WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOTH SEASONS OF THE SHOW LOVE, CHUNIBYO, & OTHER DELUSIONS.

Hey everyone, I’m back again with another Character Focus article. It’s been a while in the making, as I’ve been a little stuck on who next to focus on. There are some options that I would like to revisit the shows for, but then again some of the shows are very long… anyway, today I thought I’d go for a bit of an off-kilter pick, for reasons I’ll explain later in the article. Today’s is about Satone Shichimiya, from Chūnibyō demo Koi ga Shitai Season 2 (Or, as it’s known in the US: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions). So let me get into the reasons as to why I want to write about her.

So for anyone who’s read a few of my blog posts or knows my taste in anime, it’s pretty clear that I’m a diehard Kyoto Animation fan. I’ve tried to watch everything they’ve made, missing out on only Munto, Tamako Market, and Free!. I have yet to see some of the movies as well. But I was a big fan of Chuunibyou when it aired. Rikka Takanashi was pretty much everything I love about a female character; design, personality, attitude, everything. So imagine my surprise when Chuunibyou Ren airs and… I don’t like it. Not very much at all, actually.

I don’t want to turn this into a review of season 2 of the show, however. I just wanted to lay the basis for my view of Shichimiya as a character. In my opinion she was the shining spot in a series that had terrible implications for some of the other characters. While all the other characters, Rikka included, failed in terms of character development and indeed even went BACKWARDS at some points, Shichimiya seemed to be the one who managed to steal the spotlight when it wasn’t meant to be on her at all.

So what do I like about her? Well, what do I like about ANY KyoAni girl? They’re cute. Very cute. RIDICULOUSLY cute. Shichiymiya’s really no different; while her laugh might be annoying to some the “Niii-hahahaha!” was a good indication of what, at least, her Chuunibyou personality was like. Bold and brash with seemingly endless amounts of confidence that urged her forward. Which is why it’s no surprise she chose to keep the personality over falling in love with Yuta.

Which brings me to one of the points of why I believe she’s so well done. She’s almost essentially what Rikka SHOULD HAVE been in season 2, with her own twist. While Rikka somewhat selfishly chooses not to give up either Yuta or her Chuunibyou personality, Shichimiya has had to go through the struggles of losing Yuta and has dealt with it by wearing a mask. The thing I enjoyed so much about season 1 of Chuunibyou was that Rikka was using her Chuunibyou to deal with the loss of her father; so of course, when it’s repeated with somewhat altered circumstances with Shichimiya it makes sense, given that she’s childhood friends with Yuta.

Beyond that, Shichimiya’s character arc ends with a satisfying conclusion to her issues. She confronts the “Dark Flame Dragon” and defeats it. She wasn’t being honest with herself; while she claimed that she had given up her feelings for Yuta to keep her Chuunibyou personality, she really hadn’t gotten over him and facing the music so to speak under the guise of the “Dark Flame Dragon” finally let her come to terms with the lingering feelings she had. Her Chuunibyou was no longer something to hide her heartbreak; it was just something fun for her now.

But yet, in addition to facing her own problems, the positives for her character don’t necessarily stop there. While she was coming to terms with her own issues she was still helping the girl who was essentially her “rival” make up with Yuta every so often. Shichimiya wasn’t only a good character, she was just a good person. While I’m not too happy about how Yuta and Rikka’s development went in season 2, it was SUPPOSED to be seen as positive and Shichimiya was a major factor of that. Satone forced Rikka to recognize that there was an issue and even helps consul Yuta on the relationship problems he’s having, while going through her own heartbreak.

And she wasn’t just an impossibly strong character either. She put on the strong face and tried to be strong for Yuta and Rikka because they obviously needed help, but she still broke down in front of Yuta because the weight of the situation just cracked her a little bit. Coming in and seeing her crush in love with another girl that he had only met recently (comparatively), forgoing attempts to get them to break up and instead help them, and having to accept that Yuta wasn’t her answer were all heavy things for the girl to have to deal with. But they were things that make for a damned good character arc.

I’m almost sad Shichimiya was only in this season. I felt like her character would’ve been served much better given a different season or a different story; possibly even the same story with different developments. To be honest I would’ve enjoyed to have written about Rikka herself, and I still might some day, but as much as I’d like to it’s kind of hard to forget what season 2 did to her in terms of characterization. Which is why I chose to focus on Shichimiya instead. When this season was announced and the idea of a “childhood friend” was introduced, the concern for a love triangle was heavy. KyoAni assured the viewers that it wouldn’t be the story, but it sure did feel like it at some points anyway. Even still, Shichimiya was somewhat ironically the strongest part of season 2.

Anyway, I hope I was properly able to express my enjoyment of Schihimiya’s character. This article was kind of inspired by the desire to write about a good character from a somewhat mediocre season of a show; most of the posts I’ve written about are from fairly popular / well received shows so I thought it would be interesting to try this out. I was almost concerned that I wouldn’t be able to write enough about her but that fear has been relieved. I hope you enjoyed this article and as always, thanks for reading.