#tl;dr arajin still SUCKS and i love him so much 🥰

[crehador]

man i fucking LOVE how hard bucchigiri?! commits to arajin being a complete shit, it's so relatively rare for shows not to rush to redeem their asshole mcs which is, eh, fine but often uncompelling

like the most predictable way for this fight to have gone would have of course been for arajin to lose his will to fight (even to live, dramatic ass lmao) after being rejected by mahoro, and then rediscover that will when he sees matakara hurt, and realizes he doesn't want the past to repeat

would have been fine i guess but in all honesty ARAJIN HAS NOT EARNED THAT MOMENT. yes from the flashbacks he gets, and the timing of them, it's obvious a lot of his current complex has to do with him not being able to protect matakara in the past. he either doesn't want to be put in a situation where he has to protect someone again, where he can fail, or he can't forgive himself for the past (or both)

but he also is genuinely a gross horndog and it's seriously refreshing that the show has the balls to continue to let him be that. i feel like way too many series are so concerned* about making their protags likeable that they forget to let them be interesting, and forget that sometimes shitbags that are not at all likeable can be SO fun to watch (like arajin is)

anyway arajin is still The Worst and i'm so glad for that 🥰

*i guess in all fairness this isn't exactly an unwarranted concern bc so many viewers these days also fail to realize that a character that is not a likeable person is not necessarily a bad/uninteresting character lmao, it's like. a shame that shows have to walk on eggshells with these things but. for shows that want to be widely marketable. understandable i guess. it's just sometimes (many times, in fact almost all the time)... things that are widely marketable...... are worse.........