Quote:
|
Athena hasn't even been animated yet, but she was still able to grasp 5th place of the 2nd character poll and get more nominations than Rukia of Bleach in ISML last year. Her hinting is enough to have gotten her those places, she didn't need her own character development arcs for it. And she was developed more in those hints than in the arcs themselves really.
|
I have to agree with this. In retrospect, Athena didn't get a terribly large amount of character development during Golden Week, and Eotw is still probably the most memorable story she was in. We didn't get a lot of insight into Athena's thoughts, and a lot of what we did see was the conflict between her and Midas. I honestly can't say what I expect from Athena at this point because I don't feel that we've gotten to know her very well as a character.
The Athens arc was very much about Hayate above and beyond anyone else and his character development was front and center throughout. (Nagi, rather oddly, ended up being the most changed character despite her relative lack of spotlight time until afterwards.)
I'm not unhappy about Athena coming back, but I'll admit I was rolling my eyes a little that she's apparently still the damsel in distress less then a month after her last dramatic rescue.
Quote:
|
compared to the total annihilation of Maria (she's out of the story completely)
|
Maria has been in decline for a long time. I think a large part of it is that the "mansion" setting that used to be her stomping ground literally hasn't mattered in years and coupled with Nagi's increasing independence (Among other things, she doesn't play relationship troubleshooter for Nagi and Hayate anymore) leaves her with...nothing really, unless Hata comes up with a new role for her to play.