Haven't seen the kid in 20 years huh? Standards must be different in Japan. That would not be something to mention in R1. I won't go there.
With this type of a scenario, "love" would have nothing to do with "it" imo. This guy looked a little twisted from the
book exerpt too imo via Google translation.
It looks like this may be "tweaked" to attempt to compete with Miyazaki. The guy should give it up already. Miyazaki always lands on top.