Growing up is realising that Pucca Funny Love is NOT actually a cheeky but cute love story about a seemingly unlikely couple learning to balance each other out in a way that both encourages their idiosyncrasies whilst also allowing for personal growth…
It is instead a cheeky but cute platonic love story about two young boys claiming to dislike each other whilst paradoxically being the best of friends who clearly have a crazy amount of fun fighting as “rivals.”
Tobe is a melodramatic, seemingly self-titled “villain” and Garu is a somewhat socially awkward, loner-type. Both personalities, behaviours, and interests compliment each other with a key difference being that Garu is lawful good whereas Tobe is neutral evil, so it is only due to their respective roles as “rivals” that they each learn how to fight better. BUT the unintentional effect of that dynamic is that they concurrently learn what it’s like to actually experience genuine moments of meaningful human connection when they happen to put their swords down and just have fun and/or be in each others company (sometimes with Abyo included).
Tobe and Garu don’t necessarily balance each other out the same way Pucca and Garu do, instead the balance of their relationship is an organic result of sporadic intervals of play between two little boys giving each other permission to just have fun and be the children they are instead of the roles they have each placed upon themselves.
Tobe doesn’t have to be the villain and Garu doesn’t have to be the hero… They can just be friends…
