But I'm wondering about precisely what has actually been depicted in this particular story that is the source of all this vague discomfort or of the aspersions cast on the author.
Well I can't speak for everyone but there's a way that the narrative has dwelt specifically on Koguma's body in earlier chapters - both our characters describe it as tiny and child-like repeatedly. That's not really an issue on its own, because Hino and Koguma are both the same age, and sufficiently well-realized characters with enough other things going on in their relationship that it doesn't feel like the reason the story is being read or written. But now there's this other, actual child character, being crushed on by a high schooler. I'm not used to that. Kids having crushes on teenagers and adults is fairly familiar to me - my older sister went through like ten of them when I was in grade school - but I can't think of any examples from either my own life or fiction where a teenager takes a romantic interest in someone that much younger. It's weird enough to me that it takes me out of the story, I wonder why it's there, and suddenly Koguma feels kind of like a proxy for other, less wholesome relationships the author could be drawing instead.
Is it paranoid to think this way? I suppose so. Nothing depicted between Omichi and Rin in the actual text so far has been objectionable. But the brain is wired to look for patterns, especially in fiction where everything's intentional. And this is Dynasty Scans, we have trained ourselves to look for all possible subtext. :V
last edited at May 1, 2023 2:56PM