Nomiya the Treacherous Fantasy

On Thursday, my coworkers and I were sent to a business writing seminar. The teacher was concise and clear. One major topic was writing for the reader's comprehension level. As the teacher put it "trying to change someone else makes for an interesting first marriage."

Change is necessary in the development of story characters. In successful story telling, one character often changes or tries to change because of a love interest. Godai from "Maison Ikkoku" struggles for seven years to become more responsible to propose to Kyoko. The hard-shelled Ayukawa from "Kimagure Orange Road" (KOR) tries to leave her delinquent ways after she meets Kyosuke.

KOR is a gender reversal on an old theme. Kenshin reversed his katana after his blade cut Tomoe, and Eastwood's character in "Unforgiven" tried to correct his cussing and killing after meeting his dearly departed wife.

While character change is necessary for a story to have meaning for the reader or viewer, it can be used as a vehicle for fantasy. In harem anime, the main character bends the hearts of beautiful girls with chance meetings and the smallest acts of kindness. In shoujo, a plain or unremarkable placeholder draws in a pride of bishounen. This creates a fantasy for entertainment. I believe that entertainment has its time and place. Altering the consumer's world view or values is not one of them; however, you are what you eat and candy usually has low nutritional content. With this analogy in mind, I humbly submit the following graphic:

Would you like fries with that? [1]

The unhealthy rating comes from the fantasy that Nomiya embodies. Outside of chapter F, his draws are his looks, professionalism, and all-consuming devotion to Yamada. The fantasy here is the conversion of a womanizer to a good and faithful man. I believe that this particular dream gets real life women in trouble.

I've heard by anecdote that abusive men adopt the strategy of "push and pull". The push is the abuse: cheating, pettiness, verbal abuse, and physical abuse. The pull are the moments of kindness and repentance. Without the pull, the redemption fantasy gets punctured.

While Nomiya is never shown to be abusive, the pre-Ayu Nomiya was a rampant womanizer. Even with Ayu, he creates several worrisome moments, such as driving her to another town for noodles. This is borderline abduction. In Umino's dreamworld there is also the Onee-san Miwako who looks over Ayu. However, the real world is rarely as sweet as honey or soft as clover.