I mean, it's not that hard to get. The hetero version of the trope is as old as literature. You know what I'm talking about? The story where the female lead claims to hate this guy who is super handsome, cool, rich, popular and has dozens of sexy women at his feet... she hates him, hates, hates, totally hates... then one day he confesses his love to her and asks her to marry him, and she fly-glomps him and starts kissing him. Yeah, cuz she didn't really hate him, what she hated was the fact that he didn't pay attention to her; once that's fixed, all's well in the world and they can start making babies. What we have here in "Useless Princesses" is a variant of this old trope on a yuri note. Kurokawa doesn't really hate those haughty, beautiful, arrogant, sexy, snobby alpha bitch princesses. She loves them and puppy-adores them and crushes on them like crazy. What she hates about them is that they won't return her feelings! That's why she has these (seemingly) contradictory sentiments of "I hate her, she's a bully!" and "I want to protect her shining smile!"
It seems quite clear to me that Kurokawa is a little lesbian in the making, who may or may not completely understand herself yet. Even her love of BL/yaoi fits in the picture. (It's a genre for girls by girls, and the characters are usually projections of female fantasies, to a point that it has been described as "lesbian fantasies in male drag" by some researchers...)
The one character I myself find kind of puzzling is Fujishiro. Okay, so being dumped by her trophy boyfriend was a big shock, sure... and being comforted by Kurokawa was nice, yeah... but going from there to "I'm-a dumping all my old friends and I'm-a relinquishing my queen bee position and from now on I'll live with Kurokawa in a cozy little hole in a quiet corner of the classroom, just the two of us, forevah!" is, like, kinda too big of a leap... obviously there's something in her psychology that escapes me...
I think you are on to something with this. A lot of people forget that love and hate arent opposites but instead two sides of the same coin. They are both strong emotions and one can easily turn into the other like what i think is happening in this case. Any hate Kurokawa has/had towards Fujishiro, even if hidden deep inside, is converting into love for her over time. Its also something that Kurokawa isnt exactly aware of herself yet despite gushing over Fujishiro's looks.
I've heard that sort of thing in discussions a few times but the voracity of it is unknown to me. I definitely think that Kurokawa is likely a lesbian who just hasnt.... 'awoken' to her feelings on the whole thing.
I find Fujishiro's character complex but done well. Someone up the thread suggested that, shown through the first chapter, Fujishiro's world view is warped and shaped by societal pressures which had led her to being a gyaru and a bully. The drastic change of going from queen-bee gyaru to clingy outcast friend of Kurokawa suggests that she seeks approval and somewhere that she feels she can be herself. This relationship with Kurokawa will also be the spark that eventually opens her realization that she likes girls, just like i think it will spark for Kurokawa. Its all just a matter of time til the spark occurs.
I think she finds something attracting and positive from the first event where Kurokawa was the one to comfort her after the break-up with two-timer. We dont know anything really about her past so i can only guess but perhaps there is something there that is likely responsible for her extremes of emotion and relationships.
last edited at Aug 16, 2018 7:35AM