oh no she's making another long-running ARGONAVIS analysis(???) post nobody actually cares enough about to read-- but in my defense I didn't have a choice. I was enabled. forced, even,
so I'm gonna go off about Nanahoshi Ren again for a second because LR Fes Round 1 made me think a whole bunch of thoughts okay SO
I've said before that one of the aspects I really really like about Ren is that he's got his own brand of self-centredness which is definitely not malicious, he just tends to get kinda tunnel-visioned and has a very strong drive about the things that he's passionate about and LR Fes story has shown that again I think
he's still very conflicted about the nature of the Fes being one of winning vs losing, something he's strongly against since he thinks music shouldn't be in competition, but a lot of the people he admires don't share that viewpoint (most of all Nayuta, though Haruka has also said this) so he's been Thinking a lot which. understandable. he also said his feelings will likely never change, but he is happy that he's come here and was able to make their feelings resonate. yknow this is actually one of the reasons why I would be 100% behind argnv pulling up in 1st and placing him in a situation where suddenly he's closer to his dream than ever but in a way he's very opposed to. it'd make for a lot of interesting conflict BUT I DIGRESS
the point I am actually trying to make is despite this and despite initially not even wanting to participate, when argnv's equipment got messed with and it wasn't clear if they could even perform, he was the one who pushed the most for them to make it work somehow cause there's no point otherwise, even if their performance could have gotten rescheduled there's no point if it's not all at the same live with everyone else, which is! very fair! but also that's some pretty strong conviction for someone who's kinda sorta against the whole idea of this thing and initially only decided to go for it after all because he wanted to get to know everyone else's music better and see what kind of things he can find here. which like makes perfect sense but I think it's still important that Ren was the one who insisted straight away, not any of the other guys, cause in the end Ren just wants to go out there and perform and do so in an atmosphere he's clearly strongly vibing with
I feel like right now Ren is hoping to somehow have his cake and eat it too, if maybe subconsciously. he doesn't support the idea of the competition, but he still admires it and longs for it and wants to perform, going along with it for the sake of that. his drive wins out over his convictions, in a way. which is kind of the opposite of what Yuuto did at DesFes ...? all I'm saying is it's very interesting and I greatly appreciate it and I'm excited to see where this is going because it really is a dilemma
I could go on about the Shuu Situation but that's a whole other tangent so instead I'll just go on a slightly less tangential tangent about how this also gets played for laughs sometimes pff. there's definitely a big naive side to Ren, which sometimes leads to him taking things for granted because he tends to go off his own experiences. this can lead to stuff like not learning LapPi doesn't exist outside of Hakodate until after he's moved to Tokyo, taking Nayuta to a Star Five show to raise his spirits because it's what makes HIM happy when he's down (I mean. it kind of worked. but still), or going off about how great tokusatsu is at said Star Five show without realising that nobody is listening to him ... which is very funny I agree but it also highlights why maybe selfish isn't the right word for him, but self-centred is better? in the way that he first and foremost considers his own feelings (which makes sense and is also good advice generally) but can get a little carried away with that and not rly see beyond it (for now). this also makes him easily manipulated. see Shuu
none of that takes away from his being a very good person who definitely wants people to be happy and comfortable (good boy. very good boy), but it is a part of his character I always like to see explored cause it gives him so much more NUANCE
and yes I think that's about all. tl;dr BanDoriNAVIS writing good we've been over this--
