#chizuryu

[a-sign-of-affection]

“You’re mine now, right?”

Kimi ni Todoke, Shiina Karuho

[antivanruffles]

I just binge watched all of From Me To You on Netflix and the way Chizu and Ryu have a FUCKING CHOKEHOLD ON ME RN

I must go find manga pages and scan directly into my brain.

[chizucore]

one part i used to find cringe in KNT when i was a teenager first following the series that i absolutely adore as an adult revisiting it with full series hindsight and a less chronically embarrassed adolescent brain is the part where ryu gives chizu the preserved rose outside the party and says it reminds him of her. i love it now in one part because like many KNT bits it's honestly incredibly funny (the absolute deadpan absurdity & refusal/inability to elaborate or explain is like peak KNT humour and peak ryu as a character) but also

chizu afterwards looking back on it and trying to figure out what he means by that and kind of making the gradual transition from being mortified by it to being moved by it…like yes there's the whole point, accepting and appreciating somebody's feelings even though you don't understand or even reciprocate them, and the actual impossibility of ever completely reciprocating the love someone else feels for you because you are not inside their head and you're never going to see what they're seeing or feel what they're feeling exactly. it's like how sawako is drawn differently when we first see her from kazehaya's point of view and stuff like…when kazehaya tells sawako that she has no idea how much he loves her it's not an argument or a challenge or a manipulation tactic it's a truthful statement, love isn't a competition or up for debate or negotiation it is always there and it's always incomprehensible and it always matters so much

when chizu asks what ryu means by that and he goes "um...if you want specifics, i don't know" it rules bc it parallels sawako asking him how he realised he liked chizu in the same chapter where she fully realises she likes kazehaya and he says more or less the same thing, or something like "do i have to give you a reason?" like yeah love isn't about reasons!! you don't need a reason to love someone!! when ayane is trying to convince herself she can grow to reciprocate kento's feelings she's constantly extoling his virtues and how much kinder he is to her than the other guys she's dated etc etc but ultimately that doesn't matter because that's not how love works and that lack of rationality and how you can handle that within your relationships is something every single main character has to reckon with in some way shape or form at some point during the narrative. this love might not make sense to you but all i can do is keep reaching out and giving it. and you can't give love if it isn't there. etc. when chizu and ryu or sawako and kazehaya talk positively about each other it's never, ever presented as an explanation for why they love each other it always exists independently or serves as a gift to the other person to remind them (or others) of their worth - i love you AND i believe you're a good person but i don't need to think highly of you to care for you, it's that whole respect VS love thing that fucking torments sawakaze throughout the first half of the manga lmao. love isn't a reward for good behaviour, saying you love someone and saying you respect/admire them isn't saying the same thing even if those sentiments can co-exist

anyway sorry that was kind of tangential but everything in KNT connects sooo beautifully i had to say it but anyway. back to chizuryu to round this off i've seen basically every possible take on them over the years RE whether chizu is supposed to have had explicitly romantic feelings for him all along that she was unaware of/unwilling to accept or whether she kind of gets forced into a romantic relationship with him because she thinks she'll lose him forever otherwise etc etc (neither of these are my personal readings BTW but i digress). and like i think the ambiguity and flexibility and weirdness of chizu's feelings is kind a huge part of the beauty of their arc because ultimately she chooses him because she loves him and he loves her and that's enough to build a life on. when chizu is having her (justified!!) bsod crashout after ryu confesses to her and her brother in parallels kazehaya says it's obvious how much ryu cares about her and "it doesn't matter what shape those feelings take"...like yeah...

i'd argue a huge huge part of the rift between chizu and ryu that they have to resolve to be fully happy together is that ryu spends a long time devaluing chizu's past feelings for him because they're not romantic and she in turn spends a while devaluing his feelings for her because they ARE romantic and don't reflect the genuine friendship she always thought they had (and this is exemplified from his POV at the end of the childhood flashback when she says she's going to be his sister now and he's obviously slightly unhappy because he thinks she means it as in 'sister-in-law' and that it's about her feelings for toru when we can see in her narration that it's about wanting to be close with and there for ryu forever, as well as the "why did you choose this high school" conversation). other people will probably not understand your love for somebody and you will probably never comprehend somebody's love for you but the love is what matters even when it's incommunicable. perhaps especially when it's incommunicable because that is when it's at its most sincere and the real tragedy is that sincere love of that nature is impossible to translate. the bitterness (never fully understanding each other) and the sweetness (loving and reaching for and fully trusting each other anyway)

i have more to say about them obviously but basically hell yeah so true kazehaya bestie it doesn't matter what shape those feelings take. even if the shape is a preserved rose

[saeihive]

fav shoujo is back! watch knt s3 now ^^

[banderwokcy]

happy belated valentines!

[thatu]

Chizu looking very grown up on the new official art for season three

Good cause she gonna need to be real mature because season 3 is abt to W R E C K H E R

[averinna]

[of-fluxions]

and I would have stayed up with you all night, had I known how to save a life. - ♫

au where chishiya finds a way to cheat the system in the king of diamonds game, both he and kuzuryu live, and they return to the real world together with memories of the borderlands.

maybe a spoiler for next video?

well, the wiki for king of diamonds says game over is -10...if we take the rules to be literally...’reach -10 is game over’...what if you bypass it by reaching -11 and glitch out the system. yeah i realize that logically, borderland rules are absolute, and -11 is going to be game over as well but. let me dream.

0.8 * (67 + 100)/2 = 66.8 which is exact match considering round 13′s 23 by chishiya was an exact match for 22.93. this triggers the double point penalty making the score go to -11.

anyway also don’t take this too seriously this is just wish fulfilment....

btw I highly recommend checking out Kaiosea’s For Something To Believe In for a post-canon fix-it with similar themes! that fic definitely inspired thinking about the -11 glitch :)