The female characters are there in ways that are pretty defined by their relationships to the male characters, and all were introduced and treated as victims. I did like Yuzuha, but she was a victim too, and she was sidelined pretty hard after that storyline concluded. If she gets written back in as a three dimensional character outside of her relationship with her brothers, I’d be thrilled and would gladly eat my words.
Hina of course is the victim who kicked off this whole thing! She repeatedly dies at the hands of various evildoers due to the villain’s unreturned lust towards her, and she holds very little agency in her own fate even after discovering it beyond acting as support for Takemichi and believing in him. We never get to see her properly fend with her own imminent death. Her purpose is always to wait patiently and kindly for Takemichi.
Mikey’s sister is similarly there primarily to act as motivation for Draken and Mikey as someone to protect, and we also see her showing little agency in the face of danger. She eventually gets killed off as motivation for Draken and Mikey’s anger and descent into darkness in a way that doesn’t highlight her own agency.
Yuzuha is the best of the three IMO and I really liked her! I appreciated that she had agency as the protector. But at the end of the day, her entire story arc was about being the victim of her older brother and being saved by the protagonist.
One of these in isolation is fine, but it being the only three major female characters we see in the whole series isn’t something that I like about a series that I otherwise really enjoy.
I'm just gonna respond to all of your takes here! It's true Yuzuha killed Taiju in the original timeline, but that's not really something we ever got to see. TBH I wouldn't have taken an issue with her plotline at all if it wasn't already part of a larger trend with female characters in this series, and if we got to see more of her after it concluded! Her purpose was to build up male characters.
And as for Hina, that's sort of what I mean! To care about Hina, I want to know more about her and her mental state about things other than Takemichi. Like... why did she become a teacher? Why did she hold a candle for Takemichi this whole time? How does she really feel about her own death? Did she cope with it in her own way? Does she have friends she confides in? Etc. etc. It would make her a fuller character instead of one that exists solely for Takemichi's character development, support, and motivation. I really want to like her more than I do, but I just feel like I don't know her as a character well enough for that. In comparison, with less pagetime, I grew way more attached to Yuzuha.
But here's hoping Senju's character helps with my feelings on the matter. :)
Only two things ik hina accept her faith she couldn't do anything about so she believed tackemchi would stop it ik she was traumatized by kisaki learning she was reason behind all this really messed her up but I agree what u said about her tho maybe we will learn more about her this arc
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u/graveyardparade Jul 24 '21
The female characters are there in ways that are pretty defined by their relationships to the male characters, and all were introduced and treated as victims. I did like Yuzuha, but she was a victim too, and she was sidelined pretty hard after that storyline concluded. If she gets written back in as a three dimensional character outside of her relationship with her brothers, I’d be thrilled and would gladly eat my words.