[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I do find it interesting how this anime now has a second protagonist in the "bullied/ostracized kid" category (third if you count Kanade, although that's perhaps too mild to count for bullying).

I didn't get the impression that the people in the kendo club disliked Kanade. They seemed pretty accepting of her despite her complete lack of athletic ability; it was Kanade who was unhappy because kendo wasn't the outlet she was seeking.

To use this sort of plot device once is no big deal, but to use it twice suggests to me that there's something more at play here than simply trying to give characters distinctive backgrounds.

A couple ideas:

1. The mangaka, Yuki Suetsugu, was herself a victim of bullying, or at least saw a lot of it during her days in school. If so, then this is at least a case of a mangaka following the good old adage of "writing what you know".

2. Suetsugu is trying to convey some sort of practical thematic point by coming back to the "bullied kid" characterization. Thundrakkon put forward some good ideas here, I think.

There's also the possibility that karuta is a nerdy game. If this were about a chess club at an American high school, wouldn't you be more surprised at someone like Chihaya being there than Tsutomu?

With this episode, I'm starting to wonder if bullying is more common in Japanese high schools than what I had previously suspected (mainly since I don't recall seeing it as commonly in high school-based anime as I see in high school-based North American tv shows).

This sort of ostracism is pretty common in the school series I've seen -- Kimi ni Todoke is built around it, it's an important feature of Hasegawa's background in Haganai, and Kimi to Boku's has had two characters in similar situations; Haruka Nogizaka would be treated that way if anyone found out her secret, and the only thing saving Ryuuji Takasu from that fate is that everyone's afraid of him.