#don't worry I can't exactly blame the audience for not getting it since the author doesn't

[llycaons]

I haven't seen the special episode yet and I probably will tomorrow but I completely understand why people dropped this series as it was...a shitshow. and given the poor handling of its subject matter I honest to god thinks this show ends up making the opposite point of what is should and that it actually sends a harmful message to teenage girls wrt authority figures.

I also retract any reccomendation I made of it and I apologize for doing so without finishing it. I really did not expect them to fuck it up this badly

tw for rape, suicide, csa, victim blaming under the cut

I can kind of see their main message (which is very simple - young girls, don't commit suicide, you will regret it, protect yourself) but it's so bogged down with confusing charcterization and choppy editing and baffling plot points that never get explained. the parallel universe thing was easily the least crappy decision the writers made for this show. and given the first episode, that's a massive letdown. the finale explained literally nothing, left a ton of plots open, and made me worry that rika is actually going to get killed and that momoe will never speak to the other girls again and neiru once again got nothing

and most importantly I do not understand the point of having the entire plot for ai build up around the idea that the teacher was grooming both ai and koito, and the heavy implication that he was molesting koito and that led directly to her suicide. but instead the message was "you were paranoid and suspicious and made yourself miserable thinking he hurt your friend but he was actually a nice guy and you were wrong the whole time" when realistically we saw NOTHING that absolved him and we didn't even had enough information about koito to understand why she'd kill herself?? given the fact that teachers and caregivers are the most likely to abuse children, and the difficulty many survivors (especially young teenagers) encounter about coming forward about (especially if they're authority figures) what the fuck kind of shitty cowardly message is that for the audience of presumably young teenage girls? if you suspect an authority figure but your mom likes him, then that means he's a safe person and you've been silly this whole time and also your friend who killed herself was a bad friend?? WHAT??

the fact that younger girls (like rika) see no problem with having a romance with a teacher is exactly part of why this mindset should not be encouraged and im baffled why, in-universe, the teacher got away with everything he may have done just bc the writers decided ai made up her own problems and doesn't need attention anymore and just has to "believe". like of course she needs attention! everyone does! you can't just decide not to want attention, you're only starving yourself and setting yourself up to fail! christ!

and I was lighter on criticizing how they portrayed sexual assault because I thought they'd actually deal with it with ai and koito but since they didn't, I have to say it felt very ugly how they used raped/molested girls and trans boys as angsty plot devices to make their protags look strong and save them. like the entire thing is baffling to the point of offense when you remove the fact that sawaki is just a nice guy who had a normal relationship with the girls even though he canonically had really creepy interactions with both of them. and im not even going to mention the plot they shoved into ep11 that explained literally nothing and made everything more confusing not to mention centered men and male grief for their fridged wife/daughter in a show that's supposed to be ABOUT girls

I am glad I watched this because I really enjoyed the characters (especially momoe and I don't want to detract from how special it was to see an explictly trans girl protag), the animation was beautiful, and I think it had great potential but I am never rewatching it because holy shit how do you mess up the point that fucking badly. I am actually. really angry with what this show did

#I knew my expectations were low but holy shit #'young girls you should ignore your instincts because your teacher is totally trustworthy' #who wrote this #wep lb