Stella WAHSDC3 has been pleasant enough thus far. The other club members are all likeably eccentric. The problem has been main character who is SO damned insecure and introverted that by episode 3 it begins to grate. Yura has problems. She is terribly introverted, indecisive and afraid of her own shadow.
However, in this episode (#3) these issues stop just being a character trait and become a plot point.
They're at a paintball tournament. Unlike Girls Und Panzer boys are allowed to participate in the league and indeed make up the majority of players at the tournament. Our girls school heroines win for several tournaments but don't wipe the floor with the competition. The competition is VERY good at what they do. All is well until they encounter the team from Sisters of Bitchieness Girls School of Implacable Small Unit Tactics For Sadistic Combat Monsters Whose Uniforms Are Black....or something. This fight is personal, there is some history there and our heroines get routed...well....The team aside from Yura gets taken out...Yura's response to this is not to go down fighting....not to try to make a dash for the flag...not even to run and at least make it hard for them....she jusy says "Eh what the hell"...and gives up. This Of course is a FORFEIT.
...and I'm like "You selfish little &^%"
It got worse...the team came over and comforted her and told her it was no big deal.
OK at that point I just about logged off but at that point Kashima, the president stepped in and tore her a new one. She pointed out quite rightly that Yuna had let them all down, damaged their reputation and essentially insulted them.
It was almost like there were certain minimal standards of behavior expected of people.
Given that she's going to an exclusive girls school that looks like a pink Versailles about the size of central park...I gather that Yuna has probably been pretty sheltered life and hasn't been socialized to grok such concepts as loyalty and honor except as abstractions.
Well...she does seem to understand that she has screwed up mightily.
She understands it SO well that at the end of the episode, she's cut her hair very short.
This is a big thing to the Japanese. Cutting the hair dramatically signifies a major life change. This indicates that she GETS it.
It appears that our heroine has come to grips with her problem and is growing as a character.
And I find that cool.
As an aside, the actress doing Kirishima is knocking ot out of the park as far as conveying the oddness of the character most effectively.
UPDATE: Teh Banshee has a fine analysis of Yura's conundrum in the comments.
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Yura is caught between two different standards of behavior. One is that the nail shouldn't stick up, and that if it does, it should hammer itself down. Sticking out is a burden to other people, and your rights are whatever the group chooses to throw your way. And the group is whoever is around at the moment, not just your friends and family who care about you. Yura has been thoroughly indoctrinated into this, by always being the lowest status person around (possibly only in her own mind). But this standard is why Japanese bullies apparently aren't kidding when they call on people to surrender to save them trouble, and why Japanese police feel insulted if an innocent person who has been arrested should publicly proclaim his innocence. So of course Yura thinks she is obliged to surrender, or suffer both social and physical consequences for being a nuisance to the other team and to her own. Because apparently, that's what's always happened when she stuck out.
But in her fantasies, she is a person with worth and status, a person who can persevere and fight. In part of her mind, she thinks of paintball as a way to become that person. She just has no idea of how to go about it, or not enough courage to follow her ideas.
And by cutting her hair, she declares that she is going to really do it.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Wed Jul 24 16:22:30 2013 (cvXSV)
