[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

It seems to me that the common thread is this: anytime the story makes romantic allusions about Kirino and Kyousuke's growing relationship, people get offended/uptight. The two main reasons I've surmised after reading this thread are: a) people don't want to admit that this theme has always been present as an undercurrent in the story, and b) people don't find Kirino "worthy" because of the "abusive" way she treats Kyousuke.

Does the story want to take that concept seriously, or is it going to play it for laughs? Both are valid options and if you're careful you can do both, but frequently a show will try both too much and fail at both.

Annoying characters don't have to be bad characters, but if their growth as a character hasn't really gone anywhere, then that makes the show more boring. I mean surely, anyone could extrapolate why Kiirino acts the way she is. However, you can't just leave it all up to the audience to fill in the blanks. It can be considered a slightly unfair assessment since it's not over yet, but at the current pace we're going at, it will seem uneven at best and unsatisfying at worst.

I don't think, for whatever reason, certain people can see/appreciate what the story is trying to pitch as Kirino's "cute side" when it comes to her relationship with Kyousuke. It's the typical tsundere tension between "honesty" and "dishonesty". The thing that Kyousuke realized by the end of episode 3 (and in many episodes since) is that there actually is something else beneath her brusque and bossy exterior, and every once in a while she peels back her mask just enough to reveal it to him. In the second half of this episode, there were at least two such moments: when she talked about receiving a present from the person she loved, and when she was shown wearing the earrings her brother bought for her. That's the part of Kirino that Kyousuke finds cute (ref: episode 3, show title, etc.), and so he can't help but go along with her antics. In both of those scenes, no matter how tense and annoyed he was before, we see him visibly ease up. Despite it all, he really does care for her; he shrugs it all off as "that's just Kirino being Kirino". And as third-party observers, that same sort of "shrugging it off" is something some viewers don't seem able to do, rightly or wrongly. (I think the show is also pitching Kirino's dishonest side as cute... but I don't expect people who don't already see things that way to change their views on that point. That may take years of tsundere heroine eroge/anime/manga training. )

But those events just suggests to me that Kyousuke's merely trying to put up with her, and of course being her brother, he's going to have to help. This very relationship is what drives the story.

However, trying to take that point and stretch it into something more meaningful is hard that I really can't take these increasingly "guilt trip" tests of love to mean the relationship is mutual. Yes, I accept there's a growing bond between the two sparked by this hobby, but the show's simply been too opaque about the underlying details and the situations just too silly and not reflecting well on Kiirino.

Personally, I've always believed that any form of entertainment needs credibility with the audience. They can't just take everything for granted and ask for them to accept every premise and events without properly going into the details and nuances. Well they can, but it'll lead to their point being muffled. The more credit you build up with the audience, the more things you can do to stretch the suspension of belief.

As I explained to someone recently, I think the appeal in a tsundere heroine is in what you notice beneath the surface (which will eventually rise to the surface over the course of the story), so people who are focused on Kirino's bitchiness re: Kyousuke aren't seeing her in exactly the same way he does. Those brief moments where her true feelings are revealed aren't enough, in their minds, to make up for it. In some cases because they feel Kyousuke has "better options".

I won't lie, I'm not a huge fan of this tsundere thing; there's only a few cases where it's worked for me. Of course, the ones that I do like generally I like them for being complete as a character, as frequently the dere side is generally a basis for character development. There are also characters considered "tsundere" that I like that are also complete characters but not because they are tsundere. (Maybe I just hate labels?) To me, the charm of a good tsundere would be that "tsun" draws you in because their abrasive side makes them noticable and "dere" is the payoff. We have an imbalance of both sides right now.

Of course the problem with whatever-dere is that if they grow and develop as a character, then the original gag would disappear... and that could be risky as there's no easy jokes to fall back on. I'd say many a writer is afraid of doing that since that would be an evolved character... and requires effort.

It's fortunate that I'm not an avid shipper, since I don't really care for any of the choices, really, at this point. But at least that also allows me to enjoy the show.

Originally Posted by HayashiTakara

you gotta know when to drop a series when it's not going the way you're finding displeasing, I've dropped many to save myself the annoyance later.

I think people aren't complaining because the show is bad, but because it's good.