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[iyun_sobold]

You know one of these days I'll write an essay that isn't about my character's thoughts on romance.

Today's not that day. There are some quasi-spoilers (?) in here, but Furuba's been over for a while, so just read at your own risk.

Comments

My thoughts. Let me show you them

[but_a_wolf]

Alright, we obviously have completely different views on Kakeru as a character. So I'm just going to focus on the canon bits.

I don't think canon ever states that Kakeru was distant to Komaki, they were already together before the accident, and Kakeru was pretty much already Kakeru by then, I do agree that after the confrontation with Tohru he would have tried to understand Komaki better, but I don't understand what makes you think that their dynamic is solely based on that incident.

I see where you're coming from re: Kakeru and love and Kakeru and romanticism. But canon states that Kakeru loves Komaki, and here it seems you are disregarding that altogether. I think it's important to keep in mind that Furuba is shoujo, and as such when a character uses the word love, most likely than not, they mean it. I don't understand how or why Kakeru would tie rebellion with a girlfriend. Or why liking porn and romanticism would negate one another.

Also, iirc Kakeru feels guilty about not having helped Machi. But at the time he couldn't do

[iyun_sobold]

Er . . . I think I wasn't quite clear and coherent when I wrote this, so let me try to clarify. (My apologies for that, by the way, I tend to kind of . . . ramble when I talk characters/essay)

I'm . . . not saying Kakeru was distant to Komaki, I guess. I'm saying that he was with her for immature reasons. You can not like a person and insanely awesomely nice to them! I'm pretty sure Kakeru treated Komaki as a friend which, for Kakeru, is pretty awesome treatment to receive! But I'm trying to say that the reason he hooked up with Komaki in the first place was probably egotism and a good feeling of "hey, this girl likes me." Rebellion and "hey, I can have a girlfriend now! Cool!" more than "Oh man, I really love this girl." Because he's . . . what? Probably 14? 15? Maybe 16? At that point in time? I don't think there are many 14-15 year olds out there who date people for the right reasons (ie: being in love with someone) Was there no attraction between Kakeru and Komaki initially? No, I'm not saying that. I'm just

[but_a_wolf]

Okay, most of your ideas re: Kakeru/Komaki fall into the grounds of character interpretation, so I'll leave that at that. But teenagers tend not to function like normal teenagers in shoujo manga, I think the closest we have to normal teenage reactions in Furuba is Kyou, and that's saying something. I'm not saying that the character should be disregarded in favor of the canon genre, but the canon genre is part of the character. And as such, if the canon says A loves B, I think it's a disservice to both character and canon to disregard it.

I'm skeptical of what canon says at times. Just because someone says "Oh, X loves Y" doesn't initially lead me to buy it

We have completely different approaches on this, when canon tells me "X loves Y" I try to make sense of it, an example would be Shigure/Akito which caught me completely out of left field. Instead of questioning the canon, I tried to make sense of it. And it does make sense! And I love the ship now, but I digress. I don't remember if Kakeru states it outright, but I think it's

[errant_swallow]

First off, no need to apologize for Shigure. He's an asshole and it's what he does! ♥ It has kind of put Kakeru into a strange place because a) he's been reminded of Komaki a bit more forcibly and b) the one adult he thought was really COOL and FUN has kind of turned out to more or less like his dad back home, trying to tell him what to do, but that's another thing.

I guess. Mmm. I dunno. I don't see Kakeru's growth initially as being quite so "forcing himself to grow up." It's more he's been told what to do all the time by his parents so he's finally just fed up with it and wants to do what he wants to do. Which just strikes me as kind of selfish. Not necessarily a bad kind of selfish, but selfish nonetheless