#aoikane analysis

[mari-lair]

Let's talk about Akane's overprotection of Aoi and the dangers of not properly setting up a narrative tone.

We are told that Akane stalks Aoi because guys have been trying to force her into a relationship for years, so he protects her by beating up anyone who approaches. Nene and Kou are understandably horrified by this.

But in the very next page, Aidairo hit us with this tone switch:

What Akane is saying is contradictory to the violent and possessive narrative that was shown during his introduction, to this yandere role he played the entire chapter, but the manga is trying to convey that we should take him seriously here. Even the lighting and composition are the ones used when characters are vulnerable and Aidairo wants to show that what they feel is real.

It's strange...

Being possessive is never framed as something that leaves other characters in awe, just compare Akane's melancholic and peaceful gaze to the creepy tone used when Kou and Hanako have their "you are possessive" moment.

Both Kou and Hanako hate that part of themselves, Kou even rejects it, but it's still clear the rejection doesn't make him any less possessive. Both want to be dependable, they want to be the only choice, no one else is acceptable. It's a selfish feeling. Being 'the most important person' is more important than the joy of the person they want to help (Kou's wish is Mitsuba needing him, instead of Mitsuba happy as a human. Hanako wants to be the one to save Nene, the idea of Nene being saved by someone else does not satisfy him even if it would make her happy and safe)

So this isn't a "Akane is lying to himself" or a "he is delusional" case.

The narrative, which had presented Akane as a yandere, wants us to believe that "I will protect Ao-chan... Even if she never looks my way" is not only what Akane believes to be true, but also something admirable. A sentiment Nene craves directed her way, claiming to be 'a little jealous' of Aoi, despite calling Akane scary a single page ago.

Let's rewind to see how we got here.

Akane and Aoi's stories suffer from being mostly given to us in gags for a good chunk of the manga, as they are not very relevant in the early arcs, but the crumbs come together after their confrontation in chapter 69.

Why is Akane stalking Aoi? Because he worries about her. Not about someone stealing her necessarily, but about her being hurt or forced into situations she is uncomfortable with.

They are very codependent. They have been for years.

We can see Akane being shocked at the sight of people bullying Aoi since they were kids, it isn't just 'boys who want to date her' that makes her uncomfortable. Jealous girls do too.

Even when Aoi is left alone, using clothes completely out of her cutesy style to attract less attention, and just living her life, she is still harassed.

Aoi's life is a nightmare, it straight up sucks. She hates that, and when Akane notices this discomfort, he hates that too.

He is far more protective than possessive, he doesn't care when people are touchy with Aoi as long as she welcomes the touch: Take Nene as an example.

Akane never touches Aoi at the start of the manga but Nene does, a lot. He never think "Nene is touching my Ao-chan! Unforguivable". "Maybe Ao-chan likes Nene more than me is not far!" or anything of sorts

Even when Aidairo uses the same over-the-top/creepy gag humor I personally find excessive, and Aoi straight up flirts with Nene, Akane's only thoughts about it are the usual "I love her so much"

When he does show dislike for Nene it's never because she is of value to Aoi. It's because of how dismissive Nene can be, not taking Aoi's safety seriously and easily excusing Hanako's actions.

We only see him be aggressive with Nene when Hanako possesses her and makes Aoi uncomfortable.

The problem here is the framing, the comedy focus. It's hard to take it seriously.

Everything about Akane's intro chapter is hard to take seriously. We are told he is "Hard working. Reliable. What a nice and sweet person."

But we aren't shown these honorable qualities much, not explicitly at least. The big panels, the main focus, is on his gag.

And his main joke is that he loves excessively, even for this school standard where everyone is weird (like Nene writing a self-ship fanfic with Teru) so he needs to be over the top, his behavior has to stand out!

How do they try to achieve this? Yandere jokes.

It is overplayed, they spend pages on it. WHOLE PAGES on it.

It is an old narrative trick to present a twist character as a comic relief to lower suspicion, to keep the more important characterization for after a reveal when they are oficially important, but framing all his actions as comedic and devoid of dept to make his reveal as No.1 more unexpected leaves him in a strange position: Akane is intended to be written as a protector but framed as a joke, to the point his introduction become the satire of a protector.

When he is revealed as the clock keeper and allowed to be given more focus, Aidairo try to explain his behavior and show signs of him being a genuinely caring and kind person, as the first part of his intro had promised.

But it's to late.

His crazy actions and anger issues is in most people's minds, a few lines can't erase pages and pages of his introduction as a yandere like archetype, so it's easy for first impression bias to come into play and interpret all his actions as a simple "He is obsessive." instead of trying to find dept or nuance to the established dependence he has on Aoi.

When we are shown that above wanting to date her, he just wants her to be safe and happy, it does not become clear. The reader needs to pay a lot of attention to small moments like these:

Which a casual reader likely won't. Most are reading for the toilet trio at this point in the manga.

This fumble on his character introduction makes it hard to know what should and shouldn't be taken seriously. Aidairo discarded the yandere narrative relatively quick (we haven't seen Akane's bat in ages) but this gag about being happy as long as Aoi is happy turned out to be important:

It was used to further contrast Aoi's and Akane's mentality on their big arc, and highlight how much nearly losing Aoi affected him.

So the only way we can tell what joke to take seriously cause it will be used to build up his character and what isn't important is hindsight.

I did not care about Aoi and Akane's relationship when I first read the manga, i went 'oh cool!' on their conflict, cause that was very well done, but since their characters were not well introduced, I did not notice a lot of the ideas being shown to me.

Akane is a sweet boy. That's his core, his consistency. Even with Aoi, being kind is the priority over being with her.

Let's compare him with Hanako, who is an openly possessive character, and see how they approach their love interests when they don't know if their love interest likes them back yet, and they aren't reduced to a gag (so we'll dismiss Akane being 'a yandere with a bat', and Hanako's joke of him being a tactless pervert, like peaking under Nene's skirt when her time was frozen)

(so pre-chapter 86 to Hanako and pre-chap 69 to Akane)

Hanako traps Nene, he will cling to her anytime he can, he cares about Nene and loves her dearly, he even says he "loves everything about her" but he is greedy for her attention, he is selfish, always trying to make her focus on him out of everyone in the room and keeping her in his hold, out of others reach. His unsubtle possessive nature is a charm of his, makes for an interesting character.

Akane has a different vibe to it. He doesn't have many serious moments with Aoi before their spotlight arc, unfortunately, but when he does, he focuses on reassuring her (even when her time is frozen and she can't hear him) and avoids touching her at best he can. He has known her for more than 10 years, but he doesn't act as if she belongs to him.

I am not saying Akane is not possessive of her, he is. But he tends to be more worried about her than anything.

Using hanako as the trademark of possessiveness again, check out these two scenes:

At the start of the manga Kou likes Nene, and Akane is under the impression Teru like Aoi, so both scenes follow the basic premise of "A know B has a crush on their crush, and they get possessive over a possible romantic rival being too close."

Hanako doesn't say anything, but his message is clear "She is mine."

Akane explicitly says he doesn't like Teru near Aoi but he doesn't try to remove Aoi from Teru or try to do anything violent. Why would he? Aoi is in no danger, nor is she uncomfortable, so he changes focus to the person who is troubled, awkwardly reassuring Teru that his distress is, in his personal opinion, stupid, so "chill bro".

He wasn't like that with Teru before.

He was so determined to stop the wedding he even rejected hanging out with Aoi, crying tears of blood and asking for her forgiveness in his mind but prioritizing not making her get together with Teru above her joy.

Is that because of his development? Yes! A big part is. Notice the way he treats his mental image as reality? That was his biggest flaw, he imposed his views on Aoi (the view being "everyone is stupid in love with Teru" in this case), and assumed what he believes is a universal truth, doing exactly what Aoi accused him of: Not seeing her, just an idea of her.

But the reason he went so crazy and determined, it's because Akane saw Teru as someone dangerous. Someone who would use Aoi. Hurt her. He believes he is protecting Aoi from the big bad president. A view that makes sense when we take into consideration both Aoi's history of being forced into relationships, and when we go back to their interaction.

Look at this and tell me this isn't a threat:

Teru acts as if he barely remembers her name, she is just 'that cute girl', mostly a tool for him to use against Akane.

When his view of Teru changes to someone kinder who genuinely cares about Aoi as a person, he no longer enters protective mode.

He is still bothered about the idea of Aoi being with someone else, he does noooot look pleased even with his fairy tale vision of a happy couple, but the way he treats this possible 'rivalry of love' when he does believe Teru loves her is so different from his "Don't get close to her!! I will NOT allow it!!" approach.

There is no insecure overthinking. No aggression. He is playful about it. He even teases Teru.

He just wants to focus on rescuing Aoi. A 'rivalry' isn't important. He needs her to be safe.

These two parts of Akane have been juggling for a long while.

But now, character focus is the priority, and I am thankful the damage is being undone, that Aidairo let Akane's love take up whole pages instead of small panels buried under pages of jokes.

Their codependence, no matter how many issues it has, and how it can sabotage them, is based on so much care for each other.

It's a shame I only believe Akane was sincere when he said he'll always be there to protect Aoi regardless if he 'gets to be with her', because of what we see later in the manga, not because of what had been set up in his intro.

[musicalmoritz]

Can you analyze Aoikane? Like does aoi really like Akane? Is Akane a good person to her? Doesn’t he just treat her like everyone else? Even after the severance arc?

I’m glad you asked this! I’ve written a lot about Aoi and Akane as separate characters but I haven’t really gotten to go in depth explaining their relationship. This won’t cover everything but I’ll try to address all your questions. Just a heads up, I incorporated a mix of canon evidence and personal interpretation here. I tried to address each time I was purely stating my perspective but be aware that this is very opinionated

So to answer your first question, “Does Aoi really like Akane?” the answer is no…Aoi LOVES Akane. Aoi is love with Akane to an embarrassing degree, dare I say more embarrassing than the time Mitsuba said “yes sir” to Kou

On a more serious note, Aoi loving Akane is a core part of their development. If Aoi didn’t love Akane, Akane never would have fallen in love with Aoi

This right here is the key moment, the moment when Akane realizes what he means to Aoi. He offhandedly tells her he hates her, and it makes her cry. At that age, nothing made Aoi cry, not even bullies. But she felt so strongly about Akane that the mere thought of him hating her was enough to bring her to tears

Akane’s character arc centers largely around coming to understand, empathize with, and help the people around him, so when he sees someone who needs him he goes all in offering his help. When he saw that Aoi loved him, that she would cry if he hated her, all he wanted to do was make her happy and make her feel loved. This is what he dedicated his life to, judging by everything we know about his relationship with Aoi after this event

Another way we know Aoi loves Akane is because she tells us this herself! She asks Hanako to talk about love and then explains her past with Akane. Before this, when Aoi got left behind leaving Hakubo’s boundary, she confessed to the audience that she loves Akane (“I never got to tell him I like him”). That line has clear romantic connotations, especially for a series that places so much emphasis on confession scenes. But on the train, we learn why Aoi loves Akane

To Aoi, Akane is everything she is not. He is naturally liked by people, hard-working, and kind. Aoi seems to view Akane as the epitome of a good person, and herself as the opposite. Think of it as a sun/moon dynamic, we see this with many ships in the series. Hanako seems to think similarly about Nene, considering himself a murderer and then viewing Nene as this ball of sweetness. When asked what he likes about her, he simply says “Everything.” Even Aoi was shocked lol (but this ain’t about them)

It confuses me that a lot of fans ask why Aoi likes Akane when she’s outright stated it herself. It could be that some of them haven’t finished the manga (not saying that’s you btw that wasn’t one of your questions), and hey there’s no shame in that. I just wish they would either admit they haven’t read it or look up the chapters they need to read because their arguments are lacking some pretty key information😭 Guys, step one of analyzing is to READ. But I digress

I think another explanation would be that fans don’t understand Aoi’s character, they still subconsciously view her as Nene’s popular best friend. They may not think they do, because they think the extent of her facade is pretending to be perfect. They don’t understand how she looks down on people, how she only thought about herself when Nene and Akane started acting different, and how she gets emotionally dependent on the people closest to her. There’s a reason for that too, many fans don’t like that side of Aoi. They see her express an unhealthy attachment style and decide the problem is AoiAoi rather than Aoi as a character, so they completely erase her flawed management of relationships when they write her

Aoi displays an avoidant attachment style, she pushes away the people she wants to be close with. She also arguably shows signs of BPD, and though I won’t get into that today, one of the defining symptoms is intense and unstable relationships. The sad truth is that people really hate people with avoidant attachment styles, and they really hate people with BPD (and any Cluster B personality disorder in general), so when they see Aoi expressing these traits they erase them rather than admitting they don’t like that side of her. Which is sad because you rarely see people doing that with male characters. Teru and Hanako are loved for the aspects of their personalities that are unlikable to the fanbase, whereas Aoi’s toxicity is ignored because it doesn’t fit the image fans have of her. Aoi is misunderstood by the fandom the same way she’s misunderstood by the characters in the manga

One last note on this, if you dislike Aoi just say that (again this is aimed at the general fandom, not you specifically). Don’t erase her obvious signs of mental illness, that representation is important to a lot of fans. When I wrote my TikTok essay on Aoi having BPD, I had people with BPD in the comments telling me how much they related to her. On other posts about Aoi, I’ve had people tell me how much it means to them to see a character realistically portray an avoidant attachment style. Mental illness is rarely portrayed correctly in media, and it is highly offensive to those who have it irl to erase those traits in a character just because they don’t fit your cookie-cutter image of them. And yes, I know Aoi doesn’t canonically have BPD but slandering her for traits that strongly relate to BPD is also weird (this is the opinionated part I warned you guys about lol, but yk a psych student is gonna have to lecture you on ableism)

Aoi’s feelings for Akane have also been teased since the beginning of the manga, through jealousy. She claims not to like him back, but she completely shuts down whenever he shows interest in someone else (or when someone else shows interest in him). Again, this is not a healthy response by any means but I personally think it’s an interesting character flaw, you are welcome to think otherwise🤷🏼‍♀️

She actively encourages his confessions with her point system, if she didn’t enjoy his confessions she would have turned him down from the get go. This connects back to the avoidant attachment style thing, Aoi wants Akane’s attention but she maintains distance for fear of letting him in. She keeps walls up to protect herself, because while Akane is the sun she basks in, she doesn’t really believe he likes her

This is because Akane puts her on a pedestal just like the rest of the school does. Some fans overlook this because they’re focused on post-development AoiAoi but at one point Akane made Aoi feel very isolated. It must have hurt extra since he’s her childhood friend. She thought Akane was only in love with the perfect version of her, which I don’t believe to be true. Akane loved Aoi, flaws and all, and that’s why he saw her as perfect. Most of the information we learn about Aoi is given to us through Akane, so it wouldn’t add up for him to not know her real personality. During their fight scene, he lists all her worst qualities and proceeds to kiss her hand and tell her he loves her

My conclusion is that Akane’s love for Aoi was so intense, he saw her through a rose colored glass. He knew the real her, but he loved her so much that her flaws didn’t bother him. He only focused on the good parts, and thus ended up putting her on a pedestal. He didn’t realize his behavior was hurting her up until the truth came out in chapter 69, and to answer that one part of your question, yes his behavior did change after that

He encourages Aoi to talk about herself, offering to do all of her favorite hobbies with her. He gives her free reign and support here, letting her talk and then offering solutions to her worries. He reassures her that she can fix things with Nene, which is like!! A major step in the right direction!! Akane is usually very possessive of Aoi, even when it comes to her friendships, but here he is encouraging healthy communication between her and Nene. He doesn’t deny her bad actions, but he gives her room to resolve them

After that, we see him start to treat her normally. He acts like himself around her, the same version of him we see around Teru and Nene. None of that lovestruck, over exaggerated worship we’re used to seeing him show towards Aoi. Even during the Severance, he took time to work with Nene and Teru rather than obsessively focusing on Aoi. He gave Teru motivation when he felt like quitting, even felt comfortable using their mutual love for a Aoi to fuel their rivalry. He formed an alliance with Nene even though he initially felt bitter towards her for Aoi’s disappearance. He learned to look past his own feelings enough to be there for his friends, likely because Aoi taught him to remove those rose-colored glasses. He saw that only focusing on what he wants (only focusing on Aoi) was hurting the people around him, including Aoi herself. Post chapter 69, Akane becomes much more down to earth. He still loves Aoi deeply and puts her first, but he treats her like a normal human being. This allows him to treat other people normally too

A lot of people use this chapter as evidence that Akane hasn’t changed but guys, he’s allowed to be jealous over the girl he loves. He panics here, but he doesn’t try to get violent with Teru the way we used to see him do when guys would express interest in Aoi. He doesn’t look possessive or angry here at all, just sad. He’s genuinely devastated that he’s in a world where he can’t be with the girl he loves. This is bad news for both him and Aoi, judging by the sad look she gives him as she leaves and the events of last chapter, it’s clear that this Aoi is still in love with Akane. Our Akane knows how dependent Aoi is on him, he knows that he’s the reason she’s started taking steps towards healing. Without him, all of her development gets erased, and there’s the simpler sad fact that she can’t be with the man she loves. Akane wants happiness for both of them, there’s nothing wrong with that

Even when he confesses to her, it looks so much more genuine than the old scenes of his confessions. It gets a full page, they’re both blushing and their eyes are full of light. His words are so genuine too, he doesn’t wax on about how perfect and delicate she is, all he does is promise to love her forever. For someone with such severe abandonment issues like Aoi has, those words are all she’s ever wanted to hear. Her father left when she was young, then the two people closest to her started to pull away from her (not in this universe but still). She’s terrified that people will hate her, that everyone will leave her if she reveals her true self. And here Akane is, promising to love her and only her for as long as they both shall live (and beyond that)

So, yes, I truly do believe Akane’s behavior towards Aoi has changed. And keep in mind, the manga isn’t over yet, they will have more development. We just learned Aoi’s backstory with her father leaving and her mommy issues, there’s still so much we don’t know about the characters. They still have a long way to go, so if they haven’t grown as much as you’d like then give them some time!! But they have made a lot of progress already, and I wish more fans recognized that

As for the question of whether or not he’s a good person to her, that’s very subjective!! Some fans don’t like any level of toxicity in their ships, so chapter 69 was enough for them to write off AoiAoi entirely. That’s perfectly fine, no one should feel forced to like a ship that makes them uncomfortable. Some love toxic ships, some only love toxic ships if they have development, and others love ships with extreme toxicity (I finished Interview with the Vampire season 1 today so that is where I’m at right now lol)

Let me ask you a few questions though. Is Kou a good person to Mitsuba, for mimicking the actions of his abuser and force-feeding him?? Is Hanako a good person to Nene for attempting to trap her in a fake world and kill her best friend? Is Hakubo a good person to Sumire for eating her alive? Is Natsuhiko a good person to Sakura for letting them destroy the world? Are any of these characters good people to each other???

All of those situations have nuance, and so does AoiAoi. Yes, Akane choked Aoi, but only because she was about to kill herself. She was in a shinigami’s boundary, talking about wanting to “go somewhere far away” and never return. If he hadn’t done something, she never would have returned from the far shore. That doesn’t excuse his actions, but it provides some perspective. Akane wouldn’t choke Aoi under normal circumstances, just like Kou wouldn’t force-feed Mitsuba under normal circumstances. However, both of them would go to those extremes if it meant protecting the ones they love. I personally believe it’s toxic, but some fans insist it’s completely justified because they were doing it for the greater good. Again, it all comes down to perspective

Their dynamic also largely relies on the yandere!Akane gag, which is very hit or miss for some people. Although it’s for comedic purposes, those scenes did happen in canon and they happen a lot. They can be very distracting and cause fans to feel confused once they’re introduced to the deeper side of AoiAoi, which is understandable. Part of peoples’ interpretation on AoiAoi’s level of toxicity comes down to how serious they take the yandere jokes, and how much they like yandere characters. If you hate yandere characters but don’t take the gag too seriously, you’ll be able to overlook it. However, if you hate yandere characters AND you take the gag seriously…AoiAoi might be a difficult ship to accept

Otherwise, Akane does look out for Aoi a lot. He beats up guys who harass her, he asks her how her talk with Nene went, he checks on her injured hand, he will stop at nothing to save her when she’s in danger and, well…the list goes on. There’s no denying Akane cares about Aoi, though some fans may argue he cares about her to a toxic extent. I find that attitude a little hypocritical when they like every other toxic canon ship, but every ship has different appeals so I get it. I’m very biased tho so every argument I see against AoiAoi is just words, words, words

Keep in mind that the TBHK characters and their relationships are all meant to be flawed. This is an imperfect cast of characters who all want to be loved, who have their own goals and try desperately to save each other even though they’re doomed to fail. I wouldn’t call every character morally gray, but they’re realistically flawed. Akane and Aoi want to be together, but they have a lot of individual issues to work through first. They’re undoubtedly better together though, seeing as the progress they make is because of each other (I gave Akane credit for Aoi’s development earlier but it goes both ways!!). If they were separated, we wouldn’t see them grow as much as they have. That doesn’t have to be romantic ofc but I do believe that Aoi and Akane make each other better, they just have to go through the process of making each other worse first in order to get there

I am a person who LOVES flawed characters and relationships. If the ship doesn’t have a splash of codependency, I don’t want it. I incorporate sadomasochism into almost every fic I write. My view of AoiAoi is going to be different from that of someone that isn’t interested in flawed characters/ships (yes, you’re allowed to prefer characters that are “morally pure”). If you’re looking for something that’s pure fluff then AoiAoi most likely isn’t for you, very few TBHK ships are unless you’re heavily fanonizing them. That’s simply the nature of this manga, there’s a reason we’ve seen every canon couple hit each other at some point. It’s not as bad as some fans suggest, but it’s still messy. I want to reiterate that this isn’t aimed at you specifically but I feel it’s something the fandom as a whole needs to hear. Of course, there are toxic ship enjoyers who may not find AoiAoi interesting, but every complaint I’ve heard about them so far has been about their toxicity so that’s what I’m addressing. I personally find it to be tame compared to the other ships but not everyone is going to interpret it the same way

Thank you very much for this ask, I got a little carried away with the yapping lol. I’m a bit worried I’m gonna get hate for this one since it’s kinda controversial and I got very opinionated at times…please know that I didn’t mean to offend anyone or invalidate any other opinions. If you feel that I did that then feel free to block me. I hope everyone reading this has a nice day <3

[thelunarfairy]

Hello, I hope you are doing well. Can you give an analysis on Aoi and Akane's relationship? I mean their relationship is really toxic and there is nothing healthy about it. I also think Akane (the boy) has some sort of obsessive love disorder. Can you share your thoughts about them?

So, we come to the moment where we will talk about these two.

I once saw a very pertinent analysis based on a small discussion about Akane's behavior. The theme was "Akane wasn't suffocating Aoi"

I found myself laughing, but not from joy or happiness, but from noticing that it was necessary for someone to have to explain that Akane wasn't choking Aoi. If you're curious, this is the scene:

Can you tell that from the moment someone has to explain that Akane wasn't trying to suffocate Aoi, there's something wrong?

Violence rooted in a relationship, oh, is never a good sign. I often say that of all the characters, Akane is one of the ones that scares me the most.

Obsession, possessiveness, aggressiveness, anger, impatience are not words that look good together in a sentence, nor in anyone's chest.

Could we use them to describe Akane? I've always found Aidairo's ability to turn problematic interactions into comical ones impressive. Sure, a boy with a baseball bat who humiliates himself to a girl while attacking guys who are interested in her is really "funny."

~contains sarcasm~

It was there from the beginning.

So you ask me, could we then say that Akane is just an aggressive guy?

Ah sigh the narrative lines don't work linearly, they intertwine. Akane constantly molds himself from the beginning, and as he becomes a relevant character, his development begins to blossom.

Akane was similar to Nene. Both placing Aoi on a pedestal, trying to love Aoi's most superficial side, to the point that she herself begins to suffocate in her own persona.

Aoi reveals to us in the future that she is not perfect, that she makes mistakes and can be mean when necessary, she confesses. And Akane, who had doubts, still waited for her to truly confess what her own nature was.

Nene didn't accept that Aoi threw her into limbo because she wanted to, she just decided to believe that everything was the influence of number six. Nene never delves too deeply into Aoi's problems, or even Hanako's, but that's not the topic we're going to get into now.

Akane is finally able to see clearly how Aoi feels, and he discovers that she likes him. From that moment on, his behavior changes. How long has it been since you saw Akane humiliating himself again for Aoi?

His behavior has changed, you can compare

He changed after the events on the far shore, after almost losing her, after learning more about her. He noticed that Aoi didn't allow her eyes to shine when he was so superficial with her like the others.

He noticed that she appreciates his love but he was taking the wrong approach, he became equal to others. Then his behavior changes.

This change caught my attention. A simple conversation was enough for him to notice what was wrong, not just about himself, but how he could love someone he didn't know so well, even though he thought he did.

Aoi tends to blush when she's with him at specific moments, and these are usually the simplest and most casual moments, like touching hands, for example.

How can she be nervous while he touches her, holding the hem of her dress with a slight blush on her cheeks.

Akane doesn't act so aggressively towards Teru when he finds out that he "likes" Aoi, of course he has a reaction, but it doesn't compare to the reactions he had with the other guys.

So that's why we can't label him, we can't give Akane a title when he's still developing, but there's the toxic relationship.

The relationship of few words and many superficial and obsessive actions. Aoi could refuse Akane as many times as she wanted, but Akane couldn't be interested in anyone, Aoi would collapse.

Akane doesn't accept that Aoi has anyone, he can accept that she doesn't stay with him, but not that she finds someone else.

There is no desire for happiness here. What there is is selfish love. "I love her very much, but she can't be with anyone but me."

"I like him, but we're just friends. Still, he can't fall in love with any other girl"

Genuine Love is the one that hurts. The one you love and want the other person to be happy, even if you're not by their side. Genuine love is freedom.

There is no freedom between them.

One is stuck with the other. One hides the truth from the other. One molds itself to please the other.

Aoi is the perfect and defenseless girl, Akane is the silly boy who declares himself all the time to the girl he likes.

But the truth, Aoi is the lonely girl, who is afraid to show the truth for fear that people will hate her, she just wants to be treated like other people. Akane is an intelligent boy who got involved with supernaturals and doesn't know how to deal with the love he feels for her.

"I love this part of you, I hate this part of you"

Whoever loves, loves the whole and learns to deal with the other's defects. Whoever loves allows the other to be who they really are.

And in the case of Aoi and Akane, they have now learned about each other's flaws, and are trying to allow themselves to truly love.

A toxic relationship between two people who still don't know how to love.

[kittytheartist]

Analysis on Aoikane? I like the ship but people say that aoi doesn’t really love akane or akane is horrible??

okay! this is for the three anons that have asked for one!

and sorry this is so late, I started writing and than saved to my drafts and when I came back I didn't like it haha~ but they love each other a lot, it's undeniable. people keep saying it feels forced, and yes, it used to. because since their boundary fight we've seen why.

Aoi has always been closed off, and ever since Akane started lying more to her she keeps telling herself to not trust anyone. and that's why Aoi can be such a hateful person, she hates so many, but that's because she hates herself. she hates being closed off, she hates being the person people like too, she hates how she's let people in. because she scared. and this results in Akane. Aoi is quite judgemental off the get go, because Akane was the type of person Aoi hated most, someone she wished she was

Aoi wants to be someone who can show herself, but instead she's too cowardice to. but through this jealousy she admired him, she loved being near someone like that,

especially after Akane showing her his love and hate in chapter 69, how he'll always try and be next to her. she wishes she was like him so she could give him the same

this is what drives her love for him. she has unconditional love, but is too cowardice to give. but Akane gives it willingly, part of why people think that they're forced, even after Aoi rejects him countless times he keeps trying, but this devotion is only skin deep, since they're constantly lying and never saying what they think. it's sort of a loop of backstabbing, except Akane never really knew how Aoi felt until she told him. and Aoi never cared enough to wonder why he kept lying like that sense she knew it wasn't helping anything. she's arrogant, and that's why it's so important to make sure she's listening when you tell her something, because she will keep thinking that you're a liar and she'd rather leave. what Aoi doesn't realize is how much she wants to tell Akane, she wants him to know of her the way Akane tries to know Aoi.

I say tries because Akane doesn't actually know what she likes, only base level things he can guess by how she acts and what she does, Aoi has always been reserved, so Akane resorts to studying her actions because he knows she's shy and won't say anything. he understands and instead tries to get to know her via other methods. possibly why he gets so invested in what she's into and likes what she likes. because they've never had a shared interest experience, Akane wants to hear Aoi talk about her interests and do anything she wants, he wants to share something between them

I think that's the reasoning behind this response. he's always wanted to hear about her and love her. although it's not the best answer, Because Aoi was trying her best to really show herself to him. she very much wanted to know Akane too, but was too prideful to ever ask.

Akane values their childhood together very much. he cares for Aoi to a high degree, ever since he was a child.

ever since their fight he's decided to love her, he left his hate behind, after saying he hated her and seeing how much she secretly cared, that's why he always tells her he loves everything about her. even though Akane hates how Aoi looks down on people and expects things he still loves her to the highest degree. never giving a second thought to his devotion. this is not forced he truly cares for Aoi, but has no idea how to properly show it to her because she's always looking away, never saying how she treasures love, always cautious. so he'll always always make himself look out for her, being rejected so often he must have thought of whether he was good enough for her or anyone else(but we all know he'd tell himself how he'll work to be good enough because no one else will love her the way he does), but everytime he got back up expecting Aoi to never love him, never admit she cares.

he accepted the way their relationship was, that's just how they were. untill he heard how Aoi felt in chapter 69

he had to fix things, he was going to keep Aoi by his side no matter what, whether she hates living or not he'll make sure she's next to him in holding reach so he can try to help her, to love her. in other words he'll make her want to live, but after this fight Aoi does, she always has, but found that running away would be the easiest answer. but she admires Akane and loves him, she wishes she was that kind of person.

the way she sees Akane is very sweet, in my opinion, she sees him as dutiful and someone who will always work hard, doing so many things for others so while they're walking through the tunnel and she knows it's the end she tries. wants to try and be more out there she immediately starts to talk to Akane. even after, on the train she's trying. even requiting his hatred and love for her. she admits she loves Akane very much. the only time we've ever seen these two cry was over each other. they've never cried over anything else, they're not the type of people to cry often unless it's very dear to them. with the way she spoke to Hanako on the train, I'd say it's undeniable at this point. she loves Akane so much. so much it hurts. so much she never wanted to hear him say he hates her, so much she'd rather run away than face him. than show her love. but with her character progression she's gaining more confidence in herself, she wanted to say "I love you" before she disappeared in the tunnel but was too scared. but after the train incident she hasn't, their love has been silent ever since. Akane has not proposed or anything, he's just looked out for her, just loved her. something he trusts her to just know now, Aoi hopes Akane knows she loves him too. that he means so much, and he does, he knows she secretly cares for him. and in chapter 69 he looked so relieved after looking genuinely sad asking if she really hated him or liked him just a little. but she didn't need to answer

he has always known she cares, but never thought she'd look his way. so he'd just protect and treasure her. whether she accepts his love or not he'll always love her

I'll say it again. HE JUST WANTS TO HOLD HER! he wants to keep her close, all he wants to do is HOLD HER IN HIS ARMS! he immediately hugged her after seeing how much she cares for him and he hugged her when he finally reunited with her, in tears. he always puts it on himself to help Aoi. to try for her, he made a contract without question to save Aoi, after she got taken by Hakubo he immediately went looking for her, and than felt like it was all his fault with the severance because he dragged her down to the far shore. that was her reasoning for death. even before the severance he felt horrible for bringing her there, because he didn't know where they were and didn't know where to go

he's near passing out here and still carries her. trying to help her. in his head he needs to save her, that's his expectation for himself. to get her out of this mess he dragged her in. but it was the only way he thought he could fix this quicker. by dragging her down there with him. it was a stupid idea, yes. and he knows that, but he impulsively chose that route so he'll see his half fallen apart plan through, to find a way out with Aoi. and after the severance and hearing how it was because she stayed in the far shore that she became one of the dead he couldn't forgive himself. he said he was going to get her out of there, that he'd be next to her no matter what, he finally showed her, but when she could understand his love and they even made plans together she was gone. because of him, because he dragged her there, so suddenly he was the one working the hardest to save her but inevitably was the one to have her stay on the far shore. he never wanted to leave her, he apsolutely despises thinking she's all alone on the far shore, a world apart from him.

not to mention the absolute betrayal Akane has experienced by Teru, but later he understood why Teru did it and agreed it was the better choice. but this is partially because he blames himself far more than Teru, and he tries his best to make sure he gets Aoi back by his side, and he did, which thank goodness, they deserve to stay together

anyways about the "and people say Akane is horrible" part of the ask, yeah thats sadly a misconception about Akane because he's rude, continues to confess and the way he handled Aoi in chapter 69, i personally think he's the best morally stable character and yes, he's an asshole and cuts down people's self esteem, but never when it was important. and Akane continues to confess because Aoi said it was okay, she rejects him yes, but in middle school she told him to keep trying. and Akane is very devoted to her and will always keep trying because she wants him to, he knows she doesn't want him to forget her or stop loving her, so he'll always confess to her, despite thinking she'll never be with him.

for now thank you for reading! I'll definitely be doing more analysis on them since there's more I'd like to cover with these two

and about the way he handled Aoi in chapter 69, I think it was very necessary. I've talked about the chapter in this analysis but I'm going to make a separate post centered around chapter 64 and 69 I've already hit the image limit and I still have so much to say specifically about chapter 64 and 69 and I'd like image reference for the readers. and also about the "Aoi doesn't actually like Akane" thing people keep saying, back earlier it was hard to tell. but I think it became clearer that she cared for him during the test finals, and it was very important to establish the way Aoi secretly shows her care for Akane before the sacrifice of the grim reaper arc started. and it has been completely confirmed in the manga that Aoi loves Akane, by her own words in two various times. her care is quite clear with Akane so I couldn't say they're canonly not in love

[sillyyuserr]

idk if you could call this an analysis but something i wanna talk ab

i expect like 1-2 ppl to see this but i cant stop thinking ab chapter 96 😭😭

Lets look at this, a “private” (kind of out in the open) conversation between akane and aoi, but in the circled panel it almost looks as if a 3rd party is looking in. who could that be?

Even in the next panel it looks as though someone could be looking down on them from somewhere. It also shows in the bottom corner someone literally looking down at them.

who could that be?

this fucker. “aoikane” this “aoiaoi” that WHAT ABOUT HIM 😭

like you can see here he’s almost disappointedly looking down at them from afar, with akane more in the middle, seemingly looking at him

which im not Implying he’s all “omg akane 🥺 dont flirt with her ….. 🫣😔💔” which very well could he what he’s doing (less exaggerated obv) but i really have no clue. AidaIro did a really good job at keeping his stance on how he sees akane ambiguous, that he really could be thinking anything here. And yes, they do show us he cares about him but caring about someones is very different from the way you may view them / feel about them.

but why would he be disappointed/sad? Let’s look at possible opitions.

Option 1, he could like aoi and not like how akane seems to be “genuinely” smiling at her when talking to her and holding her hand.

“but evie! wouldnt he be sad ALL the time since akane’s ALWAYS fawning over her?!!”

he literally has stated he doesnt like how akane likes aoi (or at least how he shows it)

Option 2, he straight up wasn’t even peeping in on their convo and was just looking down on them all having fun w/o him (haha loser) (jk i love him)

3rd and final Option, he’s sad akane and aoi are closer, not because he wishes downfall on their relationship but maybe because he likes akane.

which he himself literally said he likes someone, and at this point in time he hasnt met aoi yet, but from panels of akane + teru when they had recently met, he was in a middle school uniform showing that they had known eachother for a bit.

And yeah, this is from CHAPTER 1 and it could have very well been an excuse but cmon man this is enough to take into consideration.

To boil it down, the big question is: “does teru like akane, or aoi?”

Also bro literally tried to stop them from kissing 😭 like which one do u like man JUST CHOOSE

Edit:

I JUST REALIZED HE NEVER CLARIFIED IF IT WAS A GIRL OR NOT. HE SAYS THEM NOT HER (also meaning it could still be a girl 💀)

[aannonn]

Opinion: My own view on the SunFlower trio because.. Why not? lol

honestly i know absolutely no one asked me this but i rEAALLY wanted to do this kind of post so let's go

To be completely honest... I really like TeruAoiKane and (Ama)HanaNeneTsuka. without the incest ofc...

LIke- idk they all just- fit each other so much??

like-

I know not many people ship TeruAoi, AoiKane nor TsuNene (some may even call AoiKane and TsuNene toxic), but, honestly, if u put your mind into it, you (maybe) can see how much it makes sense.

Okokok... I'll just explain my own view on TeruAoiKane (all three of them together) and (Ama)HanaNeneTsuka (without the incest, of course.) ships. Feel free to add your own thoughts into it and/or correct me about it, though!

Though, since this post is kind of long... I'll be splitting this post into 2!

First i'll be talking about TeruAoiKane, theeen in the next part, I'll be talking about (Ama)HanaNeneTsuka!

Alr, without further ado... Let's start with TeruAoi.

Honestly, I never really thought about actually shipping them until I read this analysis about their relationship. (it was actually another analysis, but I can't find it; Besides, the analysis this person made is really good and well-taken!)

If u think about it, Teru and Aoi are pretty similar;

Both hide their true nature under perfect facades.

Both are the 'Queen' and the 'King' of the school.

Both have a very distinct line of thought about the world around them; Aoi oftens looks down on others, while Teru looks down on supernaturals. Aoi is afraid of being hated by the people she loves the most, while Teru is afraid of his siblings not needing him anymore.

It may not be alot, but it's definitely something; They both parallel each other so much. They both understand each other. I wouldn't be surprised if the 'Teru likes Aoi' theory would turn out to be canon, because Teru liking Aoi makes so much more sense instead of him liking Akane.

There are also alot of hints in the manga where its implied that Teru may like Aoi; (All taken from the very same analysis! If u want a more detailed explanation, you can read their analysis about it.)

Chapter 73; He says he likes Akane-san(He calls Aoi Akane-san, while he calls Akane Aoi). Turns around he was just kidding; But the way he acted about it didn't really seem like he was just 'kidding'. The fact that he says that in a bigger panel may really implies that it meant more than it should have.

Later on in the chapter, he looks annoyed when he asks Akane if he did something rather indecent to Aoi. Not even mocking or teasing, just accusing him of it as he says it with an irritated face. And the fact that the text was written in a black word cloud...

He looks pretty genuine in a panel; A panel where he seems genuinely melancholic when he says; "I.. only want Akane-san to come back."

Whenever is asked/implied if Teru have genuine feelings for Aoi, it's always shown to us a big panel about Teru's response. It's almost like his answer about this kind of question is important.

I don't think there are any hints about Aoi liking Teru, but there are definitely alot of hints about Teru liking Aoi. That isn't exactly what made me ship them, but more like their similarities and how they parallel each other.

I don't know how to explain it, they just make sense. They make it make sense. I feel like their ship makes alot more sense than AoiKane and TeruKane.

Their personalities are so similar, the way they think is pretty similar-They just fits each other personalities so much.

Besides, they make me think about that one trope where the popular kids get together in the end. It's clichè, but it's a nice trope when done well.

Now let's go to AoiKane...

I'll be honest; At first, I thought those 2 would never work out, and didn't deserve each other.

Akane was pretty obsessive towards Aoi, so much to the point that he would hurt himself just for her.

Aoi always hid behind the appearance of a perfect girl, so much so that it made her think that Akane never really loved her; Instead, he loved the school princess Ao-chan, not Akane Aoi. - Besides, she backstabbed him. (literally lol)

So yeah, basically; They weren't healthy for each other.

But... As the chapters went on, and how their relationship started to improve ever since the Sacrifice Of The Grim Reaper arc... I feel like they slowly started to patch up the holes in their relationship, and started to trust each other more.

Akane even stopped being that obsessive towards Aoi, and Aoi started to be more open to Akane.

Basically; Their relationship got a big massive improvement, and that's good.

Both of them genuinely loves each other for who the other are; They don't need such facades to love each other, they just do.

"One(s) who truly hates himself(themselves), cannot love. He(they) cannot place his(their) trust in another."

That phrase fits Aoi so much-

She always hated herself, always putting herself under a facade so everyone could love her and never know about her true flaws. She was very careful so that no one could ever know about her true self.

But once she realized that Akane did love her for she really was, she instantly started crying.

It seemed like she finally started to feel loved.

I feel like Akane could help Aoi to love herself more, while Aoi would help Akane to have his own personality more if they were to be in a romantic relationship.

They both got their flaws, but they genuinely love each other and it seems they are slowly starting to improve more their relationship at the same time they are starting to focus on themselves more. Akane is starting to gain more his own personality, while Aoi is (really) slowly starting to love herself.

I still don't really feel like actually shipping them, but I would be lying if their relationship and character's development didn't make me ship them atleast a lil' bit.

Besides, I really like the childhood friends romance trope.

Now let's move on to TeruKane!

To be honest.. I only shipped them for a while before I decided they were better off as best friends. (And that their ship was kind of toxic)

But now, mainly due to the fandom, I started shipping them again, this time for real.

Teru and Akane don't really seem to give any indication that they like each other romantically in the manga, but their dynamic and friendship is very interesting and fun to see.

And, I don't know, but it really seems like Teru cares for Akane;

Teru has cast a spell on Akane's glasses that makes it so he cannot see supernaturals while wearing them and can continue to live a normal life. This has become more evident in the Sacrifice of the Grim Reaper arc, where Teru saves Akane without telling him that Aoi would not be able to leave the Far Shore, most likely because he knew Akane would refuse to leave without her.

Akane does not hold back when insulting Teru, but does have respect for him. He recognizes the hard work Teru does and believes that even though he has a distasteful personality on the surface, deep down he is a caring person who wants to save others.

Taken from their shipping Wikipedia.

I have to agree that their relationship can be kind of toxic, and they wouldn't really work out; But the way they both have mutual respect and care for each other it really what drives me into liking this ship.

Besides, I once saw someone call them; "2 cm away from kissing each other trope", and I agree with them.

Besides, I think Teru would help Akane to gain more personality of his own, while Akane would view Teru for who he is. (I mean, they technically already do that in canon lol)

I feel like they both feel like they don't need to hide under a facade for each other, instead they are just Akane and Teru. Not Vice-president Aoi-kun nor Exorcist Minamoto-senpai; Just Akane and Teru.

Overall; Their relationship is a bit toxic so it will need some development, but their interactions together are pretty nice to see. They can definitely work out once their relationship gets more development. They are more like best friends than to lovers to me, but their ship is still pretty nice.

All three of them together.

It's basically TeruKane, TeruAoi and AoiKane dynamics, but with possibly more development and together.

All three of them would love each other for who the other are; I feel like they would make each other so happy.

Aoi and Teru would help Akane gain a personality of his own; Akane and Teru would help Aoi to love herself more; And Akane and Aoi would let Teru to act like himself more.

Mutual respect and care. Helping each other out with their self-worthy and self-love. Awful personality trio. Parallels each other. Popular trio. They are perfect.

There is probably more to add to it than it actually seems, but it's already 1 am in my country and I really want to move on to (Ama)HanaNeneTsuka already xd

Final opinion; I genuinely really like this trio. I feel like, once they all finally get the character development they deserve, they all could make it work if they were ever to be in a romantic relationship with each other. I love both of their trio name too; Awful Personality and Sunflower trio! To whoever came up with those names for them, you are a absolutely genius. That fits them so much-

Lil' reminder; Always remember that you are free to add your own thoughts into it or correct me about something! Just be respectful about it, please. &lt;3

Ohwell, I think that's it for this post-

Cya! ^~

Lil' update! ; Edited! Fixed some things and added some gifs. lol (Even though this opinion of mine is kind of outdated by now... xd)

[mari-lair]

Let's talk about terukaneaoi! I love them too much to be normal, so expect everything to be based on canon but without the polish of a 'proper analysis'

Let's start with something simple: Aoi is scared of thunder, Teru can create it.

Teru's presence puts her on edge when he uses his powers, but slowly I can see him make her get used to lightning.

Teru's bracelet already gives her a connection between lightning and protection. She seems troubled when she uses it, but she does appreciate this protection, to the point she wears it in school even on her play outfit.

The more she gets used to Teru lightning, and the more her fondness for him as a person grows, the stronger this association will become, and with time I can see her fear of storms disappearing. She associates Teru with a big doggy after all, it's not a very scary view.

Akane will stop being worried about Aoi every time it storms, and start associating lightning with something that makes his partners happy.

Speaking of which, Teru and Aoi have similar interests: Aoi likes shark movies, and teru is cool watching horror movies with people he treasures. Aoi likes sweets and games, Teru likes arcade games and places that sell sugary sweets.

Teru has a more 'out of home/extreme' version of Aoi's hobby.

Teru would force her out of her comfort zone which can be wonderful, specially with how gentle he is with Aoi but I can see him getting too excited when he have fun and going overboard.

Thankfully Akane is the kind of guy who will take bullets for Aoi, so if Teru carries the Aois around like he does with Kou and Nene, Akane would either offer himself a sacrificial lamb so Aoi can rest or protect her from his more extreme ideas. Protecting Aoi is like an instinct for Akane at this point.

(unrelated but Akane calling Teru 'sir', and Aoi always holding to Akane's sleeve when she wants to get closer to him is very cute to me)

Now let's talk about something that would make their relationship a tad complicated and all the more interesting: their view on romance.

Aoi and Akane have jealousy issues and are too proud to admit when they are being possessive.

The romance in their head is super old-fashioned, they don't do casual dating, and if there is romantic interest involved they expect a marriage: Akane immediately imagines Teru and Aoi getting married when teru threatens to ask her out on a date in chapter 59, and Aoi's excuse not to date Akane is that she can't marry a guy that will make her be named Aoi Aoi.

Teru can fix this issue by making the two adopt the Minamoto surname, erasing Aoi's best excuse and likely forcing the poor coward to take a step.

However, if the Aois eventually cave in to Teru barging into their lives, and include him in their hopelessly romantic standards they would gain a problem, a very annoying problem called "Teru has a lot of fans and he actually likes the attention and doesn't wish any harm on them, so Akane can't hit his admires with a baseball bat like he does with Aoi's ." cause teru wouldn't like that and Akane is the kind of guy that would get horrified if he learns he is hurting a loved one and immediately try to fix it.

With nothing else to be done, the two would be very salty about it.

Aoi would easily be hit the worst. Her whole day gets ruined when Akane gets 1 admirer that he bluntly rejects, refusing to even take the chocolate, much less the girl's feelings.

So dating Teru, who smiles sweetly at his fans and does not care about his class making a pavilion of him with merchandise available, would be her worst nightmare.

Just picturing how she would react to moments where Teru is adored is so pitiful to me, cause I guarantee teru will still have a million fans after they starts dating, he has celebrity status. His fans love him even after they give up on a relationship with him, even Nene, who is far from his biggest fan, takes time to fully let go of her worship with him.

Aoi is also very self-conscious, the poor girl acts like people's perception of her doesn't matter but she is extremely arrogant, she will fight her crush on Teru harder than her crush on Akane because she refuses to believe she is on the same level as his fangirls.

She look down on Teru's fangirls, to some extent, telling people teru is the kind of boy every girl can fall in love with, but making sure to establish he is not her type. She used to only ever mention him to try to connect with Nene, acting so fake it's straight up condescending.

So geting a crush on Teru would give Aoi a gigantic crisis.

Both Akanes love to pretend they aren't the jealous tipe, but since they have no issues looking after each other, they would consistently use each other as excuses to reprimand Teru. So we have both Aois going "I am not bothered, not at all, but think about how much Ao-chan/Akane-kun is affected by it."

I feel like Teru would make the Aois jealous on purpose at first because he likes to torment them, and because it makes him feel special, he adores attention, but when he realizes how much it bothers Aoi he'll try to set boundaries with his fans, while simultaneously calling her out for being overly insecure, something Akane is too smitten to do when not in extreme scenarios.

Teru is not nearly as possessive as the Aois: As of now in the manga, it realistically doesn't matter if Teru likes Aoi, Akane, or the two, cause his chance of scoring a date with either is zero. At the start of the manga, he doesn't seem jealous when Akane gushes about his undying love for Aoi or when guys throw themselves at Aoi's feet. Teru is chill. It's not like anyone is making any progress so why worry?

BUT the second he catches Aoi and Akane near kissing he does not even think about doing the whole 'oh I will suppress my feelings so I do not burden them' cliché, he slams himself into their relationship, while simultaneously pushing Aoi and Akane together.

Teru talks a lot about stealing Aoi from Akane but he has no intention of doing so: He waited until the two resolved their issue in chapter 69 before barging in. He let them have a moment in the tunnel despite knowing it could be Aoi's last day 'alive'. He tries to hang out with both whenever possible. He let Akane go after Aoi in the rescue, and so on. It's not like he wants them away from each other, he just wants to be there with them.

Unrelated, but Teru's shocked "whoa" is so funny to me, cause it was revealed in the relay interview that the one thing Teru has issues with regarding Akane is his approach to win Aoi's heart.

The approach he is talking about here is before the grim reaper arc, when Akane used to tactlessly confess his love everyday and treat her like an untouchable goddess. So the 'male lead of a romance manga' approach Akane has going on in chapter 69 must truly have been a shock to Teru.

"whoa." feels as if he is shocked, appalled, but also reluctantly impressed.

Aoi and Akane are so pretty in Teru's eyes, is insane actually.

In short: I think Teru would not care if people flirt with Aoi and Akane, but he will get jealous and more clingy if Akane gives Aoi too much attention, or Aoi neglects him. The only people he can ever be jealous of are the Akanes themselves.

They all have interesting connections separated too.

Akane bonded with Teru about their mutual duties as student council members, which makes them used to work together, and also bond over their core belief when it comes to human life: both value it, albeit for different reasons, and share a similar kind of hatred for the supernaturals that endanger it.

Akane and Aoi bond about being childhood friends and having the same core belief when it comes to romance. They are fundamental parts of each other's life, witnessing the other grow, how they changed and how they stayed the same. They know each other better than anyone.

Teru and Aoi bond over feeling alienated from their peers. They don't understand each other, and their experiences and reasons for feeling this way are incredibly different, but they understand the feeling of being different better than any other human character.

One of the things the three share in common is that they are all petty with each other.

Teru wants to be a good guide in chapter 70, but both Aois are still salty about the kiss he interrupted and refuse to take his hand. Akane is always delighted to drag Teru down, just as Teru is to bully him, and Aoi looks happy propositionally making Akane jealous.

It combines into the best kind of 'wow they are awful, I love them' interactions.

It's like Teru's mere presence brings the worst out of the Aois, but despite Akane and Aoi's confusion when it comes to Teru a lot of times, they don't hate him. They grow fond of him.

Akane grow to respect Teru. I would go as far as to say that deep down he always admired him a little, because his perception of Teru changes from "a demon" to "a nice husband that would make Aoi happy" in the span of 20 chapters.

The three can be unconventional about their care for each other, but to me, it is undeniable they value each other opinions and well being.

Even Aoi grows a soft spot for Teru, and this strange but prevalent display of care in their actions speaks volumes.

Terukaneaoi can make each other better just as easily as they can make each other worse. They balance each other out while leaving space for a lot of conflicts that can be explored, honestly, they are plain fun, and I adore them.

Bonus: Their height difference is beautiful, just look at them!

[mari-lair]

That’s a lot of questions, but I’ll try my best to answer them all!

.

Aoi doesn’t care about an individual perception of her, she genuinely has no interest in a stranger because she always assumes they have bad intentions. They want to hurt her: It does not matter if they are jealous or worship the ground she walks on, they they will hurt her. Which is a sad way to view the world, so she defends herself.

Her attitude is a big wall that says “If I don’t care about you or your opinion, you can’t hurt me”. 

She detaches herself from it all, preferring apathy over being vulnerable and opening herself to be hurt. This lack of confrontation, this apparent lack of care (she doesn’t seem to ask even simple things most kids would in her situation “Why are you bullying me?”) makes her feel arrogant, which feeds into people’s bad view of her and prove her trust issues right, which gives her more reasons to believe she is right and became more arrogant.

Akane was always there to stop anyone from going too far when messing with her, so she can look down on others even when they got aggressive without fearing for her health. She can’t be hurt emotionally in her indifference, and she doesn’t care about physical injuries, not when the most she’ll get with Akane around to protect her is a scratch.

So she keeps this up to the point Akane genuinely starts believing she is a tough girl that doesn’t care when people are mean to her.

But she does.

She just pushes it all away, and pretends she is above it all. Growing genuine in her arrogance after training herself to not care all the time, convinced the way the world sees her doesn’t matter, because they don’t matter.

Aoi can’t use this defense when she already cares about someone, but she still naturally assumes the worst of people when it comes to how they view her, so something as small as a petty fight with someone whose views she deeply values can be extremely hurtful.

She is scared.

“Akane hates me, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he never liked me in the first place!"

She is also visibly angry: She hates that she cares, she hates that she can’t hide it. Notice how she doesn’t say anything or try to run after Akane. She is trying very hard to convince herself she “Doesn’t care”, she wants so badly to ignore Akane, or to hate him, but she can’t do either, so she defaults to being angry at herself.

The reason Akane finds her crying so cute is not because the tears look cute, is because it shows how much she cares about him. Under all that bravado and arrogance Aoi is a sensitive girl who wants to be loved, and she is very attached to the people she considers friends, she can act tough all she wants but if a loved one says "I hate you" she is so distressed she cries.

Aoi hates how sweet and 'weak' her heart under all her icy defenses. Akane finds it cute.

Akane was her only friend for most of her life, so the person she pays the most attention to, and the one she compares herself to the most is Akane.

Akane is the direct opposite of her: People are unfair to Aoi and she react by closing her heart so no one can hurt her. People are unfair to Akane, making him do annoying work without giving him anything in return, and he reacts by loudly acknowledging people are being unfair instead of bottling up any discomfort, and trying his best anyways instead of running away, keeping his heart open and wearing his emotions and feelings on his sleeves. 

Akane doesn’t care about others opinion of him, he’ll swing his bat like a crazy person at school and be rude as fuck to people he just met, but he help other because he wants to help, he is a nice person.

In comparison to Akane, Aoi feels selfish, cruel, and cold. She only ever cares and worries about her close friends because their opinions matter to her.

Akane is someone even she, with all her walls, can’t help but love. And since she is the oppose of him... Is easy to come to the conclusion she is unlovable. She may not care about a stranger calling her a slut, but she can see people don’t like her. Again and again, people always find some problem with her.

She hates herself too, so she is convinced even the people that claim they love her don’t care about her, they just love the sweet personality they come up with after seeing her pretty face, and they’ll hate her when they realize there is more to her than a cutesy smile.

She is unlovable by design, so she assumes the only reason her friends don’t hate her yet, is because they don’t know her true self.

The “cute, sweet, and friendly, popular girl with a pretty face!” is loved. She is Nene’s best friend, the girl all the guys want and all the girls envy.

But Aoi? The arrogant and distant coward that is scared of caring too much? She isn’t loved by anyone. She is sure she will be rejected if she act honest, so she doesn’t even try.

Her life was never a “perfect life”. 

Aoi is either by Nene's or Akane’s side. She isn’t close to anyone else.

The manga is in Nene’s point of view so her situation is narrated through rose tinted glasses: Nene lives in a fantasy world where Aoi’s life is perfect since being popular is Nene’s dream, so Aoi’s popular life must be amazing! Right?

Nene can’t break this view. Even when the truth stares her in the face. She does not change her view.

Aoi was a wreck when she tried to apologize, but she does regret trying to kill Nene, she wants to apologize, so she tries her best to get out of her comfort zone and face her biggest fears for Nene: She is willing to have a confrontation instead of hiding

Instead of asking Aoi how she feel, or making any questions about her behavior, Nene immediately dismissed all of Aoi’s actions. Nene doesn’t want to deal with Aoi’s problems, she just wants her popular bubbly friend back.

Their hug in chapter 96 means Nene embraced the “popular girl bff with a pretty face” and rejected Aoi. 

Aoi is hurt by this, but she is a coward, so she accepts it, pretending nothing happened. (I go into more detail about Nene’s views, and why Aoi doesn’t open up: Here.)

Despite all her flaws, Aoi is not nearly as bad as she sees herself as, she is mostly insecure, desperate to be loved even when she feel like she doesn’t particularly deserve it. 

She is harsh on herself, wanting to keep all her emotions under tight control, but she is sweet to her friends, she genuinely loves them and tries to fight her bad habits. She wants them to be happy! 

She’ll get invested in topics she doesn’t personally care about, because she knows Nene likes it, and worry about Akane’s health for the simple reason that she cares, she wants the best for them.

Her sweet side clashes with her bad habit to always assume the worst.

Despite being a sweet girl at heart, caring about others is still very painful. It does not come easy for Aoi, who has trained herself to be isolated from her peers.

She wants her friends to look at her, she wants to be important and be reassured she is loved! But even when she is shown love, she doesn’t believe in it

She convinced herself they don’t care about her, just like all these strangers don’t care about her. And she is arrogant enough to believe she is always right, so if she can’t see this ‘wonderful girl’ Akane sees, it just means Akane is the wrong one. That this isn’t her insecurities talking, Akane is the one lying, he is the one that doesn’t truly love her. 

 Aoi believes she has misled him just like she had misled Nene, and she wants to talk about it, she wants to be honest, she is so tired of hiding her flaws! But she is too scared to risk losing the love she is given so she will keep hiding, she’ll keep lying to herself that it doesn’t matter, as she has done since she was a small child.

All the things that she claims to hate about Akane, the things that make her feel envious, and lacking in comparison, are also what she wishes she had, things she genuinely admires about him. Things that make him so special and “easy to love” in her eyes.

The idea Akane isn’t lovable does not compute to her. She never says “he is not my type” even when she is neck deep in denial because to Aoi, only an idiot wouldn’t see how lovable Akane is, and Aoi is too arrogant to lower herself to the level of an idiot.

She adores him so much that even when she believes the “cute humble and popular Aoi” is the only Aoi he’ll ever love, she can’t let go. She keeps him at arm's length to not get too attached, but she can’t bring herself to truly run away, to reject him point blank.

She wants him after all, when we get a glimpse of her alone with her defenses down, she melts just from watching him work hard.

She wants them to be closer (unrelated but I can’t get over how she went “watching Akane from my window isn’t enough, let me lean on my balcony, so we are closer.”)

She wants them to be side by side. She wants to accept his confessions. But she is too scared to admit even to herself that she is smitten.

Opening up is hard for her after all, and admitting he cares about him so much? That’s terrifying. 

So she runs. 

Because if Akane gets too close he might see her flaws, and if her “unlovable self” make him stop loving her, if her flaws make him leave her, she will crumble.

When her usual defense of “I don’t care, you can’t hurt me!” isn’t effective, her second one is to distance herself from what is hurting her so she has some ‘control’ of the situation.

The drug no.6 gave her may have lowered her empathy, but “discarding people so they can’t hurt her” and “running far far away” has always been an itch she had. She always dismisses any stranger from her life, because she doesn't need them. She always runs away when she is hurt.

Is a desire born from the ugliest, most selfish, and insecure parts of her heart, something her kinder and friendlier side never allowed her to act on. But it is a part of her, the one she hates: this is the “unlovable Aoi” to the extreme, fully out.

Is a part she constantly tries to hide, but is always there, as important to her character as her kindness. A part of her that is resentful of the world and wants to stop caring altogether, to hide and hide forever, make it so only she can hurt herself.

She assumes if Nene asks Akane out he’ll accept, despite how much Akane only focuses on her, so she spends a week without going to school to spare herself the pain.

She accepts Akane “have been lying and secretly still likes Lemon” right away because of a silly ghost game, going straight into depressive mode and running away from the pain.

She genuinely wants Akane to be happy, and while she wants him to be happy with her, she hates her possessive nature, using her usual defense mechanism and trying to convince herself she doesn’t care about him, that he is disposable.

She doesn’t want to hurt anyone but she is arrogant, so she doesn’t protest or do anything to show she likes Akane (even when its obvious), going “I hope you’re happy” and running before she says what she really wants and ‘ruin their fun’ and ‘give her feelings away’.

She wants control over the situation: To leave before others ‘inevitably’ leave her. And Akane knows.

But he genuinely like her for who she is, he know how sensitive she is under her smile, so he always run after her to calm her down.

Akane is her biggest weakness and Aoi despises feeling weak and out of control. So her crush on him is a two edge sword.

She genuinely believed Akane doesn’t love her real self, but she also used it as an excuse to have control over her crush, to justify her lack of courage to pursue a relationship. 

She is still the same scared kid that cried when Akane said he hates her and got mad at herself for crying about it.

She is too arrogant to admit Akane has control over her feelings even when her composure is shattered.

Part of her genuinely doesn’t want to care, she wants to raise her walls and keep Akane away so he can’t hurt her! That is why she stabbed him and tried to throw him away in the first place.

She tries so hard to use her usual “I don’t care about you, so your opinion can’t hurt me” strategy with him, it's frustrating that it doesn’t work. 

She is a flustered mess by the point Akane start gushing about a flaw she hates so much and makes her life difficult.

The reason she is uncomfortable with Akane is because she is uncomfortable when she can’t control her emotions. And Akane? He could make her blush even when his approach was so tactless she dissociated from his shower of  neverending compliments, so this assertive approach, practically forcing Aoi to accept that he likes her for who she is and that she can’t run away from his love no matter how hard she tries, it’s as much of a dream (she always wanted to be loved fully) as it is a nightmare (he is too direct! He does not give this poor coward a break!!).

He doesn’t allow her any escape. He is taking her far far away from her comfort zone. Her panic is completely and utterly genuine. Help her cause she does not know what to do.

She isn’t able to give him a verbal answer when Akane asks “Do you like me, even just a little bit?” but Akane never expected an answer.

He only acted so bold in the first place (holding her and kissing her neck) because at this point, he already knows she loves him.

Aoi doesn’t deny his claim, she doesn’t use meaningless excuses like “We can’t marry because that would make me Aoi Aoi” , she just... cling to him, holding on.

Only after she hugs him back (which is a silent “I love you too” in this context) does Akane go for the kiss.

Let's compare when Akane tries to kiss her to a similar scene where she is genuinely uncomfortable so I can show you she is more nervous and flustered by his advances than truly scared or uneasy.

In chapter 24 Hanako possessed Nene and tried to ‘seduce’ Aoi. Aoi had no idea supernaturals exist at the time, and she even goes “Nene-chan...?” to show she fully believes this is Nene, not some ghost possessing her friend. 

There is a lot of focus on Nene’s reaction, an attempt to make it comedic, but Aoi is extremely uncomfortable with this forceful behavior.

Aoi likes Nene, Nene is one of the two people she considers a friend, but she hated this: She is sweating, there isn’t even a hint of blush on her face, and she keep her hands far away, having her back on a wall. She likes to hold hands with Nene, comfortable being touchy with her friend, but in this situation, her instinct is to lean away. She doesn’t want it. She is uneasy.

Now let's go back to chapter 69. There are a lot of similarities, both Hanako (who she assume is Nene) and Akane hold her chin before trying to kiss her and both have her backed into a wall. Akane should arguably be worst cause she hasn’t been touchy with him in years while she is constantly holding Nene’s hand, but not only does Aoi blush, she doesn’t try to run from her feelings like usual, she reaches for him, holding on to his jacket.

She isn’t confident, she is sweating and shocked, (which makes sense considering how chaotic her night have been) but there is light in her eyes: She is scared, but she wants to kiss him too.

She have craved to be closer to Akane for ages but this talk didn’t magically heal her issues, no matter how much she dislikes this part of her, she is still an arrogant coward at heart: This kiss is hard for her. Any sort of intimacy is. It goes agaist her instinct to hide and sabotage herself.

That’s why she always blushes hard and gets extremely nervous with Akane when he gets too close. Even when what he is doing isn’t forceful, it feels overwhelming to Aoi.

She needs to hold back the urge to run. She needs to fight the urge to think about the worst and trust him, allow Akane to have sway over her emotions.

She still have a long way to go, and I’m rooting for her.

[mari-lair]

It’s wild when I see people say Aoi is written only to be Akane’s love interest, cause Akane never hid that he is her boy.

He goes the extra mile just for a hint of her attention and had given the classic childhood friend heroine speech of "I’ll love my crush even if they never look my way."

It's framed as a joke but he is genuinely happy as long as Aoi exist, he can enjoy his life and look forward to all his days no matter how shitty they are (Teru bullies him, the clock keepers work him dry, he gets rejected constantly, and so on,) as long as Aoi is alive and happy.

He is ridiculously easy to please when it comes to Aoi.

And while Aoi does loves Akane, visibly being affected by him: As seen by her possessive attitude, her wish to be closer to him, and the way his hard work influenced her, she doesn’t try or want her world to revolve around him.

Yes, she will cry and crumble if he doesn’t like her because she cares deeply, their relationship is a solid part of her character, but she has plenty of hobbies and plans without him, most of her problems are caused by herself or society's views and expectations of her, she wouldn’t do what Akane asks of her or change for him, not unless he is asking for something she also wants for herself.

Let’s compare how they talk about each other for a bit.

The only time Aoi talks about her feelings for Akane is in chapter 84, which is very far into the manga.

And this exposition shows her envious and insecure side, how she admires kindness and wishes she was as lovable: It shows a conflict that says as much about Aoi’s character as it does about Akane’s character.

Meanwhile, Akane consistently talks about her, and most of his expositions don’t offer any substance to his character, other than “he is in love”.

The only exposition that says as much about himself as it does about Aoi is the one in chapter 24, which shows he stalks her, and Aoi encourages it, since she trusts him, and unfortunately, she have been in need of constant protection from a young age:

Even when Akane explicitly says he’ll talk about himself.

He doesn’t.

He  proceeds to spend the whole chapter talking about Aoi.

The only thing he says about himself in that entire rant is “I hate that part of you”, which he later admits was a lie, something that he used to have her stay and listen.

He isn’t just her boy, he has a life outside her, a very busy life.

As Aoi put it, “He works hard and is dutiful.” which mostly translates to ‘helpful and trust worthy’, so he is constantly seen giving other characters advise that works or making them snap out of their bullshit: He is the reliable one.

His classmates respect him , Teru trusts his judgement, and hell even Kou, who barely interacted with Akane had called him and not a close friend like Nene, when he felt powerless and needed help.

But no matter how seriously he may take his duties or want to help people, Akane has decided he was born to love and protect Aoi.

That’s his priority, always.

His only long term goals involve Aoi, he devoted all his heart and soul to her.

If she wanted Akane to change his style to clothes he would never wear on his own, or make him get into new hobbies, or tell him to score lower than her, he would do it right away: He is comfortable being her boy, he’ll throw his pride away with no hesitation for her and do anything to make her happy to an extreme even most ‘heroines’ I see wouldn’t cross.

The one thing Aoi made VERY clear despite never saying out loud is “Keep your eyes on me. Don’t flirt with anyone else.” and that’s a wish that Akane took to heart, to the point that he is the only character that stays ‘loyal’ to his love interest even on silly extra events, like the ‘kiss day’ arts.

Everyone else send a kiss, no matter if they have a love interest or not, since is just a fun little bonus.

Akane only starts to touch her when he is confident Aoi likes him too: When he assumes she wants him, before that he always kept a certain distance, understanding he ain’t entitled to shit just because they are childhood friends.

Akane is far from perfect, he can be selfish and self centered, his approach to help usually tactless, but at his core, he always seek to do what Aoi wants, no questions asked.

His devotion is extreme to the point of being unhealthy, but he isn’t lying or trying to please Aoi here: As long as she is alive, and enjoying life, he will be delighted doing any of the things she wants. Her best hairstyle in his eyes is always the one she chose to style, the best clothes are always the ones she wants to wear.

There is nothing he likes more than her. Or to make her happy.

Even what Akane loves to do the most, which is to gush about Aoi nonstop until he looks batshit insane, is something that she had encouraged and never complained, no matter how much it escalated, so he was convinced she loved the attention.

Once she is honest and admits she doesn’t like it, he immediately tries to drop it.

He still has an ‘I was born to love you’ mentally, he just stop putting on a show, or trying to make her heart flutter. Most of his displays of worry, affection, or ‘ill protect you’ became either quiet or casual.

...Still.

He can’t help but show his love loudly from time to time, he is cringe at heart, truly hopeless, but he is trying his best.

In short: Aoi is in desperate need for more character focus, but the one determined to make their life revolve around their love interest is clearly Akane.

[mari-lair]

Aoi knew she would die in chapter 70.

Despite everything that happened, Aoi was mostly silent on her adventures with Akane and Teru through the boundary, she only started talking when they went into the tunnel.

More specifically, after Akane mentioned a light at the end of the tunnel.

Aoi is a smart girl, and No.6 had told her she was kidnapped to die from the start, so the lack of light at the end of her tunnel was enough to connect the dots of her fate.

She doesn’t panic in the face of death, but she does understand they’ll be separated soon, so she starts talking. Aoi has few words per speech bubble and many "..." so it feels like this isn’t easy for her, that the words still come off as quiet and reserved: She has basically no experience voicing her emotions.

The only times she opens up and shares her genuine thoughts, is when she is certain it will be the last chance she gets before disappearing from everyone’s lives.

She is cold and confident when she vents to Akane and expresses her frustrations, but she is quiet about herself in the tunnel, and that tells a lot about her character.

Aoi was certain no one cared about her true self when she was venting, just her cute popular girl persona, and it hurts, so she wanted to hurt others too, to feel like the one in control, and convince herself that running away, taking the solution that doesn’t involve facing her fears, isn’t a mistake, her mistake was letting people get close to her.

She is angry with herself too, because she cares about the genuine and honest people that spend years with her, and yet, she was never genuine with them. She hates her true self so she feels like they’ll hate her too if she let them see behind the mask: She wants to run away before they leave her, but she never had the 'courage' to abandon them. She is ‘stuck’ in the living world, hating herself for all her flaws and yet craving love: a love she gets so easily that she feels like she doesn’t deserve it, so it becomes fake in her eyes.

This eternal conflict can really drag a person down, so when No.6 offered her a way to be more detached she accepted without a fight: The potion she was given seems to lower her empathy, instead of fully brainwashing her, is the push she needed to discard the people that tied her to the living world and fulfill her longing to disappear.

No matter how real her wish, and her pain, so are her actions, and when her plan to 'throw Akane in the trash with Nene' fails, and her plan to make him stop loving her also failed, she gets held back again: She put her plan to disappear on hold.

She couldn’t leave after seeing Akane bleeding out from her own hands and still clinging to her. She looks so sad. No matter how much she tries to detach herself, she cares too much.

She even rip her skirt to bandages his wounds.

Cause she never truly hated him, the one she wanted to throw away from the start was herself: She is jealous of him and yet she deeply loves him, she only lingered in the living world long after she grew tired of herself because she loves a lot.

Aoi is sure she is right about them abandoning her once they see her real self. She know she is smart and she realized her fears that they were hiding something from her turned out to be right, so she cut them out of their lives before she was proven ‘right’ again and they cut her out of theirs.

She had to be cold with Akane, sink deeper into the idea she is cruel and unlovable and people will only ever lie to her, so that it would be easier to fulfill her wish.

Talking about her problems was never a goal of her vent, she is convinced she is unlovable with such fervor that there is nothing to discuss. It's why she tries to run away the second she finished reafirming her conviction living as she have been is pointless, and had to be dragged by force into the conversation.

In contrast, when she reached the tunnel in chapter 70, she is in a pensive state. She was reassured after her confrontation in chapter 69 that Akane love her, flaws and all, but she was still unsure how to feel, in the mentality of someone who has been very very close to just... giving up on living. And while Akane's love does help her feel less like an unlovable mess, it doesn’t heal all her doubts, and she is left with a lot to think.

She is more soft-spoken in the tunnel because she has nothing to prove, she just wants to talk, to express herself. There is no hidden agenda, no end goal, just guilt.

The more she talks with Akane, the less alone she feels, and the more she opens up, slowly getting comfortable, making promise after promise with him: These promises make her look forward to the future, make her have hope, and want to live.

When you keep in mind that Aoi knows that she will die, this scene feels much more tragic.

She never expected any of her plans to come to fruition, but just the idea of playing games and zoo dates made her feel better, made her feel hope, and realize she had nice things.

There are good people in her life, she doesn’t have to live in fear: She is loved, her real hobbies and interest are treasured.

Akane’s declaration burst her bubble of make belief, make it finally hit her that she will die, that she’ll lose it all before she gets experience it.

Akane may still have a future, he sees the light, but he will lose her as soon as they leave this tunnel. Aoi knows her death will destroy him, but she can’t tell him: Just like Teru, she understands that Akane will refuse to abandon her if he learns the truth, and she wants him to live, so she can’t tell him.

She believes this is the last time they’ll ever see each other, and after everything he has done for her, she can’t even tell him that she likes him, which, unlike her death, is something she really wants to tell him, something she can give him right away and that she ‘should’ since she won’t get another chance.

But she doesn’t, because she is a coward.

So she was left alone in the dark with her regrets, carrying this wish to live, to stay by her friends side, to confess to Akane, and believing she had lost it all.

She no longer wants to die. She has hope and a longing for life, so she follows Hanako to the train instead of dissapearing into the void.

I am glad her rescue was successful, and she was able to get back to her loved ones

[mari-lair]

I like the choice to have Akane grab Aoi’s neck in chapter 69, I feel like people don’t get the point, or simply turn a blind eye to the context of why Akane did that.

It oddly parallels Mitsukou in chapter 35.

Why did Kou grab Mitsuba's face instead of his shoulder or anywhere more normal? Because Mitsuba turned his back on him, and Kou can’t handle Mitsuba dissapearing again. He is forcing Mitsuba to face him, he screams when he said “Remember it!!” because being remembered is very important to Kou.

Kou needs to make sure Mitsuba is listening to him, he can't accept being forgotten.

Kou is going through a lot after failing Sousuke’s ghost, so this desperation, this need to be heard, is only natural when he finds the supernatural Mitsuba.

Now let’s focus on Akane and Aoi, and remember that just like hell of mirrors, chapter 69 does not exist in a void: There is context.

Akane’s is a very bold and proud person, when he feels like what he wants to say is important and needs to be heard, he has always made sure the person he is talking to is looking at him in the eye. He does not care if he has to be rough to get their attention, or if he comes across as violent.

It’s a part of his character since his intro arc, all the way back to chap 25, with the clock keepers.

And Aoi is no exception.

On their day-to-day, Ao always smiles at his confessions so he believes she is happy and feel loved by this attention. As long as Aoi is enjoying her life, he is happy.

It is very important to him that Aoi feel loved, and that she understands how much he loves her, so after she attacks him with her centipede, he isn’t gentle with her, he makes sure she is immobilized and looking at him in the eye when he confesses again. He makes sure she is paying attention.

He doesn't like to be aggressive with Aoi, his eyes are even hidden when he slam her on the ground, but it is very important to him that she understands he loves her. He wants her to pay attention to what he have to say, he want her to see he is being honest.

What anger Akane isn’t being stabbed, is the way he begs for Aoi to listen to him, yet Aoi dismisses his words. Aoi does not believe him.

So he couldn’t communicate his feelings and is too injured to drag her all the way to the surface. He will pass out any moment now from the pain. What can he do? Not much, so he chose to drag her with him down No.6 pit, something he recognises is selfish, and that he apologizes for.

Is definitively a failure in his rescue mission, but something he considers better than leting her die alone. (which i go more in dept on Here)

Akane didn’t give up after all these failures though, his original goal to bring Aoi back wasn’t shaken: He want her by his side, but he want her alive and well, not in this hole they fell into.

He has been apologetic during this whole arc.

It’s been failure after failure ever since he let No.6 kidnap her.  

So he assumes her disbelief is because she deserves more, that he isn't expressing his love enough. Because to him Aoi is the most lovely person in the world and the idea Aoi doesn’t love herself  and feel like she doesn’t deserve praise simply doesn’t compute.

So he doesn't reflect on why Aoi doesn't believe in his love, he just tries harder. He makes the exact same mistake, putting her on a pedestal, screaming about how amazing she is.

So obviously, Aoi still doesn’t belive him. 

She is so disconected from his seemingly endless love for ‘someone as bad as her’ that she gets tired of his gushing, telling him upfront why she can’t take a single word he says seriously.

And that’s it. That’s what ‘flipped his switch’, and made him drop the ‘loverboy’ attitude. The powerful combo of her explanation as to why she feels like she should remove herself from the world and the sight of Aoi walking away: the understanding Akane have no time.

Kou was scared Mitsuba would disappear if he let go. Akane knew Aoi would disappear if he let her go. She even said ‘goodbye’.

So when he finally understood what the problem was and what had to be communicated. He did not hesitate, he already failed enough this entire day, he will make sure she listens.

He went for the face like Kou because he is also desperate, he forced her to face him because he can’t handle her running away. Akane needs Aoi to look at him in the eye and listen to him.

Saying ‘i love you’ won’t be heard no matter how true, so he told her something she would believe in.

He tells her he hates her.

Gone is Aoi’s apathy, she imediately abandon all attempts to run, shocked into silent instead of dismissive. When Aoi listen to what he have to say, his hold grows laughably loose, more like caressing her chin than forcing her in place cause he got what he wanted, he have has her full attention, Aoi is glaring straight at him, not trying to run.

( @bpzau-art​  did a good post on how violence is despicted in the manga so if you’re not convinced Akane never tried to injure her, you can check it: Here)

Aoi didn’t cry when she was thrown into the water, because she wasn't hurt, just surprised, still vaguely detached, thinking about running away. She only snapped out of it and cried when Akane said he hated her, and that hurt far more than being manhandled. The fear of being hated is one she had since young and is hard to block out after all.

This is curel but it was Akane’s best attempt to force Aoi, a girl insecure and arrogant enough to want to run away from her life over the idea she might be betrayed, to stay quiet and listen to him. That's why he roasted her, and only after he knew for sure she was paying full attention, taking his words seriously, did he confess again.

That's why when he confesses again, she gets flustered, because this time she is listening, she believes when he says “I love you”.

Just compared it to how blank she was before, when she didn’t believe a single word he said.

That’s it. That’s all Akane wanted: To be believed.

This isn’t revenge on Aoi for a stab wound he doesn’t care about, or a power trip. It was an act to get her attention.

He admits at such.

He said “I wasn’t planning on telling you this” before his roast on Aoi because he know it would hurt Aoi, and it makes him feel like shit to curse her to the point of tears. His smile only stops being pained and fake when it becomes clear his message got across and Aoi understood what he wanted to tell: That he hates her habit to distance herself, but not her. That he can see her ugly side just fine but still love her.

This is a happy Akane:

This isn’t:

[mari-lair]

Hello! I just want to say thank you for serving the Aoikane nation! I appreciate all the in-depth analysis you made for this ship considering that almost all of the TBHK fandom looks down on the ship because it's "toxic" and they're not good enough for each other. It's so nice and refreshing to see someone who view the ship in a more positive light! Thank you!

It’s my pleasure, Anon! Their flaws only make their love more endearing to me, and if no one will talk about it you bet I'll be here ready to go insane over them!

[kittytheartist]

the reason I was unhappy with how Aoi and Nene's reunion played out

was because I expected Akane to be there and try and help Aoi or give her a push, I know this is between her and Nene but Akane stayed put and that sort of bothered me, because all I could think about was how he said he would

and with the look of "I won't get to" and tears coming to her eyes I was sort of mad at Akane :/

but I suppose it was good for Aoi to do it herself, especially with Nene being such an outgoing person, going right up to hug her. I guess it was good for them, I just can't help but feel like their reunion should have been different

[mari-lair]

I have 4 character analysis I want to work on but not enough energy or time for it.

I wish tumblr would let me have polls so I could check which one people are more interest in, but since I can’t do polls, I’ll improvise: Leave a comment or tag or ask saying what you’re more interested in.

- Teru 

- Kou

- Aoikane

- Hanakou

EDIT: Poll over, thank you for voting! Teru won. Hanakou was second place.