It will be interesting to see if Igarashi ever does return. While everyone here was anguishing about what Miss Possibly Misunderstood’s motivations and intentions were/had been, I was pretty convinced that Igarashi only really mattered insofar as she did or did not affect our beloved power duo.

“Sempai was probably just teasing me for her own amusement all along”—that may or may not turn out to be the case in the long run, but as of now that’s where it stands as far as the Nanoha/Chidori relationship is concerned.

So thanks for leading to the transcendental kiss, sempai. Now fuck off.

Hey now, I'm as happy as anyone that Chidori and Nonoha got a happy ending, but i'm still of the idea that every confused girl in any yuri story deserves some sort of redemption arc. I just wish Igarashi comes later in the story and tells Chidori how her own braveness to be with the one she truly loves gave her the strength to finally start dating that cute kouhai she's been eyeing in college or whatever. Igarashi deserves a girlfriend as well. But like you said, Nanoha x Chidori forever.

Kal3d posted:

It will be interesting to see if Igarashi ever does return. While everyone here was anguishing about what Miss Possibly Misunderstood’s motivations and intentions were/had been, I was pretty convinced that Igarashi only really mattered insofar as she did or did not affect our beloved power duo.

“Sempai was probably just teasing me for her own amusement all along”—that may or may not turn out to be the case in the long run, but as of now that’s where it stands as far as the Nanoha/Chidori relationship is concerned.

So thanks for leading to the transcendental kiss, sempai. Now fuck off.

Hey now, I'm as happy as anyone that Chidori and Nonoha got a happy ending, but i'm still of the idea that every confused girl in any yuri story deserves some sort of redemption arc. I just wish Igarashi comes later in the story and tells Chidori how her own braveness to be with the one she truly loves gave her the strength to finally start dating that cute kouhai she's been eyeing in college or whatever. Igarashi deserves a girlfriend as well. But like you said, Nanoha x Chidori forever.

Totally agree

thinking.jpg
...isn't Iggy in her first year of uni tho? Would need to be a fair bit later indeed for her to start hitting on kouhais there I reckon. ("Not as friends" chocos for Valentine's don't strike me as being particularly... confused... anymore mind.)

thinking.jpg
...isn't Iggy in her first year of uni tho? Would need to be a fair bit later indeed for her to start hitting on kouhais there I reckon. ("Not as friends" chocos for Valentine's don't strike me as being particularly... confused... anymore mind.)

Well, you know what i meant. I just want to see her happy in the future. Her reaction to Chidori and Nanoha being happy broke my heart, because i've seen that "Fuck, i could've done that the whole time?" reaction a lot of times in these type of situations and it never gets better.

"There's a new bus every five minutes" as one gay old chap once put it. :v

Seven Seas are releasing five new Yuri titles I hope this is one of them!

You guys are so nice—you look at Igarashi and see a young woman who is confused about her sexuality and who deserves a happy ending.

I’m not as nice as that. I see a tertiary character who gratuitously hurt one of the sweetest girls in all of yuri and who can fuck the fuck off.

I’ll try to follow your example and be nicer.

But not today.

last edited at Sep 14, 2019 7:08AM

Blas pls, we already went over that ground at quite some length.

You guys are so nice—you look at Igarashi and see a young woman who is confused about her sexuality and who deserves a happy ending.

I’m not as nice as that. I see a tertiary character who gratuitously hurt one of the sweetest girls in all of yuri and who can fuck the fuck off.

I’ll try to follow your example and be nicer.

But not today.

I agree with you. I guess most of the people who see Igarashi as more sympathetic haven't been through a situation with someone like her to see the actual impact it has on the other person. Even if she is struggling herself with her sexuality, playing with someone like that isn't an excuse. You can struggle but not take the other person down with you. She wasn't strong enough to admit she liked Chidori which is fine on its on, but "messing" with her is pure selfish and manipulative. It's easy to fall into the trap that people like her are just hurting, but struggling and taking other down with you is not mutually exclusive.
And like I said before, in this situation she can be seen as more sympathetic, because Chidori got over it quickly because she had a good support system. Igarashi could have done way bigger of a damage to a person who wasn't as strong as Chidori. Then people wouldn't root for her as much, but since we haven't seen that happening in the manga, I guess we can brush it off and root for her only because we want more Yuri.
Sure, we might see her evolving in the future chapters, or even getting a gf. But this is rarely what happens irl. So I'd appreciate a story that doesn't always sugarcoat situations like that, and younger people who read these don't go out in life thinking that these people are just poor little souls who, with the right amount of love, will be "saved" in the end. Or that they have to "save" them.

Blas pls, we already went over that ground at quite some length.

I don’t particularly care about Igarashi one way or the other as an imaginary human being; I’m just quite surprised that so many readers are so eager to read against the grain of the story in regard to this character.

Every fiction sets up its own implicit value system and moral code, one that is adjacent to but by no means identical to that of the real world; so sometimes chopping the heads off scores of people is good and righteous (Icelandic sagas, say) and sometimes calling someone by their last name without an honorific is a heinous offense (Jane Austen’s novels, or many manga).

In terms of the Hana ni Arashi storyworld, Igarashi is by far the nastiest piece of work we have seen (although not extraordinarily nasty in real-world terms), and, at least from what we have seen so far, a redemption arc for that particular character would alter the trajectory of the story into a new, and for me digressive, direction.

Blas pls, we already went over that ground at quite some length.

I don’t particularly care about Igarashi one way or the other as an imaginary human being; I’m just quite surprised that so many readers are so eager to read against the grain of the story in regard to this character.

I'm not really sure you get to say that when your villainous reading of her character and role requires rather arbitrarily going against the text of the story...

kissing and handholding ??!!
this series is getting lewder and lewder

Yeah, get it, girls!

Blas pls, we already went over that ground at quite some length.

I don’t particularly care about Igarashi one way or the other as an imaginary human being; I’m just quite surprised that so many readers are so eager to read against the grain of the story in regard to this character.

I'm not really sure you get to say that when your villainous reading of her character and role requires rather arbitrarily going against the text of the story...

I know you think that. She’s certainly not depicted the way really villainous characters in manga are depicted. But she’s not depicted the way important, potentially sympathetic characters in need of redemption for plot purposes are depicted, either.

She’s depicted as mattering for story purposes only in relation to her (potential) effect on the Nanoha/Chidori relationship. Otherwise she wouldn’t be as much of an enigma after her role in the story arc as she was before.

Readers have been avid about drawing elaborate inferences about her supposed sexuality and about her motivations for her previous and present actions, but what we actually do know is that she had (and may or may not still have) a boyfriend, despite having that boyfriend she flirted extensively with Chidori when she was in school, and she came back to visit for unclear reasons.

And I don’t know how it’s “going against the text of the story” to assert that Igarashi displays the worst behavior represented in the series—when I asked the question previously, the runner-up to her emotional manipulation was Nanoha kicking Chidori under the table in the study session (for which she immediately apologized).

last edited at Sep 14, 2019 10:19AM

As I see it... Yeah, "Iggy" is bad.
Buuut... I also think there's sufficient cause by the author to have her have the ambiguity that lead to so many in-depth posts here. The unclear reasons stand out and could just be lazy writing to just have a "big bad" / conflict for the MC to overcome. But I'd argue there are several panels that stand out as well, and indicate the author had some thoughts about her POV of the events.

However, that's as far I go (pointing those panels out and throwing more question marks around). I'm not gonna jump to her defense. No matter her (or the author's) reasons, her actions suck. Could be worse, sure, but as for this story it's by far the worst here.
An in-canon explanation of some sort would still be welcome, tho. And I wouldn't think that neither her returning someday nor learning some about her motivations would harm the story - that is, if it's implemented well enough, and the story keeps moving forward.
The slice of life'ish style from the earlier chapters was fun and is bound to occur again, but I do like me some progress and evolution of the characters (and their relationship)...

That said: YAY, FINALLY A KISS!! ...if Nanoha wasn't as surprised by it, it prolly would have been a bit more steamy, but we need something to look forward to, I guess XD

That said: YAY, FINALLY A KISS!! ...if Nanoha wasn't as surprised by it, it prolly would have been a bit more steamy, but we need something to look forward to, I guess XD

Yes, having inadvertently opened the gates to the Land of Smooches, Igarashi gets all the credit in the world . . .as a means to an end.

Stopping now, I promise. Lol

Only that's no moonbox, it's the curb around the base of the tree...

Also Nanoha is stooped over slightly.

On an entirely different note I'm probably not the only one who finds this institutionalised literal moral policing sort of creepy. >_>

Eh, we don't really see what she's actually on the lookout for. Would she have a problem with the kiss? Would she have a problem with a hetero couple sharing a smooch under the fireworks? Or is she on the lookout for heavy petting or banging in the bushes? Or girls being taken advantage of by older guys? Teens having careless sexual encounters can mean STIs and teen pregnancy, and that kind of stuff can ruin lives.

There's a -reason- kids are kept under adult supervision until they're past most of their teen years.

That said, the flow of the scene suggests that they at least think they slipped under her radar, so maybe she is just on the lookout for casual smooches.

Heavensrun posted:

Only that's no moonbox, it's the curb around the base of the tree...

Also Nanoha is stooped over slightly.

On an entirely different note I'm probably not the only one who finds this institutionalised literal moral policing sort of creepy. >_>

Eh, we don't really see what she's actually on the lookout for. Would she have a problem with the kiss? Would she have a problem with a hetero couple sharing a smooch under the fireworks? Or is she on the lookout for heavy petting or banging in the bushes? Or girls being taken advantage of by older guys? Teens having careless sexual encounters can mean STIs and teen pregnancy, and that kind of stuff can ruin lives.

There's a -reason- kids are kept under adult supervision until they're past most of their teen years.

That said, the flow of the scene suggests that they at least think they slipped under her radar, so maybe she is just on the lookout for casual smooches.

Ban on dating is very common in most Japanese schools, because you're supposed to focus on studying and not wasting your time on relationships. Also in Japan such open display of affection is usually consider impolite and distracting for others. So yes, they most likely came checking to see if anyone came as a couple and are not causing trouble for others.

last edited at Sep 15, 2019 3:28PM

Blas pls, we already went over that ground at quite some length.

I don’t particularly care about Igarashi one way or the other as an imaginary human being; I’m just quite surprised that so many readers are so eager to read against the grain of the story in regard to this character.

I'm not really sure you get to say that when your villainous reading of her character and role requires rather arbitrarily going against the text of the story...

(I know, a lot of us are vocally ready to move on from this, but I still feel like there's some things worth saying, so I'ma say them. If nobody has anything significant to add after this, I'll let it drop)

Eh, I think you're kind of both right? I've said I get where the hostile reading of her character comes from, and I meant it, I just think what we've seen is ambiguous. I don't think either camp is reading "against the grain of the story". I could see it going either way, basically, and there are some panel and scene blocking decisions that seem awfully calculated to preserve that ambiguity, which seems odd to me if she's a throwaway villain.

One that stands out to me is the fact that we can't see her face when she actually says the line that breaks Chidori's heart. This is the main thing I wanted to get out before letting the topic drop, because it's been germinating in the back of my mind this whole time. Every other time she says or does anything, we have a view of her expression that we can draw her mental state from, but on that panel, the sun is suddenly in our eyes. Why? What was her expression in that moment, that the author consciously decided to hide from us? A simple smile? Resignation? Callousness? Sorrow? Tears? If her expression in that moment would confirm a villainous reading, I don't see the point of hiding her face from us, and by extension, from Chidori. It would eliminate the ambiguity and confirm Chidori's worst suspicions. So hiding it only makes sense to me if it's either meant to be ambiguous narratively to us, or if it's meant to be ambiguous to Chidori to make her waver.

Since Chidori hasn't wavered, it feels like we're the ones being kept out of the loop. But hey, it could just be that the author was trying to save effort drawing that panel, and I'm reading too much into it. It feels like a choice to me, tho.

Also, coming back from college to see Chidori seems like an odd move if she didn't have real feelings for her. Why not just move on to somebody fresh at that point? That suggests she's hung up on her. It's kind of a lot of effort to go through to reconnect with someone you aren't going to see at college that has already explicitly turned you down. For what? The thrill of the chase? Eh, maybe. There are definitely people like that, but she also folds so easily when she sees that Chidori has somebody she loves that loves her back.

It could be that now that the author is done using her to prod Nanoha and Chidori into advancing their relationship, and now that Chidori is a little more over her, that we'll never see her again, but I feel like that would be a missed opportunity for some significant character depth.

(So my other "last post" on this is about my actual read of the text, this is about the ethical meta-text of interpreting Igarashi sympathetically.)

I agree with you. I guess most of the people who see Igarashi as more sympathetic haven't been through a situation with someone like her to see the actual impact it has on the other person. Even if she is struggling herself with her sexuality, playing with someone like that isn't an excuse. You can struggle but not take the other person down with you. She wasn't strong enough to admit she liked Chidori which is fine on its on, but "messing" with her is pure selfish and manipulative. It's easy to fall into the trap that people like her are just hurting, but struggling and taking other down with you is not mutually exclusive.

I am not oblivious to the impact that a broken heart can have on someone. I've been on both sides of that, but your underlying assumption here is that Igarashi is "playing", and "messing with her". There is no consideration of the possibility that maybe her affections were earnest and honest, and her regret was sincere. I can't say it is with certainty, but I also don't think it's fair to assume that it isn't.

It's not like we have a pattern of behavior from Igarashi. She hasn't left a trail of broken hearts, as far as we can see. She hasn't strung Chidori along and broken her heart over and over. We know she did some emotional cheating on her boyfriend, which is definitely wrong, and she kept her boyfriend a secret from the girl she confessed to, which was also definitely wrong. And the "We're both girls" line was definitely hurtful. But she's a kid. Kids do and say stupid things sometimes, especially when it comes to matters like romance and first love.

And like I said before, in this situation she can be seen as more sympathetic, because Chidori got over it quickly because she had a good support system. Igarashi could have done way bigger of a damage to a person who wasn't as strong as Chidori. Then people wouldn't root for her as much, but since we haven't seen that happening in the manga, I guess we can brush it off and root for her only because we want more Yuri.

The outcome isn't that important to me in this, though. I mean, if Igarashi was just playing around with Chidori's feelings, then regardless of how hard Chidori takes it, fuck Igarashi at that point, she's a garbage person who deserves to meet Truck-san in a passionate embrace in the middle of the crosswalk.

But if her feelings for Chidori were sincere, if she messed up and feels guilty about it, the fact that Chidori was able to move on and get over her is actually something of a relief. Like, I can imagine the story that comes out of the alternative, and it is dark and heartbreaking for everyone involved. I'd feel -worse- for Igarashi than I do in the current paradigm, because making a mistake that loses you your first love to somebody else is sad, but making a mistake that destroys the life of your first love and leaves you wracked with guilt and grief for the rest of your life is tragic.

Intentions aren't everything, but they're still important.

Sure, we might see her evolving in the future chapters, or even getting a gf. But this is rarely what happens irl. So I'd appreciate a story that doesn't always sugarcoat situations like that, and younger people who read these don't go out in life thinking that these people are just poor little souls who, with the right amount of love, will be "saved" in the end. Or that they have to "save" them.

That isn't the point. It isn't about "saving" someone, it's about people growing and learning from their mistakes. What Igarashi did to Chidori was definitely hurtful and selfish, and Chidori is definitely justified in moving on to someone who is willing to commit to their relationship. That was the right move for her. She rejected the effort to rekindle their relationship and moved on with Nanoha. Nothing about this story suggests that Chidori should have "saved" or tried to "save" her. Suggesting that Igarashi might not be all bad isn't the same thing as saying that Chidori should've taken her up on the valentine gift.

last edited at Sep 15, 2019 4:17PM

That isn't the point. It isn't about "saving" someone, it's about people growing and learning from their mistakes. What Igarashi did to Chidori was definitely hurtful and selfish, and Chidori is definitely justified in moving on to someone who is willing to commit to their relationship. That was the right move for her. She rejected the effort to rekindle their relationship and moved on with Nanoha. Nothing about this story suggests that Chidori should have "saved" or tried to "save" her.

I didn't say the story is trying to suggest Chidori should have helped. I say that if Igarashi gets a redemption arc, it might give the impression to some younger readers that in life these type of people are just hurt souls who are good deep down.
And I'm also not saying that we can tell for sure if Igarashi is that irredeemable person. We can't.
I was just thinking that not everyone needs a redemption in a story, and sometimes I'd personally prefer to see these characters being represented for what it is, and not ending up making everyone a good guy. Just a thing that I'd like to see more, not saying Igarashi is necessarily this type.
We can have characters being more bad than good, but also having good qualities without redeeming them in the end.

That isn't the point. It isn't about "saving" someone, it's about people growing and learning from their mistakes. What Igarashi did to Chidori was definitely hurtful and selfish, and Chidori is definitely justified in moving on to someone who is willing to commit to their relationship. That was the right move for her. She rejected the effort to rekindle their relationship and moved on with Nanoha. Nothing about this story suggests that Chidori should have "saved" or tried to "save" her.

I didn't say the story is trying to suggest Chidori should have helped. I say that if Igarashi gets a redemption arc, it might give the impression to some younger readers that in life these type of people are just hurt souls who are good deep down.
And I'm also not saying that we can tell for sure if Igarashi is that irredeemable person. We can't.
I was just thinking that not everyone needs a redemption in a story, and sometimes I'd personally prefer to see these characters being represented for what it is, and not ending up making everyone a good guy. Just a thing that I'd like to see more, not saying Igarashi is necessarily this type.
We can have characters being more bad than good, but also having good qualities without redeeming them in the end.

I don't think we're really disagreeing on anything important. I mean, my first instinct is to point out that some of "these type of people" (meaning people who do something that hurts you) ARE hurt souls who are good, not necessarily even deep own, and teaching kids that sometimes people don't mean to hurt you also has value beside the lesson that some other people want to hurt you because it's fun for them. (I like to hope that the former are more common than the latter, but I waver on that.)

As for Igarashi specifically, yeah, not everyone needs redemption, the author has just made some decisions in portraying Igarashi that gave me the impression that she might.

Either way, I think the lesson here is pretty clear. When someone hurts you, it's okay to cut them off and move on, whether the person you're cutting off is good or not. (In fact, that would also be a pretty good reason for keeping Igarashi's intent ambiguous.)

last edited at Sep 15, 2019 7:19PM

this reminds me a bit of the classic Milk Morinaga's Gilrfriend's

Short and tall girl, check

Well... there are other Morinaga stories with this trope, but "Girl Friends" isn't one of them. Mari and Akko are just about the same height, with Akko being a tiny bit taller. There is a taller girl in the story, but she's not one of the protagonists.

There are plenty of other tropes here as well:

Athletic girl and bookworm
Flat chested and "full figured"
etc...

I think this author is doing well on their own.

When someone hurts you, it's okay to cut them off and move on, whether the person you're cutting off is good or not.

I wanted to fully agree with that, but then (despite personal experiences that would give further credit to that statement) remembered that one shouldn't over-generalize things... (*sigh* life, people and relations can be quite so complex...)

I really agree with the notion that the author (who is keen on so many visual details) has more thoughts to Igarashi than the overall plot centered around the MCs lets on, on first sight. I am almost positive that she's meant to be a complex character with many flaws and... "personal justifications".

But I would also think, that her coming back after over a year and trying her schemes on Chidori again in that manner implies, that she's not been ready for any redemption or rehabilitation, yet. Even her backing off could be read as some sort of "retreat and review" before someday returning for another attack...
What we've seen on page (generally from Chidori's POV and as supporters of Chidori) is someone acting harmful, hurtful, unpredictable yet somewhat cunning, dishonest and reckless.
And for the sake of sweet Chidori, we are glad her whatever-she-really-wanted-ploys didn't work out and even seemingly backfired.

The problem is, despite these panels that imply "something else", we have no idea what that "something else" may be, and can only speculate. There is no textual information to be basis for proper analysis.

We don't know her intentions at all. From the start we can only speculate. And even her return is seeded with ambiguity about her intent - and as said above, so may as well be her retreat. We don't know if she's a "hurt soul", if she's even "worth saving" or a "lost cause", unless the author decides to show us more...

It took us 47 chapters to get to this point... so, if and when the author decides to show us more about Igarashi and how that's going to happen, is all up in the air.

(As an aside: I find it interesting how much discussion and interpretation Igarashi's character caused. I wonder if we had only half as much to say and analyse about our protagonists' characters...)

last edited at Sep 16, 2019 11:48AM

(As an aside: I find it interesting how much discussion and interpretation Igarashi's character caused. I wonder if we had only half as much to say and analyse about our protagonists' characters...)

As should be obvious, I agree with the gist of your entire post.

Much of the uncertainty about Igarashi as a character stems from the contrast between her treatment and that of pretty much everything else in the series—while there may arguably be some unanswered questions about the MCs (like why Chidori is (or maybe “was”—we shall see) so determined to keep their relationship secret, or why Nanoha is less so), but for the most part, there’s not much real ambiguity about any of the characters or situations—that’s part of the story’s charm, IMO.

My position has mainly been based not on the qualities of Igarashi imagined as a real human being but on the overall narrative ethos of the series, which (to me) hasn’t been sending many signals where it’s the kind of story where a character like Igarashi would be significant except as a mechanism to affect the MCs, and I see her ambiguous aspects as part of the essentially benign created storyworld—she’s wrong, but not monstrous, because this isn’t a world of human monsters (as in, say, Happy Sugar Life).

Tl;dr: What I’ve been saying about Igarashi/the redemption arc issue is not “I don’t like that kind of person” but “I don’t think this is that kind of story.”

But I could be wrong.

last edited at Sep 16, 2019 1:41PM