#lovekagami

[gale-gentlepenguin]

ML Analysis: Love Rival: Why Kagami works but is still hated and why Luka doesn’t but is loved

Now this will be my most controversial Hot take, a lot of you already saw the title and are already organizing your complaints. I don't care, you are free to do so. 

In a previous post, I discussed what makes a good love rival and if you want a good explanation of that, click the in bold link. 

This is a VERY LONG POST, so I am posting a read more. I would love to hear your thoughts on this analysis. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Did you want to include something? Let me know.

I think in order to organize this post I will be splitting it up as follows.

Why Kagami Works as a Love Rival

Why She is Hated for it

Why Luka Doesn't Work as a Love Rival

Why He is Loved despite it

Final thoughts

So lets get to it

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Why Kagami Works as a Love Rival

Kagami Tsurugi was introduced in the episode Riposte, where she is established as a straightforward, no nonsense fencer that wants to be the best. 

Her introduction is solid, she establishes her base and what the audience is supposed to know about her from the getgo. We also get the impression that Kagami when introduced would be a rival to Adrien, as they are competing in Fencing, which makes for a nice twist when they end up getting along and Kagami begins the task of being a Love rival. She starts off as a foil for Adrien, but then the reveal is she is actually a character foil for Marinette.

What also helps Kagami is that the show is mainly from Marinette’s perspective, so we get to see Kagami as Marinette does, as someone that is competing for Adrien’s affections, cementing the Rival aspect of the Love rival. Kagami clashes with Marinette causing Marinette to in turn be more upfront with her feelings and push harder to try and win over Adrien. This is something a good rival does, pushing Marinette forward and making her have to try. This rival aspect of Kagami’s character give Marinette urgency, which is something that is needed in order to drive Marinette towards a conclusion, whether it is to pursue Adrien or move on. 

Now as a love interest, Kagami establishes her relationship with Adrien in a different way then Marinette. Kagami’s straightforward nature allowed her to tell Adrien how she felt much earlier on, she pushes and asserts herself. This contrasts Marionette’s approach to wooing Adrien, and also has an interesting parallel to how Chat Noir handles his feelings towards Ladybug. Acting as a mirror towards that relationship. While Kagami is not flirtatious like chat noir, she is upfront about her feelings. She puts it out there and is understanding when Adrien isn't ready to respond, much like how chat noir is with ladybug. But the difference being that ladybug and Chat noir’s dynamic has a bit more complexity to it. Regardless, Kagami checks the boxes needed to be a true love rival.

Now the last and most crucial part about Kagami is the character at the core. Cause in the end, we know her and Adrien’s relationship wont be endgame, and interestingly she will be better off afterwards. Ikari Gozen does an excellent job filling in more information about Kagami’s character. In this we get to see that Kagami’s life doesn't revolve around being Adrien’s love interest, she is someone that has her own struggles and wants to find freedom in her own way, be friends with people, but she is awkward. Her development from this and Loveater shows how much she has grown on her own, how she has come to see Marinette as a friend, how she understands that there is more to life than just fencing. She wants to prove she is good enough, and wants to show she is worthy of friendship and love. Those are themes and traits that can be cultivated and grown. Kagami’s greatest appeal is that she can grow beyond her role as a Love rival, and that is why she succeeds.

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Why She is Hated for it

Now despite all of these great qualities Kagami has demonstrated as well as how perfect her character is for such a role, the fandom is mixed about her, some even down right hating her. Interestingly enough, the reasons they dislike Kagami is not because of her character. Especially when you consider the rise in popularity of Marigami. Its because of 3 other factors outside of Kagami’s control. Over-saturation, Writing, and Fandom trends.

Over-saturation seems like an odd choice but it perfectly describes the situation. In season 1, we are introduced to two other female characters that were reoccurring characters AND were romantically interested in Adrien. Chloé bourgeois and Lila Rossi. Now both of them can be considered antagonists, and that is kind of the problem. Two reoccurring female characters already have a thing for Adrien, and both of them are jerks (that being the lightest term I can use). Now we know Adrien would never end up with a bad girl, but that impression starts to stick and make it seem like a pattern. That Adrien only attracts bad people (excluding Marinette). By season 2, when Kagami was introduced, it just seemed to the fans like, “Oh great, ANOTHER one”. Despite Kagami being a good character, and someone that actually cares about Adrien outside of the shallow aspects that Lila and Chloé were invested in, fans were ready to write her off and, with how the show was written, you couldn't really blame them at the time. 

The second is a bit more obvious, the shows writing. The largest offender being Frozer and Oni-chan. While Oni-chan was salted on by fans a bit excessively, I have no real defense for Frozer, Frozer was an awful episode and everyone involved should feel bad. Kagami suffers like many ML characters do from poor writing, now this doesn't destroy her character like many would like you to believe, but she gets portrayed in a more negative light when the intentions are not meant for it. Its a bit harder to explain, but just know poor writing and assume Zag interference was what caused issues.

The Last one is something that is a bit more controversial, Fandom trends. Now in season 2, fans really, REALLY, did not like Kagami. The first two reasons having a large impact on that, but what really made it hard for Kagami, was the fandom itself. Since she was introduced first, certain lovesquare shippers LOATHED her appearance, HOW DARE she jump in and disrupt the love square! There are more words that were used, most of which are very degrading towards women and I would not want to repeat. Kagami took the brunt of the fandom backlash, the one that ‘Ruined the Lovesquare’. And when season 3, or as I call it, the season of Salt, fans really hit her hard with hatred, the Adrigami fandom took a lot of salt from toxic stans, some of which didn't like adrigami because they hated Adrien and didn't want him to be happy. It is gross to think about and its tragic that she is hit hard by hatred simply for things outside of her control.

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Why Luka Doesn't Work as a Love Rival

Luka is the alternate love interest of Marinette and was introduced in Captain Hardrock. He is Juleka’s older brother and is a guitarist.

His introduction is not terrible, but it is not as strong compared to other characters, but I do believe it sets the mood for what he is as a character. His character is the friend’s nice older brother musician, thats kind of it. It sounds like I am being mean but that sums up his character. He isn't really a foil to Adrien or Marinette in anyway, there is no shocking twists or clever parallels to be made, its just Luka. Simply put, Luka doesn't work as a Love rival.

Luka isn't a rival character. He isn't competing with Adrien, he doesn't clash with Adrien in anyway that would help him develop. Adrien and Luka get along fine, there is not a single bit of tension or conflict between them. This isn't a good thing when they are suppose to be competing for the same girl. I already hear what you are thinking, ‘But Adrien likes Ladybug.’ you're right, why isn't Luka interested in Ladybug then? Why is there no clash with chat noir? The point of a Love rival is to push another character towards something, to be a measuring stick. Luka doesn't do that for Adrien, and that is why the rival aspect fails for Luka.

The next course would be the love interest part. Surely Luka is someone that works well as an alternate love interest for Marinette? You are somewhat right, he does work better as a love interest for Marinette rather than a rival for Adrien. But that doesn't make him a good love interest for her. In my take on Love rivals, there needs to be three criteria met to be an effective love rival/love interest, an unequal development of both character, a differing connection that the two share, and a character underneath that can exist outside of the relationship. Luka fails to meet 2 of these criteria. The unequal development of both of them, Marinette has shown some development from her interactions with Luka but the reverse is not provable, we have yet to see Luka really change because of his relationship with Marinette, we don't know how much Marinette has helped/hindered Luka with his struggles, the best argument I could think of was that Marinette helped him be more bold in silencer, but really that sort of falls flat because he has shown bold actions outside of that. Captain hard rock said that he wasn't really good at expressing himself with words, but he shows pretty capable of doing so with people outside of Marinette, like his sister, or expressing anger to Bob Roth, so I don't really see how that works. The other criteria he fails to meet is having a character should the relationship end, Luka’s relevance is tied to him being the other guy for Marinette to choose, we as a viewer have no concrete reason as of yet to see him grow or change after the split. It doesn't help that Luka has even encouraged Marinette to go after Adrien on multiple occasions. People say thats because he is truly selfless and ‘Because he cares’ but really it just shows how little interest he has in trying to win her over, it almost comes off as insulting to Marinette. The only thing that Luka managed to pass was by having a different dynamic with Marinette than Adrien had with her. But that dynamic is shoulder to cry on. I guess that explains why salt fics really try to make Luka into Adrien.

Luka’s character in itself isn't awful, he isn't a bad person or anything of the sort. He is inoffensive and thats the problem. A love rival is suppose to be a point of tension, one that pushes, one that causes development, a force that at its core is meant to help the characters grow, and Luka just isn't the character to do that. He isn't a love rival, or a love interest. Luka is a wall, a wall put in between the two main leads in order to cause a divide without causing tension.

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Why He is Loved despite it

Luka isn't a love rival, and yet despite it he is one of the more popular characters in the fandom. It was something so mind boggling to me, what did this character have that made him so well liked in the fandom? Why wasn't he as hated as Kagami was during her introduction? I found myself coming up with three reasons why this was the case. Luka was so loved because of Necessity, writing and Salt.

 Much Like Kagami suffered from Over-saturation, Luka had the Opposite problem. Marinette’s other love interests all ended up losing interest by the end of the episodes they were in. Nino, Nathaniel, Theo (though it was for ladybug). All of them just got paired off with someone else shortly after. Marinette didn't have another person outside of Adrien that was potentially going for her attention. This necessity allowed for Luka to slip in and fill the gap. The fandom saw him show up and were excited! With Kagami *ruining* the lovesquare, they needed someone for Marinette to help mend her should kagami ‘Win’, and Luka won by default. So Luka was the one the screeching fandom saw as there answer.

The next key that helped Luka was the writing of the show. The problem with the writing in the show is that often the writing will clash and hurt the strong characters of the show. Luka, as someone that does not have any strong defining features is flexible and easy to write for the writers. It makes it easy for him to be written in a way that wont infuriate people because of bad writing. He is able to coast by without having his character be in jeopardy. In a way, he has nothing to lose.

The last factor is of course salt. Now in fandoms, salt is used as a means of criticism or used to describe problems with characters. Luka is someone that people don't really have a problem with, which during the season of salt, made him perfect for all those fics where they needed someone to be on Marinette’s side because Adrien was ‘the devil’ or Lila was an extra mean jerk. Luka didn't have any problems that were agitated by salt, so he was the perfect replacement for Adrien when the writer wanted to hate on the blonde. Luka was the substitute, he was the easy fix that took little effort to include. He was a nice older brother that already liked Marinette, perfect fix for any situation. Its rare to see Luka written in a negative light without his character being warped so far that he is a completely different character.

Luka is loved not because of the things he is, but simply because of the things he is not. He is used more as a means to an end rather than as a character. In the writing, he is more of a wall, while in the fandom he is more of a stand-in. At the end of the day, I don't know what is more tragic.

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Final Thoughts

Kagami and Luka are characters that were introduced in order to spice things up and add development for the main characters. I find that in some ways they do achieve that goal, but in other ways they fail. One of them embodies the spirit of a Love rival while the other embodies the love obstacle. Regardless of this analysis, your thoughts on Kagami and Luka are your own and you can love and appreciate them as you see fit.

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