When you're an adult, 5 of 10 years of age gap don't matter, but that's not applicable in minors. I wouldn't see with good eyes a couple of a 5 years old and a 10 years old, neither 10 years old and 15 years old. In minors, every year changes a lot and makes a difference of maturity. It's nor right, it's strange. It's obvious that Rin should be a lot less mature, and Omichi more.
I don't really understand why they treat the kid like it is 20 years old in all that conversations. It made me feel uncomfortable.
(Sorry for my poor English)
None of the children in this story so far are treated as anything more than normal children.
Koguma and Hino are perfectly normal kids with a budding romantic interest in one another and some tints of sexual chemistry developing because they're hitting puberty. This is entirely normal, even commonplace, it's just that a lot of adults don't like acknowledging it to the point of denying that it exists entirely besides in the dreams of pedophiles.
The idea that children don't explore sexuality at all until they hit 18 (or even 13 for that matter) is nothing but a myth, and I would even go so far as to claim that stories which depict childhood but omit this element are essentially soft-censoring the concept of human adolescence by omitting an integral facet of it.
Smol kindergartner developed a crush on Hino because she was nice to her and she's seemingly starved for affection, nothing even remotely unnatural or sketchy about it. Hino decides that, out of respect for the kindergartner's resolve and bravery, she should take the proposition seriously and reject her properly rather than patronize her feelings by calling them "just a crush" even if that's what they are and the kindergartner just doesn't know it.
Literally all the children in this story behave exactly like what they are: children with only a vague understanding of what love and sex is; interacting with each other in funny ways either because hormones are one hell of a drug or because they have feelings they don't understand but are trying to rationalize with what they know.
All perfectly natural, all perfectly realistic, only exaggerated for comedic effect.
last edited at Apr 15, 2023 10:01PM