First off, thank you for writing your How Orihime Should Have Been Handled Post! Honestly, I've been a BLEACH reader since the 2010s, so having been a student and being surrounded by peers at that time who thought "IchiHime is romantic!" absolutely made me go "???Which part???" and think I was the weird one for not liking IH and preferring IchiRuki more. It was incredibly validating seeing people on tumblr point out what things I wanted to say, along with talking to a friend about it who said that I definitely wasn't weird at ALL for not liking IH or Orihime herself. Or their fans.
Rereading BLEACH after becoming an adult and comparing Orihime with other touted "Kind and Pure" Mahou Shoujo-Type Characters in Shonen/Seinen written by other industry titans like say, Rumiko Takahashi (Kagome Higurashi) or Gen Urobuchi (Kaname Madoka) who actually HAVE some nuance to their being "Kind and Pure," for the story.
Kagome vs Orihime goes first because they both suffer from being unable to tell their Love Interests their True Feelings. Kagome because she is, always, and very visibly, aware that she is some kind of Replacement Goldfish for Kikyo. Which is the MAIN hurdle of her relationship with Inuyasha aside from their absolutely terrible communication skills. However, when the other is down or visibly very Not In The Mood To Bicker, both Inuyasha and Kagome patiently communicate, whether by action or brusque words. Which is like. Not even PRESENT in IchiHime. It's always just Orihime saying that she wishes to be the rain that connects the heavens and the land, and just. Never going "You seem down, is everything okay?" or going full-in and discussing Ichigo's thoughts on where he should go from now to achieve his goals. She just sits there. Staring up dolefully at him.
You could argue that Orihime did the same when Rukia was brought back for execution in Seireitei when she talked to Ichigo about Rukia's whereabouts, but it's incredibly creepy that it's seen as romantic. She basically implies "Oh, so you're ripping apart Miss Kuchiki from her friends and family there just to see her? And then? What will happen after that?" and it's so gross. It's petty AND manipulative and very guilt-trippy. Irl people saying that would be incredibly off-putting, especially if the person you're talking to was a worried boy who saw the girl who saved his life and is his best friend getting coerced to unwillingly return home by a violent friend and an indifferent brother.
The attempted kiss by Orihime makes it worse, because it's SA, plain and simple. It basically made my hair stand on end, as someone who has experienced that. If other characters tried that on Ichigo, say maybe someone unattractive or not in their ship bingo list, people would riot. The same thing happens in that one Inuyasha movie with a Youkai Kaguya between Kagome and Inuyasha and it's. Eugh. I'm just thankful that Kubo didn't go the "Cooldown Kiss" route to calm Ichigo's Hollow Form.
Kagome's kindness isn't soft or unconditional, and she struggles with self-worth like Orihime, but NEVER does she ever downplay a situation like what Orihime did to Rukia and Ichigo. Kagome treats her 'rival' Kikyo as a person, and tries to help said undead woman who despises her because they are basically sharing the same soul. Even when Inuyasha still clearly likes Kikyo.
Second, Kaname Madoka vs Inoue Orihime has Madoka absolutely trounce Orihime in the characterization and nuance section, because they are VERY similar in a venn diagram, as much as people like to flanderize Kaname Madoka as 'too good for this sinful world.' Madoka is legitimately a middle-school girl who SOMEHOW has better emotional management and regulation during duress by a predatory system that wants to harvest her soul than say, ORIHIME. A YOUNG ADULT. WHO HAS GOD-TIER POWERS. It's made doubly worse for Orihime because Madoka Kaname, in additional materials, is very self-aware that her desire to be 'a good friend' is rooted in her insecurity of being 'useful,' but instead, she regulates it by asking her parents for advice or talking with more level-headed friends, i.e. Mami, Sayaka, Kyoko, or Hitomi. It's also acknowledged in Magia Record (Madomagi Mobile Game) that Madoka COULD have made a better wish for a better future, and she absolutely references that in-game.
"Orihime has no parents or family!" No, but she has Tatsuki Arisawa, who, for all intents and purposes, was her FIRST protector. Tatsuki would have patiently talked with Orihime to figure out how to solve what was bothering her, had she just communicated her concerns but NOPE. STONEWALLED BECAUSE TATSUKI IS A NORMAL HUMAN.
The difference between Madoka and Orihime is that Madoka actively knows herself and her motivations and works through it with everyone around her, while Orihime who has a lot of friends and a protector in Tatsuki, actively rejects trying to work through her feelings and problems. At all. Sure, she acknowledges that she's jealous of Rukia and lacking during the Arrancar Arc, but does she do anything to address it? Nope. Not at all. Not even an attempt to communicate or get to know Ichigo better outside of everything.
If anything, I liken Orihime to Queen Beryl in Sailor Moon: pining after her own Endymion who is well-suited with a Princess Serenity, but unlike Beryl who has the balls to team up with Queen Metallia to obtain Endymion, she doesn't. She literally just sits there and prays to be saved.
And what absolutely crushes me the most, honestly, is her reaction to Hollow Ichigo: she's scared of him. Like. That boy turned into a hollow to save you, and you're scared of him? Of the person you claim to love? Ishida didn't flinch when he talked to Hollow Ichigo, and they're literally snarking back to back combatants.
Like. What Orihime clearly wants is something to possess. A Prince or a softer Ichigo. Not the Ichigo who brawls with hollows or disrespectful delinquents, aka the whole of him. It's illogical how people can ship a girl who gets scared when her love interest starts brawling with people who actively want him and his friends and family dead and guilt-trips him with things even she doesn't know about when he's worried about a girl who literally saved him and his family.
I'm sorry this got long LMAO! Again, thank you very much for writing that post!
Hello (and sorry for the delay...)!
I'm glad you like the "How Orihime Should have Been Handled" post! As I said back then, there's a certain agreement on the fact that Inoue's potential was wasted, but I found it interesting to give it a go on how she could have been improved. I am baffled that Kubo gave so little care about her, when it would have been so easy to change some things and give her a more important role. There would never have been ship wars to begin with. I think Tumblr is quite a "safe place" to criticize Ichihime (more than X or Reddit anyway), and I also like to see people analysis against IchiHime, because it shows me that yeah, I'm not a weirdo for not liking that ship, and Inoue (I don't dislike her per se, but boy, the flaws she has...). And their (hardcore fans)? They are the worst.
I haven't read/seen Inayusha still (but I definitely will!), so I trust your words here. But yeah, Orihime wanting to be the rain, and Ichigo hating the rain, how could some fans find it romantic? I wonder. I interpret the rain poem as Orihime wanting to connect Ichigo (alive, on earth), to his mother (dead, in the sky). It... doesn't make it romantic anyway. It's very true Orihime never really had deep conversations with Ichigo. Even after the timeskip, she panicked just because Ichigo invited her in his room? Where she had been before? Not a single evolution. She never talked about her feelings to himâ oh wait, when he was uncounscious!
Don't talk to me about the confession. This was so weird? She was crying on him and nearly kissed him? Everything's wrong in this confession, from the fact that Inoue chose to go see Ichi over Tatsuki (her bff who was there from the start and saved her from bullying, the one thanks to whom she got powers in the first place, remember?) to her thinking about so many jobs (teacher, astronaut, travel, open her own pastry shop, all that for nothing in the end...) including the attempted kiss. "I will fall in love with the same boy in five different lifetimes" why only five? And when you know that in the Fade to Black movie (Kubo participated a lot in it!) Ichigo says to Rukia they probably met before and likely will meet again in the next lives... Yeah, nothing to save from this lame confession. And the Vasto Lorde moment... I agree, good thing she didn't kiss him to save him or whatever, yikes.
Also, yeah, the infamous "cheering up scene"... More like a jealous Inoue trying to make Ichigo give up on Rukia, but too bad he already made his mind. This was another one of the not glorious Inoue moment... One of too many, unfortunately.
I don't remember much about Puella Magi, even though I've seen the show before and enjoyed it. But Madoka wasn't like Orihime, and at least, she fights. Her whole personality doesn't revolve around a boy, contrary to Orihime. Her never adressing her jealousy issues with anyone (Tatsuki, or even Rukia herself) is a real issue I have with her. And as you said, she never does anything to get to know Ichigo. She's so passive... Instead of having a real personality, she's just... here, focused on a boy and nothing else, to the point it makes her selfish and bland.
Oh yes, Ichigo's hollow form. She's super scared of it EVEN IN THE FINAL ARC LMAO the "no evolution" point is proved to be true again. In comparison, Rukia isn't scared of his hollow part, she's worried about him. And Uryƫ, oh sweet Uryƫ... it didn't matter to him Vasto Lorde was stronger than him, all that mattered to him was that Ichigo didn't lose his humanity, and so he tried to reason him... Same when he was the first to try saving Rukia from Renji and Byakuya in the first arc. I fell in love with this boy the first time I saw him. So much selflessness in him... Some others should have taken notes...
Orihime idealizes Ichigo, but she doesn't understand him one bit. No deep conversations with him, an unability to cheer him up, she fears a part of him thats doesn't fit the perfect image she has of him, and after all that, we should take it seriously when she speaks about loving him in five lifetimes. What kind of joke is that? She never did anything really important for him.
Don't worry, it's nice having long posts like that! And again, I'm glad you like the post on the Orihime handling. I find it interesting to analyze a character, give you reasons why he's poorly written, and how it could have been fixed, instead of just saying "I hate him" with no explanations why.
