Quote:
Originally Posted by omimon
I'm surprised that their father didn't beat her ass in for dying her hair. Old-fashion ones like him usually does.
|
Doing so would actually show that he cares, which is something he has yet to show that he actually does for anyone in his family. I think this is a key point to understanding Kirino better, as well as the series as a whole.
Honestly I'm really underwhelmed by the discussion in here so far. Is she tsundere? Is she cute? Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. How about looking at Kirino as something other than
yet another pile of fucking moe points?
She's stuck in a family situation that's less than stellar. Her father doesn't show any sign or sense of connection to his wife and kids, her mother (despite trying to create a semblance of familial unity) basically just gets overridden by her father, and her brother (until the series began) seemed to be perfectly content to just coast through life. They may as well be four strangers who happen to live under the same roof because they sure as hell aren't much of a family.
So she turns to a hobby that, in turn, becomes an obsession, but now she's on the verge of alienating herself even further due to the stigma that otaku have in Japanese society. She is a teenage girl at a very critical stage in her life. She knows she's not "normal" but she doesn't know what to do about it aside from continuing to immerse herself in the content of her fandom. So she plays a very delicate balancing game to try and maintain her outward appearance, but eventually your lies catch up to you. She's just fortunate it was Kyousuke who found her out first, as he's so far been willing to accept her for who/what she is and help her try to deal with her otaku status in a healthier way.
Kirino also, so far, represents a good commentary on fandoms of any kind, not just anime/manga/games. Fandom of anything can be a great tool to bring people together who normally would never even meet, case in point Kirino and Kuroneko. Fandom can also be incredibly ugly when used as a way to segregate people from each other, which is sadly what is most often the case. And not just from those on the outside of the fandom, but also from within. How many otaku out there revel in the fact that they're not "part of normal society" after all?
Furthermore, as an anime otaku Kirino has it particularly rough. These days many kinds of fandom are socially acceptable; even video gaming is fashionable these days albeit only to a degree. Anime otaku, however, have a major image issue that has been perpetuated by Japanese media at just about every level. So Kirino has to maintain this facade of a "normal" life or face being ostracized at school and possibly even at home by her parents (her father in particular). Once again it's fortunate Kyousuke is the one helping her come to terms with things. He's no kind of anime or game fan himself, but he is at least making an attempt to understand her and her hobby so he can help her adjust better. So many people don't even try to understand other hobbies or fandom; they merely label it and use that to classify people. But I digress.
Does Kirino have an attractive character design? Of course she does. How many anime characters these days don't? But there's more to her character and personality than any of the idiotic tropes and moe points you guys seem so keen to try and use to classify her with so far.