nelliecatalina said:Why do you give such importance to a character who has only made one contribution? And not even one complete, but half. Her only function was to be a way to force Chinatsu into the competition, but it seems that you watch the anime halfway since Tatara and Chinatsu had already met previously and that they ended up as a couple was a matter of time, since both are in the same school and the same class, they knew each other and it's Tatara who really needed to take place in the competition. It seems that you have completely forgotten the reason behind this arc and the whole anime, and it doesn't surprise me, since you give a lot of prominence to an unnecessary character.
And of course it's a support character, one with less importance and relevance, because even these have ways to participate in the story. In the case of Akira, it has only been introduced to know about Chinatsu, not in a natural way but perceptively, which is a mistake right now because we hardly know who Chinatsu really is, what we know about her is minimal, and now the only thing they do is put in front of us a character with an obvious obsession for her, to describe to us how perfect she is? This is not how it works, in the end it does the same as any love interest in a harem anime, making the character look cool. We don't need to see Chinatsu as someone cool, we need her as a character, with vision and personality. That's why Akira doesn't work, she's only being used for the story to make Chinatsu great, what means she has not any other purpose here.
Akira is not even the reason why Chinatsu danced before, it was always Akira following Chinatsu
I can at least give you props for being so passionately against a character lol.
Anyways, not sure where you deduced that "I only watched the anime halfway," but it also seems you're doing what you claim I'm doing. Like a horse pulling a carriage, you seem to be wearing blinders due to your distaste for Akira.
Chinatsu was never the one who wanted to do any competitions, it was Tatara. He's our MC, after all.
Chinatsu, if anything, was haphazardly inserted into the story so that Tatara could have a partner for dance. They had met previously, yes, but Chinatsu had no plan to continue dancing, no plans to enter competitively, and Tatara at the state he was in at the time would not have been able to push her into dancing with him. It's the main thing right now in this arc. Tatara doesn't exert himself, so how could he have ever pushed Chinatsu, a stubborn, prideful woman, into dancing with him? The answer: it wouldn't have been able to happen.
What I'm doing here is analyzing the characters, looking at their personality and their motives, their body language and their method of speaking. Using that, anybody can tell that Chinatsu would not have teamed up with Tatara had her rivalry with Akira not sparked it.
But I do agree that Akira AND Chinatsu were both introduced in a rather sloppy way, since the coincidences are just a bit too much to really be considered realistic.
Also I'm not sure how you got that the flashback was to show how great Chinatsu was, because I certainly didn't feel that way.
What the flashback did was explain to us why Akira feels the way she does towards Chinatsu. To her, Chinatsu was a sort of "symbol" of independence and, well, self-love, in a way.
With the flashback, we can see that yes, Chinatsu is a prideful, honest person, but she's also self-absorbed, selfish, and impulsive. "Perfect" is not synonymous with any of those three adjectives, as far as I'm aware. It showed us the flaws Chinatsu has that made Akira give us that gross face at the end of the episode. So I'm not exactly sure where you're getting that "The flashback was meant to make Chinatsu look cool."
Also, I'm pretty sure that in this very episode we saw that Chinatsu prompted to Akira "I want to share a hobby with you." And yeah, Akira followed her around, but again, as we've seen with the current Chinatsu and after analyzing her personality, she needs to be pushed in order to pursue what she wants to do. Without Akira, she wouldn't have gotten into dance because she never would have gotten the push, the motivation. I have a brother who's like this—he won't do anything he really wants to do unless somebody goes with him, unless somebody is there to push him to do what he wants to do.
since this one is not even good at dancing, even in the anime they share this detail. So what's left for Akira?
> It only serves to give Chinatsu a false motivation. A one she doesn't need because Tatara already knew her.
"False" how? If you can explain to me how Chinatsu would have eventually become Tatara with her stubborn, prideful attitude, without Akira, then please do tell me.
> Akira never encouraged Chinatsu to dance, they only shared a common sport as any other child.
Shot to the dance studio.
It's quite clear that Chinatsu hadn't danced before, if she was suggesting sharing a hobby with Akira. I motion back to my point above that Chinatsu is the type of character who needs a push to do what she wants.
She may have had an interest in it before, but let's look a this screenshot:
Look at Chinatsu.
Her shoulders are hunched forwards, her gaze is fixed on the people around her, not in front of her, and she's slouched. This is a natural, physical reaction somebody takes when they're uncomfortable or insecure about something. It's a response to uncertainty and unease.
If Chinatsu had been dancing before she met Akira, then her pose wouldn't be as such. It'd be more similar to Shizuku when we first meet her in the dance studio:
Her shoulders are back and relaxed, her neck and back are both straight. This is a pose that one takes when they're comfortable in a setting, and confident.
> The motivation behind to win this contest is not Chinatsu, it is Tatara, the protagonist.
I'm... not quite sure what you mean by this. Going off how it sounds, you're suggesting Chinatsu's also only a plot device so that Tatara can become better, or something.
The motivation behind this contest is not one character or the other, it's for both. Chinatsu is also receiving a lot of character development in this arc, as we can see that she's finally lowering her stubborn wall in order to try to understand Tatara a little better as well as accept that she can't do everything by herself, and Tatara is also becoming more assertive, pushing himself to show himself in the dance, not just use himself as a pedestal to put the partner on display.
The motivation behind this contest is for them to be able to continue dancing together.
> Akira is not even a good dancer or someone stable, so she will disappear or make cameos in the following arcs. Why should we care about her?
In short, she is somewhat of a plot device. However, going off all my arguments, it's quite clear that she's a necessary ingredient in order to help form a stronger character within Chinatsu. Without her, it's like forgetting to add yeast to a bread mix.
Not to mention that making Akira obsessed over Chinatsu is not cool at all, it's very foolish to apply for someone of her age. Being fat is not a psychological problem, what Akira does because she simply can't overcome the fact that Chinatsu has never seen her as an equal or as a love interest. She's immature, she's an uni-dimensional character that lacks deep and makes Chinatsu looks like a goddess we really don't care about since she doesn't have an stable personality to this point. Ironically, Akira makes Chinatsu looks worse in every sense.
There's no question here, Akira is a bland lesbian who can't overcome a failure romance and it makes Chinatsu looks like a brainless character who doesn't care about her friends or any other kind of partnership, which is worse for her. That's all.
"Very foolish to apply for someone of her age"
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. Do you mean that it's foolish for her to apply to contests? Or do you mean that it's foolish to look up to somebody of her same age? Or to have somebody be obsessed at her age? If it's the latter, I assure you that there are various teenagers who're unhealthily obsessed with one thing or another so... I'm not sure what you're getting at. It's completely realistic.
But anyways, being fat isn't a psychological problem, no, but being bullied because of your weight constantly can lead to them, and to anybody at a young, easily-influenced age, when somebody stands up for you after constantly being bullied, it'll mean a lot. Again, it's a very realistic thing.
When somebody's down or depressed, what many people want is somebody to reach out for them, no matter how much they say "it's okay." So when somebody finally does reach out and help them, it's a huge sigh of relief. Not everyone's like this, no, but Akira is this type of person.
Akira's point isn't here to make Chinatsu look like a goddess who's perfect in every way.
She's here to tell us that Chinatsu is just as human as everybody else, that she has her flaws and needs to also grow up, (which, she is, seeing her development after teaming up with Tatara).
"There's no question here" that Akira serves as a factor to show the audience who Chinatsu really was in the past, explaining why their rivalry exists in the first place, and also gives us a glimpse of how Chinatsu was in her past. It shows us she's a prideful, self-centered brat who needs to get off her pedestal in order to be able grow as a character.
That said, we wouldn't have seen this flashback if Akira, herself, wasn't about to receive some sort of development. |