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okusawamiikun’s 30 Day Challenge!
Day 2: Favourite PoPiPa character
Idk how to talk about this girl without everything devolving into incoherent screaming and crying but I think I’ve been able to at least pinpoint the main reason she’s my fav since the last time I posted something gushy about her so here goes
Contrary to most people’s initial expectations Arisa is actually incredibly complex as a character. She puts up facades depending on who she’s interacting with because she’s scared of opening up and being hurt, which is super realistic and relatable. As someone who has no idea how to talk to people and finds it really hard to let her guard down for fear of being judged, I took one look at her and went, “Wow that’s me.” With PoPiPa, Arisa can be rude and blunt, but really she’s a soft fluffy ball of fairy floss who wouldn’t hurt a fly (so when she genuinely does mess up or hurt someone she cares about for whatever reason it’s the end of the world in her eyes . . . I wanna hug her and tell her it’s not) and the others see right through her antics for that reason. Correct me if I’ve got the wrong impression since I’m an only child, but I feel like Arisa unconsciously treats PoPiPa like the siblings she never had and that’s really cute? With older students and people she doesn’t know well she’s overly polite and afraid to show her cynical side, which is as integral a part of her as her eagerness to please—and that eagerness is sincere, it just comes off as forced because she overcompensates.
So pretty much any social interaction involves squashing down some aspects of herself and exaggerating others, and that speaks to me because I’ve often wondered what the ‘real’ me is after adopting varying personas in front of people for years. It’s not all fake, but not all real either, and that’s how it is for Arisa too. Seeing her struggle with communication handled so sympathetically and not just passed off as a funny tsundere quirk in the game stories makes me really happy. (The anime writes her a bit differently—I know it came first but I did get into Bandori through the game, which kinda took everything I love most about Arisa from the anime and honed in on those traits. Sometimes I feel like a fake fan for preferring her game characterisation but it’s heckin good okay . . . esp in events that haven’t come to EN yet)
So because she has so much trouble being honest, and knowing how hard she tries to monitor what she says and does even though it must exhaust the heck out of her, it’s incredibly gratifying when she drops everything and laughs and expresses her happiness and excitement without restraint. Every time she lets go of that inner voice telling her to dial it down or to act like the entire world has wronged her when she’s actually having fun, my heart rejoices. I’m so proud of how far she’s come since her days of shutting herself away and skipping school and I hope she makes many more friends and finds the courage to unabashedly be the person she wants to be, little by little.
I could go on about how she makes me laugh but also stomps all over my heart and how smart and admirable she is but let’s leave it at that I’M LOVE YOU YOU DUMB TSUN
