how (maybe) realistic this series has been up to this point, it's certainly to be expected that some people take the 'lessons' this anime spouts to heart, and try to apply them IRL. Of which, I had no problem, until the kink part; don't just hit someone out of nowhere. Don't insist if they don't want to, either.
Then, yeah, it's treated as comedy, but you know what? That's worse than if it wasn't. Being able to laugh at it => it's funny => people are going to recreate it/want to see it more often. I myself don't find it funny in the least (the concept, last episode, was fine, but this episode really wasn't). I saw some people in this section mention comparisons of when a female character hits a male character for comedic relief. To clarify, what's your point? That because it's fine in that setting, that it's fine here? Because they seem to be expressed as ''I don't like it in that setting, which is why it's good here'', which makes no sense. I, for one, don't care much about the 'female hitting male for comic relief' trope, not sure why, but I do agree that in underserved situtation, it shouldn't exist. Which seems to be people's consensus. So, why is it fine to do the opposite here, if you don't like that?
Then, for that person saying that the guy who, after Miya hit Hori the first time, respected Miya more is the one who's truly a bad person, might I add that I'm not saying that Hori is a bad person? I'm saying that it shouldn't be written in, and I see no societal positive (not that it has to, but when it can't be interpreted in a good way for a SOL Romance manga/anime, it really stands out from the rest of what's being presented). Yes, I agree that that guy's POV isn't good, but 1) If the intent was to show Miya as strong after hitting her, then that's the author's fault 2) If the intent was that 'this is what a delinquent would think', then I blame only the act itself (of hitting).
Not that I care much character-wise, but I will agree with previous responses, that it's toxic because Miya clearly doesn't like to do it. We see that he cried right after he hit her after he recovered his phone, after all.
Finally on this point, it's actually dangerous. You see, when Miya hits her, that while she doesn't seem hurt, she did stumble a bit. Inflicting pain is one thing, but inflicting visible pain in a way that the action can result in more pain than expected (say Hori fell on the ground here; it'd be face first. Can't expect that not to hurt. Or say Miya's hit isn't completely accurate (which would make sense, since Hori is moving), it could hit a nose or an eye, and that's no fun) is no good.
Then, you've got the bully part. I'm perfectly fine with what was shown. I don't know who's who (we saw 6 or so scenes with green-haired characters in this episode, and I know at least 2 have different names, and are new characters), and I don't really care about any of them yet, nor do I know what they did to Miyamura when he was young (other than the rabbit part. That's sad, but felt more like a young kid trying to get out of trouble, than purposefully being rude to Miya, so not something I think can't be fixed present-day), so I'm fine with what's shown. The interesting choice in visuals were fine, too.
But this episode felt more broken down/the parts that were playing didn't seem as connected (for one, I wasn't sure what was supposed to be a flashback, other than the rabbit thing), so I think I missed some story beats.
Oh, and to whomever wants to say that X anime I like is worst. I'm writting all this based on what this show is. If you find an anime I like with a comparative situation, where it's the same genres (approx) and intent (so not something like NHK), and it's actually trying to be realisitc, then please do feel free to compare them, and bring it to my attention. |