To think that the nerd friends were worse than the gyaru friends, like holy shit at least the gyarus have a reason to be in conflict!
I find it an interesting narrative device that the causes of their breaks with their respective cliques directly mirror their personalities, which cannot but be entirely deliberate. From what we've seen Fujishiro is uncompromisingly self-assured and fortright to a fault and very much lives by her instincts - as well as unabashedly domineering and unreasonable. Her falling out with Miki and the rest is overwhelmingly her own fault; while what the other gyaru was saying about Kurokawa was certainly nasty it was also fully in line with Fujishiro's previous attitude and the others had no way of knowing about her recent about-face. Fujishiro essentially admits as much too when Kurokawa points this out; this self-awareness of (and no small degree of embarassement over) her own past misdeeds doesn't seem to mollify her in the least.
Now granted there's hints that the two might have been accumulating low-key friction for a while (probably mostly from both apparently being rather "alpha female" types) though this may also be an ex post facto handwave. Fujishiro's very much a "feel don't think" type after all.
It's kind of impressive how stubbornly unreasonable she's being over the issue. Mitigating circumstances be damned; Miki belittled her new friend and that's a deal-breaker period. Though she was likely also overreacting to the insinuations concerning her motives for suddenly being friendly with Kurokawa, both because she was frantic to avoid any misunderstandings and because it almost certainly struck her as a personal insult - everything we've seen about Fujishiro suggests she's uncompromisingly honest about things; whether she likes or detests someone she'll be up front about it rather than engage in the kinds of convoluted plots Miki is implying.
Kurokawa, conversely, is mired in insecurities and only too prone to overthinking, over-analyzing and over-rationalizing things (and then concocting more or less arbitrary fantasies out of all that). She's almost desperate to avoid drawing attention, especially negative, which is of course entirely reasonable for timid people perceiving themselves (rightly or not) as the low rungs of the social totem pole. "The nail that sticks up" and all that.
The no doubt wholly deliberate irony is that her like-minded clique throws her out into the cold for exactly those same reasons - they're no doubt somewhat intimidated by Fujishiro for much the same reasons Kurokawa is (including preconceptions about how such a "normie" would react to their hobbies), afraid any contact with her might get them tangled up in her spat with the other gyarus, and just plain averse to the attention she attracts in general.
So rather than even try to talk with Kurokawa about it or, God forbid, try to even tentatively admit Fujishiro into their circle to see if they could actually get along they take the easy way out and unilaterally wash their hands of the whole baggage.
Given Kurokawa's downright painful levels of self-consciousness it's no wonder she readily recognises the parallels at work here.
I rather like the implicit scathing dissection of just about everyone involved that Ajichi's doing here.
-- they're talking things out like NORMAL PEOPLE WOULD and decided to help each others by ((((((COMMUNICATING))))))) their true feelings!!!
You know I can't but wonder if this isn't partly in deliberate contrast to how both fall out with their respective cliques. Fujishiro pretty much outright refuses any possibility of negotiation and compromise, even when Izumi tries to mediate - it's her way or no way. (That this doesn't exactly mend fences with Miki is a given.) While conversely the fujoshi group pretty much doesn't even try - neither Kurokawa nor any of the others so much as attempts to talk things out among themselves, and the others don't so much discuss the whole Kurokawa-Fujishiro business between them as meander into a herd-mentality consensus of shunning the former through a lot of insecure and shamefaced "maybe we should..." "yeah..." hemming and hawing.
last edited at Aug 29, 2018 1:41AM
