#the only female character that doesn’t get disrespected by this fandom is maki

[galaxynajma]

Sometimes I wanna gate keep uraume and kirara from some people in this fandom

[moontheoretist]

In the third post about episode 10th of Hoshiai no Sora I want to highlight everything else portrayed, cute and sad alike. So let’s start from GREAT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MAKI AND HIS MUM. Because this is precious thing we get in every episode and I cannot stress how much I love that! Also the fact that they actually talk like normal people is stunning. I want to have a parent like that, who listens to me and tells me why she cannot be somewhere where it would be nice if she was, because I will perform there. If I had Maki’s mum as my parent my life would be so much better, just saying. We stan Maki’s mum!

Below the cut you will find:

1. Oji Arashi and his detachment from real life. (Pretty obvious stuff, sorry).

2. Rintaro’s meeting with his mum foreshadowing.

3. Praising the relationship between Rintaro and Itsuki.

4. Takada Kei as rare female role model for boy’s club.

5. Touma and Student Council President meeting.

6. Kasuga Kaori’s quick analyze.

7. Toxicity of fans vs Mitsue.

Another thing shown in the episode was Arashi’s complete obliviousness of the life of the people in the world around him. I mean there wasn’t much about him other than establishing him as someone who doesn’t know how real world works and that people don’t usually drag made at home food with them around, and that he can be easily persuaded to talk when he gets the food he wants, but also there was something else there to him. We all know that Arashi is self-centered prince like character, who thinks he is awesome in everything, but it looks like not everybody thinks in the same way about his behavior. 

The twins Arashi met today definitely think of him as if he was the dumbest person on earth. Though important thing here is that Arashi's business with the twins sounded either as if they thought he chose bad school or as if Misaki school got tough route through tournament. For both of them it is very funny that Arashi thinks he is this one person who can ensure his school victory and twins just couldn't take it without laughing it off as a good joke. They are also the only people whose strength Arashi not only acknowledges but also explicitly points out that they are more awesome than he is in general. If I was to call him anything I would say he is Naruto Uzumaki type of character, just without emotional trauma of being the most hated orphan in the village attached.

I feel a little bad for him though, mostly because he is being treated like animal to feed and get information from by Maki. Maki, that’s not cool! But to be fair, Arashi isn’t without blame here too, because he literally treats Maki as the free food supply and didn’t even give him money back for everything he ate. He is a rich boy after all, he thinks everything should be handed to him on silver plate. It was his life all those years, so he isn’t even able to consider it’s not normal.

Next thing is Rintaro’s meeting with mum. There is not much to say about that to be honest, because it’s just a short scene put out here in order to establish future storyline in regard to Rintaro’s life. It didn’t even manage to affect the game he played. Just like Nao’s problems with his mum didn’t show up too. Everybody were so focused on the match that nobody really thought about their real life problems, too preoccupied with actually trying to win the games. 

Though I wonder what this whole thing with Rintaro’s knee is supposed to foreshadow as well, because it like appeared out of nowhere, but also it seemed that whole club knew about that before, outside Maki who noticed it during the match. Is it some drama-related injury or just regular thing which Rintaro dealt with all his life? It really made me wonder if the two situations, his knee condition and his mother’s sudden wish to meet him aren’t by any chance related. I am also worried what losing a match because of a knee can do to Rintaro, considering he feels as much responsible for the club as Shinjo does, but just shows it in different way, by self-blaming himself for “being useless”. It like screams drama to me. Rintaro really wanted to win this! Rintaro! ToT

Also once again I want to point out another great dynamic between the pair shown. Just like in the cases of Shingo/Tsubasa and Taiyo/Nao, here we also can see how great companions Rintaro and Itsuki are to each other. They do not blame one another for mistakes and Itsuki really tried to make Rintaro as relaxed as it’s possible by bringing up Takada. To be honest I loved the fact that he actually mentioned her, because it’s not only a sweet and tasty female character praise based on the fact that female soft tennis club is really a big deal, which is rare in sports anime, but also that they both look up to Takada as a player.

It’s also worth pointing out, that when Rintaro’s leg starts giving up Touma isn’t really mad because of that. It’s one from probably two situations in the whole episode when Shinjo is actually calm and at peace with what is happening.

Second time when he is calm and collected happens in the most unforeseeable circumstances for him as a character, meaning when Student Council President comes to the soft tennis courts to inspect the clubs. I was really surprised that Touma wasn’t at all angry, but it just speaks a lot about how quickly he can get over something bad if he finds a way to reforge it into something good. In this case he reforged Student Council President’s decision to disband his club into motivation and necessary pressure which his teammates needed to become better at soft tennis. He also acknowledges that they were slacking off before.

Speaking of which I loved that we also got another glimpse into Student Council President personality with this one worried “Am I a bully?”, which speaks volumes about how insecure she feels about herself. We knew that she comes from a rich house and didn’t really want to go to the school, which she goes now and that her mother and grandmother both use different names to address her, because both see Kaori as someone else and enforce that by using those names and treating Kaori in different ways to be sure that she grows the way they want her to grow. But Kaori also isn’t stupid, and plays their game by allowing herself to act as they wish her to act, while in truth she has her own vision of herself which she realizes outside her mother and grandmother influence. Part of that vision is probably making school run better than it did before, hence why she was so adamant about closing clubs which waste funds. It doesn’t though mean that she doesn’t doubt herself, because of authority she has and the way she acts, which this one glimpse of anxiety expresses so well. Also the fact that Touma is the one who assures her she is fine and right about what she says was so heartwarming OMG! He is such a good person! ToT

The last and probably the most important thing for me as an artist was the mention of world reaction to Mitsue’s art style and theme change on her artistic twitter account. Her fans literally bashed her over that, which not only shows how internet pressure looks like from the perspective of the creators, but also highlights the toxic fandom practices of pushing creators to change back to what they were before, because “they liked them more that way, and they hate the new them”. This practice can be powerful when it’s about social justice and ensuring that big companies won't leave out or misrepresent minority groups, but it has also the darker side which always presents itself as bunch of people being shitty and disrespectful to their favorite creators in hope their abuse will change them back to the image they are the most accustomed to and prefer to see. Yes, that’s abuse, the worst kind of abuse to be honest, which can make artist quit.  The second those fans do not get what they want they start acting like entitled fans and white male gamers combined. I do not want to draw a line between gender here, because I believe some of those nasty people were girls as well, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this behavior was the exact same which I saw in every “white male gamer” who made a drama of every game in which female character is treated as she should be, as a person instead of an object. And I think it’s important to point out here due to the fact that Natsuko is known mostly from drawing goth stuff, probably mostly young women, and we knew before that her fans were all squealing over the so called “knee-skirt” gap, which all on it own was already sexist and disgusting for me to be honest.

And this is what I want to tell all of them! SCREW YOU! Also I am happy that the hate she got didn’t discourage Mitsue, and she still posted the last picture.