I finished this anime just about half an hour ago and very well may need to sit with it for quite a bit. But all throughout my watch there was one echoing thought that just grew louder and louder until it drowned out anything else I could possibly feel: Tsubaki, the character, took a perfectly good show and just ruined it. Every issue I have stems from her. It’s ridiculous. She is selfish and abrasive, similar to Kaori, but without the tragic circumstances that makes Kaori act the way she does. She has this imaginary entitlement to Kousei that’s uncomfortable to watch and comes from nowhere. In every situation she acts self centered and overdramatic, but not in the way that teenagers are at this stage in their life. She just acts like a bad person constantly. Dragged Kousei to meet Kaori and gets mad when he likes her. Pushes him to return to music and gets mad when he does. And the show treats all of these feelings of hers as important and significant as the uphill battle of a traumatized boy returning to the single thing intertwined with his past grief and a girl on her deathbed desperately clinging to the last bit of life she has left, trying to make any sort of difference no matter the cost. It got to the point that when the show tried to put her in the spotlight and wax poetic about how *sad* it is that her close childhood friend might not be completely obsessed with her I just pulled out my phone and started scrolling through Twitter. It was unbearable to watch her pout over her crush caring and finding joy with a dying girl, to the point that she sees her as some sort of “rival”. It was so deeply upsetting to watch Tsubaki act like this in the midst of such serious grief. I’m a woman who grew up loving my childhood friends and fretting when they began to drift away and towards others. I know what this is like. I’ve been there. But the MOMENT any of it became more serious than childhood crushes and social politics I wouldn’t dream of acting the selfish ways she did. My issue isn’t with her character. It’s that she show is convinced she’s a good person.
