SPOILERS AHEAD — Lessons From The World God Only Knows Part 1

Ayumi Takahara Arc (Flag 1)

In this series of Analysis, I’ll be viewing things from the perspective of the captured girls, and seeing what we could learn ourselves from their arcs.

Ayumi’s arc is the first arc of the manga, and only really starts quite a few pages in — after all, Wakaki had to set up the plot beforehand. Like most of the early arcs in the manga, the problems the girl is going to go through become evident fairly quickly.

Here we see the core of Ayumi’s problem, the thing that pushed open the “gap in her heart”, as Wakaki called it. She was added into the running team after setting a good time once, but neither her upperclassmen or herself believe that she really deserves the spot.

However, Ayumi then runs into a hurdle during practice and sprains her ankle. Good for her and her Senpai: She won’t have to participate in the competition! That leaves the spot open for the upperclassmen, and she won’t be blamed if they lose… That avoids the problem entirely, and they can move on with their lives.

Wouldn’t this leave you wondering what would have really happened, though? What if you ran and really did win? Wouldn’t that have been better? You’ll never know, because you didn’t try.

As our God notices, though, Ayumi wasn’t really injured: She was just running (pun intended) away from the problem, doing anything to avoid it. “If I run far enough, the problem is just going to disappear!” is a common mindset for this type of situation.

However, that is not really the correct path to go — the regret you’ll feel, possibly for the rest of your life, is not a good choice. It’s best to instead face your problems head on and try your best. Even if it goes poorly, you can use that as motivation for improving afterwards! As a plus, you might be surprised at just how much you can accomplish even if it’s just through your willpower — through the decision to face your problem and try to deal with it directly, rather than running away.