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AI16 Since: Aug, 2011
Jan 1st 2012 at 1:04:42 PM •••

From where comes the Minori hate?

This is not a criticism of people who dislike the character of Minori, rather an honest query. I see mention that some consider her 'the scrappy', and a hell of a lot on the WMG questioning her heterosexuality (often a veiled attack, whatever one's social views) or her attractiveness (wtf?).People do say there is a lot of Minori hate out there, and I'm wondering why.

To me, she seemed very much the victim of the story, being (inadvertently) played about by Tagia and Ryuugi's romantic whims in their inability to accept their feelings for each other. Basically, she is subject to a whole string of half-hearted attempts to 'ship' her with Ryuugi, sabotaged by the much stronger and more obvious feelings between Taiga and Ryuugi - so while she admittedly likes Ryuugi, and keeps getting 'opportunities' to go with him, she knows that doing so will make her best friend go completely to pieces (exemplified in the final episode of the christmas arc...). Taiga and Ryuugi's efforts, while well-intended, seem only to exacerbate her cruel lot of being on the losing end of the love triangle; and although she does have her weak moments, she seems to deal with it pretty stoically.

So my question is, what is the perspective out there that casts Minori as the villain in this story? From what perspective is she *causing* the harm, rather than suffering it? Or do people really hate her just for being an obstacle to Taiga X Ryuugi (I maintain she isn't unless those two want her to be, but that's a different discussion). I welcome some of those Minori haters to try enlighten me as to their views, so long as its kept civil.

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OJtheLION Since: Jan, 2001
Jan 1st 2012 at 7:04:28 PM •••

I think you may reading too much into some of these things.

For instance, I posted the WMG about the attractiveness thing, but not because I hate her (just the opposite, she's actually one of my favorite characters). Rather, it seemed odd to me from watching the anime, and especially from reading the book with Ryuuji's internal monologue, that there was almost no mention of her physical attractiveness. Even Ryuuji usually refers to her energy and bright personality more than her looks, while almost every other female character has her beauty pointed out at least occasionally in addition to her personality traits, especially Ami and Taiga. As I mentioned in the WMG, she also seems to be the only main character without another person interested in her, which seems strange to me since, as a response mentioned, she seems like a lot of fun to be around and fun people are often very popular. In addition, as you've seen all over the pages, she seems to be bisexual, although the anime played that up a lot more than the light novel did. So, I thought the logical conclusion was that she's either not considered that attractive In-Universe, or she's a well known lesbian and none of the guys that would normally make those comments bothered thinking about her because of that. Or both. Or maybe she's too weird for them, but you'd still think there'd be the odd comment about the hot quirky girl in the class. In any case the responses to that WMG seemed to miss my point for the most part, seeming to be more about defending her than taking it at face value.

That was a bit of a tangent, but the point is that speculation isn't from hate but rather from my interpretation of the story, and that's all WMG ever is. As for other entries, I'm not seeing all that much hate for Minori, no more than any average romantic interest in a show like this. If I had to speculate about the scrappy entry on YMMV, I suppose it'd be that despite the fact that, as you say, she's really a victim in the whole story, the story lost a lot of its fun light atmosphere when she stopped being just the odd girl and started acting, well, dramatic. The whole shipper thing probably also plays a part, although as far as that goes Taiga seems to get more hate than her because some folks are very anti-tsundere. Still, I don't think Minori is really all that hated.

Edited by OJtheLION "If at first you don't succeed, well, so much for skydiving."
AI16 Since: Aug, 2011
Jan 2nd 2012 at 11:57:12 AM •••

Well, that's good to hear; I was *hoping* to get an explanation for the WMG things. If you've made points simply out of interest, that's perfectly all right, but you must realise that such claims are often made (more often than not, I think)to disparage a character on the battlefield of fandom wars. It's true that in-universe Minori does lack the fanboy following of the other two female main characters. Then again, I didn't notice comments on the attractiveness of the other female characters either (such as Sumire or Kihara), though I imagine you know the series better than I do. I'd also not challenge the notion that Minori may be bi (she questions it herself, after all), though claims that she has not attraction to Ryuugi seem to be very poorly founded to me, and an excuse to ignore her victim status in the love-triangle.

But the 'scrappy' entry - about the most serious cricism any character can have on TV Tropes - continues to convince me that there is an unusually emotive Minori-hate group out there; (including, I imagine, whomever put the scrappy entry up before I toned it down).

As for Taiga - who does not have a scrappy entry except where mentioned under broken base - well, I'm a tsundere fan myself though Taiga is a very extreme case (more split-personality then mood swings!). I would not be surprised for her to get a lot of hate on the grounds of her awful behaviour to Ryuugi - I wouldn't necessarily agree with it, but I'd understand it. I'm mostly just confused as to why such an innofensive character like Minori could incite anything as strong as hatred in the first place; though I suppose if one goes with the point you mentioned, that her 'getting serious' does coincide with plot darkening, it could be a satisfactory explanation - though I'd think less of the haters then.

OJtheLION Since: Jan, 2001
Jan 2nd 2012 at 9:15:51 PM •••

Kihara and Sumire both get comments about their looks as well, but you only really hear about them in the Light Novel. Similarly, Ryuuji's a bigger perv than he lets on in any of the adaptations when you hear his internal monologue (well, let's be honest, I think most guys think those kinds of thoughts but keep them to themselves as Ryuuji has). If you haven't already, I recommend reading the Light Novel for a more complete experience, especially the volume that the last 2-3 episodes or so adapted, since the anime used Broad Strokes at best there. At the very least, I think the ending is much better in the Light Novel.

Remember, it only takes one hater and everyone else being indifferent for an entry like that Scrappy one to show up and stick around for a while. Conversely, it only takes one super rabid fan to completely whitewash any entry that sounds remotely negative towards their character even if it's an objective trope—I've found that out the hard way on some other series pages, notably Fate Stay Night and Hayate The Combat Butler.

Speaking of the latter, the reason I brought up the mood thing before is because Athena from that series is a somewhat similar case to Minori here. She's a pretty popular character, but also a Base Breaker because until recently she only showed up when that series decided to get melodramatic instead of its usual Gag Series fun, and I think she gets Mis-blamed a lot for that. Granted, showing up after 150 chapters with almost no foreshadowing and abruptly becoming the favorite to "win" as love interest probably didn't help, but she got a lot more hate than she deserved more because of what she represented rather than her actual character traits.

As far as Taiga, she actually seems like a fairly mild tsundere to me, especially with her character development. Compare to Louise, for example, who can be very adorable sometimes but is so sadistically hyperviolent the rest of the time it's easy to understand why she has haters, even if I don't share that opinion personally. Taiga's a kitty cat by comparison.

Edited by OJtheLION "If at first you don't succeed, well, so much for skydiving."
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