[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by mellomarie

basically this. not to mention her feelings are based on a childhood love. her feelings are stagnant, they haven't grown at all and hardly represent the current jintan. i don't think that warrants her being "devoted" to him and not moving on.

Then how do you explain how super happy she was that he started to connect with her again, that he tried to go back to school, that he awkwardly and clumsily saved her, that he started working with her? That was teenage Anaru responding very very positively to teenage Jintan. He wasn't cool, he wasn't the popular leader, he was stuttering and awkwardly clawing his way out of hikkikomori state -- and she was so, so happy at every little bit of it.

Loving an idea? Please. If that isn't a love for the person then I don't know what is. A person who's in love with an idea would have been annoyed at Jintan's imperfections in the earlier episodes. Instead, in the very first reflection she made, the one that set the tone of her character for the rest of the series, she outright stated that she was instead annoyed at herself for being unable to help him in any way -- him, the flawed, wounded, locked in, school-skipping, uncool, messy-haired, Menma-obsessed Jintan. She didn't want "Jintan," she wants Jintan.

how is he confused? what does he exactly need to sort out? i mean he just declared that he's in love with menma. it's also very obvious that he's NOT confused about his feelings for her. seeing as he loves menma, he should've had the decency to give anjo a proper reply. i think being "cold" enough to not give her a reply, especially when it's obvious that he's thought about it, is mistreating her.

He's in love with a dead girl. Half the time he thought Menma was his hallucination. He knows damn well he needs to let her go, he knows it more than anyone, yet his heart cannot lie. He loves her. He wants her by his side. And this is after years of being a shut-in suffering from her death which he blamed himself, and the death of his mother.

That shit fucks people up. How is he not confused? If he hangs himself to go after her or something nobody can even blame him! And the fireworks scene in episode 10 just tells it all. How much he didn't want her go. How he was practically going to burst with emotions, and how conflicted he was -- how he knows very well the selfishness of his heart's desire. That last scene, when he realized Menma was still there, he had this look that said, oh god oh god, what have I done?

And you want him to turn around and give Anaru a real answer? I'm a fan of Jintan x Anaru, yet I would have been angry if he just half-heartedly said yes. She deserves better.