In the midst of my intense memeing on this website, I realized I had forgotten to follow up on my series of Afterglow character analyses. Forgive this crime of mine, as I’ve got this one here about Himari, leaving just Moca and Tomoe left!
So, the sad thing with Himari, is that I had such a wrong idea about her character. Just from seeing some of the various chibi convos and what not, particularly her interactions with the other Aglow members, I had dismissively deemed her to be a bit ditzy and a drama queen. Someone who is vibrant and lovely, but perhaps doesn’t have many lights on in their head.
Boy, was I more than wrong—Himari may not be the “face” of this band as the other band leaders are; however, this does nothing to detract from the fact that Himari is bar none the emotional and mental leader of this group.
Her leadership is maybe not immediately apparent, possibly because of her “extra” reactions and tendency to easily fall for Moca’s ribbing. After closer inspection though, she undeniably is the backbone of this group.
She is the source of warmth and the emotional glue that keeps this band together. Ran is far too closed off to be regularly okay with such vulnerability, and Moca isn’t very different in that aspect, using her humor as a defense mechanism. Tomoe is someone who’s better at “doing the right thing” versus “doing things right”, as seen when even though she rightly confronted Ran, it was in a confrontational and volatile manner, causing fractures in the group dynamic. Tsugu is good at energizing others, but she’s not an effective communicator, given that she silently worked herself into utter fatigue.
I think Himari’s role becomes even clearer when you consider why the other members shrink away from some of her antics. No one ever wants to “Hey, Hey, Hoh!” with her. When she made the dolls in the band story—which took several hours of love and effort—the moment degenerated into Himari getting picked on, albeit light-heartedly. The other members of Aglow get slightly uncomfortable whenever Himari is trying to do something “uncool”, as Tomoe once described her catch phrase. Himari gets teased the most by Moca when she’s being vulnerable, so on and so forth.
This “uncool” aspect of Himari is how willing she is to bare her emotions to the other girls, and on top of that, she wants to explore their emotions as well. Himari feeds off of a certain kind of intimacy that’s hard for a lot of people, because it requires being talkative and emotionally open. It comes to her naturally however, and she does it so freely that most of the time, the other members are at a loss of how to respond in an equally genuine manner.
Because Himari is so constantly open and communicative about her desire for emotional closeness, she’s the most stable Aglow member without a doubt. I realized this when Tomoe, who is definitely the second most stable member, said that it was specifically Himari’s presence alone which enabled her to think so rationally when Tsugumi collapsed.
On top of this, there’s a very good reason why Himari is by far the most picked on member in this band: She’s the only one who could consistently take it in such good stride. If you notice, the most she’ll ever do is call Moca a jerk or shortly fuss at everyone for not reacting the way she was hoping they would. After that, it’s like she never got picked on, whereas as someone like Ran is clearly dying of embarrassment while being teased. During the beach event, she seemingly made a dramatic scene out of everyone not coming with her, but shortly after she literally just found an entirely new group to go with, not resentful nor upset in the slightest.
Himari is always able to think and, despite her over-the-top reactions, she’s not at all easy to discourage. When one plan goes awry, she adapts. When you combine this with her desire to intimately bond with others, this makes for a highly effective leader in many situations. She has both the rationality and emotional fluency to not only lead the band, but keep them feeling united as one. Hence why the entire band, save Himari, easily agreed on choosing her as their best representative during their band story.
Even with these great qualities though, Himari is still flawed. She dislikes confrontation and struggles to lead during intense moments; unlike Tomoe or Ran, Himari is very much afraid to step on toes. This is dangerous given her leader position in the band, as seen when Tomoe and Ran totally overwhelmed her leadership with their arguing.
She also doesn’t have the most realistic expectations at times, especially when she’s trying to bond with the other members. For all of her goodwill, it’s as though she forgets how hard of a time everyone else has being open like her. Alternatively, during the beach event, she seemed genuinely shocked that everyone wouldn’t drop their schedules to go with her. She can potentially become so excited to grow closer with her friends, that she isn’t all too considerate as to how they might be uncomfortable/unavailable.
But all flaws considered, Himari is still an outstanding character in my opinion. Her constant drive to bring the group closer together may seem insignificant, but she’s the only member who feels comfortable enough to actively push for this sort of thing. Even Moca was impacted, becoming blatantly distressed over losing the doll Himari gave her—even though earlier she merely picked on Himari about it. Himari is the campfire that invites everyone to gather around and start talking, the center that everyone latches onto in their own way, Moca being no exception in spite of all her teasing.
She’ll continue being the “uncool” member of Afterglow because even the coolest of people still need the ability to be vulnerable and have intimacy. She’s okay with being that person in a group of girls who otherwise don’t like talking about their innermost feelings. She’ll never stop pushing for closeness, even if she gets teased for it—she knows the other girls appreciate her, but feel too embarrassed to say it, definitely not as often as she’d personally like to hear it. If you ask me, that’s pretty darn cool of her!
P.S. Himari plays bass and that’s my absolute favorite instrument ever alongside the drums, so... she definitely sneaks in a few bonus points with me.
