What a refreshing start! I really like Koyuki a lot, as well as the rest of the main cast who were introduced to us today (Miki, Minato and Youta). Koyuki was bullied relentlessly all her life it seems, and a lot of it seemed to be targeting her being smaller than average since elementary. But it just got worse in middle school when a popular boy “turned his eyes to her”, and girls got jealous and shit hit the fan not long after. And as if THAT wasn’t bad enough, whether it’s related to the incident, it seems like shit was rough at home. Whether her parents were powerless to stop the bullying, or they had ended up getting divorced. So it’s understatement why she’s content with how her first year of highschool has been going thus far. Peace and quiet, she’s fine with that. And as she had told Miki, she’d be more comfortable in solitude than to hang out with people who she doesn’t vibe with. I get that 100% because I grew into that mentality as well growing up. You don’t need a group of friends, one can be enough, especially if you’re comfortable with solitude.
I think the most disgusting part about the bullying she was subject to, (and I hate it so much when people do this), is when people brush off teasing, even when it goes to the point of harassment as an “acceptable form of affection”. This is something that tends to be more prominent from Elementary through High School, but it is unfortunately something that continues to persist even in College/University and workplaces among our adult lives. As Koyuki so perfectly put its: What about her feelings? Why is everyone ignoring how uncomfortable and awful it feels to be subjected to this day and out? Why does her feelings not matter? Shouldn’t it be more important to respect how the receipitant feeling? What they were doing was full blown harassment, and pretending that it isn’t, is not acceptable.
To Koyuki’s credit, she steeled her resolve to protect herself so that she would not be subjected to that misery ever again. While she’s striving to achive normalcy, because she has formed dense ice walls, the frostiness seeps out through her gaze that she seems to subconsciously project around those she doesn’t know if she can trust. Unfortunately that can only do so much, because persistent pests (this time sleazy guys stalking her) just keep swarming around her even outside of school. God it’s so messed up. She can’t seem to catch a break even now that she’s no longer in middle school!
As if all the bullying she has been through hadn’t been enough, to make matters worse, it seems that for whatever reason she often gets harassed even outside of school by older boys and that’s just so fucked up. She has no idea why this keeps on happening, which makes me wonder if the culprit from middle school is still actively trying to harass her even though it appears they may no longer be attending the same schools.
But props to Koyuki (who was rightfully terrified) for doing what she can (and should) to protect herself when she had thought Youta had left her. Thankfully, while he obviously couldn’t see what was going on without his contacts/glasses, he also couldn’t simply just run across the road. He probably had to take the crosswalk first to get to the other side to verify whom he had spotted and what the situation was. Anyone who has shitty far-sight (like myself) completely understands why Youta literally can’t pin-point who or what he’s looking at. It gets to a point where you just can’t even define the details nor shapes what you’re looking at. The fact that Koyuki just by chance was able to learn this earlier in the morning is actually a god-send in terms of clearing up an ugly misunderstanding of ignoring her plight.
Koyuki actually doesn’t know Youta, and vice versa, they literally just met in the hall when his friend Minato went up to her out of sheer curiosity to see what she was doing when making faces in the mirror one day. The second time they met was bumping into each other while returning/taking back their friend’s notebook (which was where Koyuki learned that he’s far-sighted). The third time now is Youta thankfully noticing her and potentially her wave, and decided it’d be best to get closer so he could actually verify who it was. What he probably wasn’t expecting to walk into is this situation of Koyuki being harassed. But this is where his height will very likely come in handy, because he’s a tall guy at 189cm (6.2″FT, hence the association with Giraffe). Needless to say he’s a very mellow dude, so I’m quite excited to see how this friendship between him and Koyuki will form.
As for Youta’s friend, that’s Minato. He’s a very curious, outgoing guy who seems to be the perspective type. The ED Theme seems to suggest he’s probably also the type who doesn’t reveal feel how he truly feels or chooses to keep his concerns and insecurities to himself. He was very quick on the uptake to notice that Koyuki’s response towards him and his friends when they came over to her was raising the walls around her, and this is a perfect example of her subconscious defence mechanism is responsible for giving off that frosty vibe.
And this is what I find the most interesting about Koyuki. From the conscious perspective, Koyuki contemplates what would be the best way to best respond to a situation. In that particular case, Koyuki thought it’d be best to just laugh it off and then retreat. But what she doesn’t seem to be aware of is the frosty vibe she gives off while doing so. But this is because she’s deeply hurt and traumatized of her time in middle school, she’s trying her best to move on from that, but I digress.
And finally we have Miki, and she’s a fascinating one too! At school she finds herself being pushed onto this pedasil of a “Saintly” student. It’s not something she had ever purposely aimed on doing, but before she realized it, she tends to fall into the persona of being an extremely likeable,
She finds it awkward and frustrating because that side of her seems far too different to what she considers to be her true self: A Gorilla. When she’s not at school, Miki’s a total ball of chaotic energy. It’s the opposite of a ‘Saint’ however we do see her briefly show the ‘gorilla’s side’ in public, but only when it involves Koyuki. She did this when Koyuki started a countdown for meeting at the entrance, and Miki was determined to make it on time.
With all that said, this was a fantastic premiere, and I’m very excited to see how this one will unfold. This has jumped very top the top of the shows I’d like to cover this season. We’ll see how the rest of the premiers pan out, but looking at the schedule, I don’t think there’s anything else competing for Thursdays since I’ve already crossed Haibara’s Teenage New Game+ off the list. I’ve determined I don’t have any interest to continue watching that one so that makes my decision that much easier!
Possibility of Blogging: High
Possibility of Watching: Guaranteed
BONUS TIDBIT: Apparently Koyuki’s character was featured (like an easter egg apparently) in You and I Are Polar Opposites! (By the same Creator for this series) Damn! I haven’t watched that one yet, but I was planning to soon since I wanted to binge it. That’s crazy! now I REALLY need to watch it ASAP!
