I used to not like Aira. I didn't hate her, but found her a little annoying and little boring. I once described to a friend "She's like the pink starburst of group. All starbursts are good and I'll eat them but the pinks are my least favorite". However now, thanks to some extra love given in the anime, some later chapters in the manga, and a mildly funny profile picture I made for my discord that lasted a while, she has ascended to the status of Blorbo From My Shows. Then I did some thinking, some re-reading/watching, and some overall character analysis. And I have come to discover that Aira is a lot more interesting of a character than what people give her credit for.
And frankly, I've seen far too much Aira slander as of late, which tells me a much needed character analysis is needed.
So without further ado, I present to you: The Long Aira Post A.k.a:
Aira is Important, Please Don't Hate Her
(The profile picture I mentioned cause someone would have asked if I didn't put it anywhere)
Oh also spoilers ahead for the manga at least up to chapter 214 if you care for those things.
Aight so, mini literature lesson. The Dandadan gang, for the most part, follows the Five-Man-Band trope structure. I am going to be using three of these terms quite a bit so here's a quick rundown:
The Leader: Pretty much is what it says. The person who takes charge and inspires the other characters. Most often they are the main character, but sometimes they aren't. Anyways, this is Momo in the group.
The Heart: This character is the one who brings everyone together emotionally. Just kind of an overall unstoppable force of good an hope. Also often the love interest of either the Leader or Lancer. Okarun fills this roll quite well.
The Lancer: This character is a foil to the Leader and often contrasts them in many traits. They are often both simultaneously the 2nd in command and rival to the Leader. And wow won't you look at that guess who fits in here. Aira Shiratori, our subject of this (let's be honest at this point) essay.
Part I: Masks on Masks on Masks
So Aira is an incredibly good Lancer to Momo's Leader due to how their character arcs mirror each other. You see, both Aira and Momo hide who they really are as people under a mostly fake personality which cause both of them to lose out on deeper connections. Or more simply put, they are both masking (All of our core four characters do this too. I will discuss that at a later time. Maybe).
Both of them are "popular" girls who don't allow themselves to be emotionally vulnerable around others and the close friends that they do have they still keep a bit of a distance from, never really being fully open to them.
However the way they go about this in opposing ways.
For Momo she more actively rejects people trying to get closer. She's blunt and acts aggressive pushing them away pretending that she doesn't care about what they think, sometimes pushing too far like with Okarun early on in the series.
With Aira its a more passive avoidance. Creating the perfect outward persona that is ditzy, meek, and trying to be as appealing as possible so no one questions a thing and simply dismisses her. This gains her followers who will keep being friendly towards her as long as she keeps up the mask, but as we see, would ditch her if it were ever to drop.
Both of them are still lonely despite being surrounded by peers. And both of them need to open up to let their true selves shine through to end this lonely feeling.
The biggest difference here is that Momo's mask isn't completely fake. She is still rowdy and rambunctious, tough as nails, and a bit of a rebel but hides the parts of her that are friendly, empathetic, and compassionate.
Aira completely hides her true self and Momo can tell. And as mentioned, Momo doesn't exactly take social situations with much finesse.
So its completely understandable why Aira hates her at the start. Momo's basically the social equivalent of some guy walking into Aira's gallery of shoddy porcelain masks and swinging a sledgehammer around at high speeds.
This causes Aira to use a different mask against her, a mask of aggression and deflection. Because while she would never admit it, Momo is her best friend. Sure they might butt heads and bicker sometimes. But at the end of the day, they still hang out with each other, always sit next to each other during meal scenes (except the very first one), and will always have each other's backs when it matters.
Because in reality, Aira cares a whole lot about her. Deep down, Aira and Momo are a lot more similar than she'd like to think. She's headstrong, has a strong sense of justice and truly, deeply cares about other people, even if she tries to hide it.
When there are fights, she's often heading to the front lines along with Okarun to lead the charge. When Momo is struggling to be the head of the team like during the Space Globalists Arc and when she was shrunken by the curse, Aira steps up and locks in to lead in her place.
She doesn't want to seem like she cares, so she hides her true feelings beneath this mask of aggression towards Momo (and one very special person we will talk about later).
Basically, she's the edgy "I act like I don't care but I really do" rival/Lancer archetype in the body of a silly pink anime girl.
Which works perfectly for Momo, who will try to lead the team and take on everyone's burdens on her own, but will not let anyone try to help her in return. Aira is very much willing to help support her best friend when needed, even when she won't communicate it.
But of course with these issues of flaring and suppressed emotions both of their arcs revolve around the emotional Heart of the group, Okarun, as well as each other.
It is a common trope for the Leader and Lancer to be in a love triangle with the Heart (If you don't know what a Love Triangle is, click the link and also tell me what type of rock you live under). While the Lancer is often the best friend and 2nd in command to the leader, which as we've discussed describes Aira's relationship to Momo quite well; the Lancer is often the rival of the leader as well. And in this case, it manifests in not only bickering about who leads the team, but romantically as well.
The annoying part of the Love Triangle trope is with the "which one will The Heart choose?!?" thing as they both try to seduce the common love interest.
Luckily for us, Tatsu establishes pretty quickly that there is no contest and that Okarun has an unyielding loyalty to Momo.
However, Tatsu still makes this both important and interesting for their character arcs.
Okarun enables Momo to let down her mask, if even just for a little bit at a time. But with Aira, it causes her to return to her original mask and double down, doting on and getting extra cutesy and extra flirty with Okarun.
For Momo and Aira's respective character arcs, one needs to let down her emotional walls and let him in, and the other needs to drop the mask and let him go.
However, we know Aira doesn't have this mask around Okarun at all times. There are in fact there are many times where she can be just kinda, normal around him even if she still crushes on him a little bit. We see it sometimes as a mild normal kind of flirty when Momo is not around.
Most often we see this during combat, as in their yokai forms a physical masks may be up, but metaphorical ones are down. Sure we see her flirt a little with him and talk about how she is in love with him, but is generally more respectful and acts like a real friend to him in this form.
(Actually, very respectful. Aira refers to him with the honorific "-sama". Which is kinda like referring to someone as "my lord". She has a fun bit of this chivalry theming which I very roughly discussed in this post and might bring back up again later)
Because deep down, Aira knows Okarun does not like her back. In fact, we can see the exact moment where she learns this.
The first time she heard Okarun say something like this, the meal after the acro silky incident, it was after saving her.
Okarun's got the heart of a hero so being kind and genuine is in his nature. What's there not to love? She fell for him right then and there. But what she assumed is that it couldn't have possibly been his only motive. And she concludes the only possible explanation, must be he's in love with her as well.
But after their training, there is no mistaking it. Okarun's kindness, genuineness, and heroic acts are just who he is. And she starts to understand she can be her genuine self with him too.
Aira is of course, still in love with him. Those feelings are hard to get rid of. And those feelings still leak through from time to time and her ditzy-cutesy persona mask returns. But from this point onward, she is noticeably less obsessive over him, and can be a good and supportive friend as we see starting in the scene after when Okarun confronts the Evil Eye.
Now, the moments where Aira's original mask comes out for Okarun are not random, even before the moment mentioned above. I can't believe it took me until Chapter 214 to notice the pattern.
Aira masks towards Okarun in response to showing vulnerability towards Momo
During their encounter with Acro-Silky, Aira may give credit to Okarun for saving her that day but it was Momo who brought her back to life. Not only did this girl that she hated save her life, but she also shares a deeply emotional moment with her witnessing Acro-Silky's past and unintentionally opens up about her own. Showing Momo the tragic loss of her mother. As far as we know, Aira hadn't shared this with anyone before and not with anyone since (until of course, a very important person we will talk about later).
After the encounter, she develops her crush. The very next day, she starts obsessing over Okarun.
This directly leads to the water fight, where again, Momo's powers and quick thinking save her life at least twice and get her out of a sticky situation numerous times. A little less emotional vulnerability, but its mixed with the physical vulnerability. And of course, the whole time, she is still acting all sweet and cute and innocent towards Okarun.
When Momo asks Okarun and her to stay at her house to help watch over Jiji, Aira has to drop the "I don't care, I hate her" facade because she does in fact, care about her close friend's safety.
This level of vulnerability is of course confronted when she sees how dangerous the Evil Eye can actually be. She can't just be casual about it anymore. She has to genuinely show that she cares.
This goes doubly for the next time Evil Eye pops out, nearly killing Momo, and Aira feeling responsible for it. Feeling guilty enough to where she sincerely apologizes for it.
Feeling responsible enough to where in the fight against the musical tulpas, she uses this moment to steel her resolve and to keep fighting. To protect her friends to protect Momo.
And of course before this fight starts. We see Aira again put back up her initial mask, and try to act all cutesy and flirty and over-affectionate to Okarun.
This pattern remains consistent throughout the story. Even smaller moments of vulnerability such as here
Where a simple compliment and turning away from the knives to protect her (remember, Momo is in her front pocket here still) still causes Aira to get all weird with Okarun right after.
However there is a lot of examples and arguably only one exception (Or technically two, but the difference there is who the person is not the pattern) so I am skipping to the very important Chapter 214 incident.
Because for the most part she had been taking Momo's amnesia very seriously.
When Aira first learns about her amnesia she appears very serious about it, very determined.
When Kinta tries to pull some stupid shit, she's ready to shut it down and throw hands.
And as we've seen during the space globalist and kozuka knives arc, Aira steps up to lead and try to solve the problem as directly as possible.
As per normal, Aira does not want to show that she cares and is worried about her best friend. But she knows she has to do something because Momo needs support right now more than ever.
However, everyone in the group is worried about Momo and that makes everyone nervous so they all fall to their unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Kinta compulsively lies and Jiji bottles up his feelings and exerts a carefree silly attitude to distract from the situation while trying to downplay its severity.
(I consider this last panel a downplay as well because we see Miko and Kei say that she and Okarun were basically already dating. And if its obvious to those two it should be obvious to everyone else)
So once Aira shows vulnerability and it backfires, she falls to her own unhealthy coping mechanism: returning to that initial mask, and going all head-over-heels for Okarun.
This is the worst possible time for this to happen (Even Kinta can tell). And while Aira's actions here alone were not what drove Momo away from the group, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
So all this brings up a question: Why does Aira mask?
In short, its because she fears rejection and is secretly insecure.
You see, Aira has a strange look towards social interactions.
Notice how she uses terms like "Have to" and "obligation" and how she considers it "work". Its strangely analytical and formulaic which is not how building relationships with people works.
Her mindset can basically be summarized as: "Getting a good grade in being normal/popular is both a reasonable and achievable goal".
She has this overarching idea of what she is "supposed to" do. That she is "supposed to" act a certain way. That there is a kind of person who she is "supposed to" be. This is what forms that initial mask. A mask that is made to be as appealing as possible, to as many people as possible.
To be popular and admired by everyone, but to never know the real her. You do that for long enough, and you'll start to lose track of what's the mask and what's the real you.
How do you get a boy's attention? Supposedly by being as appealing as possible. As forward as possible, be as doting and as affectionate as possible, to be as physically as close to him as possible.
But she never asked Okarun if that's what he wants.
She never even asked herself, if that's what she really wants. Its just what she thinks she is "supposed to" do.
And what do you do if someone is able to see your perfectly crafted facade for what it is? That's not supposed to happen. She has to be your enemy now, and because she's your enemy you have to do everything in your power to make her life worse because you're "supposed to".
Oh she saved your life and now you're hanging out at her house? That's not something your enemy is supposed to do. And that isn't you are supposed to do with your enemy. But now she's also something of a romantic rival for you, so that's at least something to try and hate her about.
Because if you're not supposed to do that, what other parts about your life have you been completely wrong about?
What if everyone else finds out?
What if they all hate the real you?
And at this point, what is the real you?
We see Aira confront this fear after confessing about the rumors she spread in order to protect Momo. And her fear of rejection comes true, all the people who once admired her now turn her away.
But, she gained something out of this as well. A deeper, more meaningful connection with real friends who, unexpectedly to her, will always have her back.
Even if she still struggles with accepting that.
That is what Aira's character arc is building towards. She needs to let herself be more vulnerable and more open in order to allow herself to have deeper connections with people, and be more able to be her real self.
And she does. Over the course of the story we see she grows to have a stronger friendship with Momo and the others. We see her show more of her real self. And while she still hesitates to show her more caring side, she's still grown quite a bit.
But Aira's obsession with Okarun is still that last bit of her initial mask. Whenever she shows that more vulnerable caring side, she always returns to that bit of safety and familiarity.
But she knows she can't do this forever. Chapter 214 was not just a sudden, worrying, temporary change in group dynamics. Its a reminder to all the characters and the audience that the group's dynamics will inevitably change when Momo and Okarun start dating.
Aira will eventually have to drop that initial mask completely. She will have to be vulnerable and leave behind that last little bit of what she thought she was supposed to be.
But that's okay. It might be difficult and it might be scary to do. She might have to run the risk of rejection again, but in the end it will turn out find. Because I couldn't think of a better and more accepting group of friends for her to have.
Although. Something about all of this seems... unsatisfactory. It still feels as if there's too many holes here. Too many unanswered questions too many things unsaid.
Why does she still have issues with vulnerability towards Momo?
Why did she even start masking in the first place?
What part of her does she think her friends won't accept?
But once you start to try to answer those, more questions pop up in their place.
So many of Aira's actions beg a deceitfully simple question:
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To be continued in Part 2
So because Tumblr has a 30 picture limit per post I'm going to have to split up this, let's be honest here, essay at this point into multiple parts.
I was already going to do that but now they'll each be a separate post or re-blog.
The next part will be addressing some questions that do not have answers yet in the manga as well as some very fun speculation.
Ideally this next part will come sooner because I already have it partially written out.
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