I like both Chitanda and Mayaka though I found Chitanda to be rather annoying at times and really naive. I would go for Mayaka namely because of her strong character. She may be a generic tsundere in a sense (right next to Taiga, Louise, Shana etc... ie. shortand rather sharp tongued.) and I do like my my deres lol. What I find most admirable about her is her otaku nature. Unlike in some anime she isn't like those characters who are annoyingly loud about their nature as manga/anime fans (Kirito anyone?). At the same time she isn't a person who hides it behind closed doors like its something hideous. She is open about it and its just portrayed as one of her hobbies. I thought that was pretty unique.
I also like how she is towards that guy she likes, she isn't overly obsessed with him or extremely shy about it, she knows her feelings and doesn't hesitate to express them, she was even willing to try again even after being brushed off once and most probably will continue trying and waiting for him to give her a proper answer, I found this to be really admirable of her and for me it really made her stand out, I no longer just watched the show for Houtarou, but also for Ibara and I really wished there was more of her.
In the end though, I think Chitanda suits Houtarou and am glad this show didn't end up taking the love triangle route. I have seen a lot of high school anime where the main guy meets a main girl, but as a result befriends her friends as well and as the story develops one of the friends or even all of them end up rivaling for the same guy, regardless of the presence of a male supporting character. I found such an occurrences to rather unreal, but in anime this seems to occur much more often than you would expect for the male characters to fall for the same girl.
Anyways back to topic this is why I really like Mayaka's character even more than Chitanda, she's just got this more refined and rather realistic aspect to her. She's a kind of girl that you could walk into in the real world, she isn't perfect but is really likeable. Now Chitanda is nice, but you would be lucky to walk into a real life Chitanda character template in reality.
And by the way;
jss9191 said: I like ERU because mayaka treats hotarou badly even though hotarou has done noting at all to mayaka for that kind of treatment.
The show does make it clear that Mayaka and Houtarou don't necessarily share a nice relationship. They are not too fond of each other, but at the same time they still are friends and do look out for each other nonetheless, and when need be they won't even hesitate to help each other out. |