So it looks Amano is pulling the same shit she did with Aria: ramp up the subtext between female characters, only to drop a 16 ton weight on top of it when she feels she might have gone too far. And anybody who says there is no yuri subtext om Aria really hasn't been paying attention. There's Aika's obvious crush on Alicia until Amano incomprehensibly starts shipping her with that creep Al, and Akari and Alicia have more than their share of hand-holdy touchy blushy moments. Anybody remember the the Arietta OVA? I rest my case.
Of course, it's much worse in this series because the subtext really straight crossed into text on numerous occasions. Amano had Hikari and Futaba hold hands and look into each other's eyes at such regular intervals that they would have been be labeled a "designated couple" pretty quickly had they been opposite genders. And then there's the anime, where Hikari outright confesses to Futaba. Really, what did Amano think would happen?
Of course, this may not even be her fault anyway. Maybe her publisher/editor reigned her in, so that line about Futaba's love for Hikari being different than Kokoro's because she is a girl was not completely her own idea. Still, it still doesn't take away from that line's homophobic undertones.
In any case, I am pretty much done with this one. This makes me a bit sad, since I have been following it since it started, and I even went to Ito to see the locations from the manga. Well, life goes on.