I do not think Karin's love for Sasuke is genuine love, but I find it incredibly sad and tragic. I cannot help but feel bad for her.
Her unhealthy obsession and attachment to Sasuke is honestly pitiful. What do you mean you saw a guy who barely smiled at you, and it was not even a proper smile, more of a smirk, save you from a bear while looking for a scroll, and that is why you fell in love with him?
You do not know him. You know absolutely nothing about him. Yet that one interaction became the reason for your feelings. That is not romantic. It is just sad.
What makes it even more tragic is what it says about Karin's life. She went through so much pain, loneliness, and misfortune that one tiny moment of kindness became the most important memory she had. A boy smiles at her once and suddenly she clings to that memory for years. That is heartbreaking.
It is hard for me to see it as genuine love. It feels more like an unhealthy attachment formed by someone who had been deprived of affection for so long that even the smallest bit of attention meant everything to her.
That is why I cannot bring myself to hate Karin. I mostly just feel sorry for her. The fact that a single smile from someone she barely knew had such a massive impact on her life is genuinely tragic. It shows how empty and painful her childhood was. You don't need fillers to understand that Karin's backstory would be sad; she literally works under Orochimaru.
Most people need years of memories and experiences to fall in love. Karin got one moment in the forestnd spent years building her entire emotional world around that one interaction. That is not romantic to me. It is one of the saddest things about her character.
