I watched this when I was 15 and had a completely wrong impression of how to go about a relationship with a girl. Now I find it to be one of the worst starters for girls who are lesbian or bisexual, it teaches you that manipulation and perversion is okay to push onto another, and that consent doesn't matter. At 15 I thought it was magical and incredible, but at 23, just seeing the first few episodes I already feel sickened by the portrayal of lesbians as creepy and abusive, and I think of all the young girls (like I was) watching this and thinking this is how lesbian relationships must work, that it's okay to kiss another girl without her consent, or use any excuse to touch her (measure her body parts), humiliate her, and just full on objectify and assault her, and all the while the excuse for these abuses is that the subject is 'too cute', and finding another cute and child-like is enough of an excuse to treat her like an object.
According to this signs of embarrassment in another girl is cute and a green flag for more humiliation with sexual undertones. Not only this but any sign of a character being uncomfortable, or non consenting is 'kawaii-fied' and another green flag for disturbing behaviour. It lead me as a teen to the impression that this abusive and fetishizing behaviour is acceptable between girls.
Yes as a 15 year old I loved it, all of this I thought was Romantic, and I yearned for the kind of unequal relationship that Nagisa and Shizuma had, but looking back I can see how badly it affected me as a young and confused bisexual female, and I wish I had never watched it and given into the ideas that were put across in this anime. So I refuse to notice anything that might be good in this because it's impact is so destructive to a young girl's idea of a healthy lesbian relationships.
