what about KanoKido first caught your eye?? also I love your blog and I hope you have a nice day!!!!
(Aahhh thank you very much!! Your message certainly made my day better~ -w- Also so sorry for such a late reply, truth be told I kind of forgot about this ask… OTL Anon, blink twice if you’re reading this (?))
This is hard question tbh, because to this day I still don’t know at what exact point I actually started shipping kanokido, I only remembered that it happened during me reading fifth novel. Having that in mind I selected three possible suspects for what could be the first thing that caught my eye about them and originally even kinda wanted to turn this ask into the analysis of their relationship from the lack of clear answer *cough* (sorry about that). But after giving it more retrospective thought, even though I still can’t be certain, I think I can finally tell what that was.
One of the first things that drew me into kanokido (and I mentioned before how it’s still one of my favorite things about them) must’ve been how casually in love they are.
It’s something that is established very early on in the series- they’re the best friends, partners, they understand each other without words (just look at them communicating through simple glances in Kisaragi Attention as well as in the manga
) and go everywhere together, they basically don’t leave each other’s side (honestly what’s up with that, are they glued or something? Never forget they decided to go separately from the group to the amusement park in both novel and manga for no apparent reason
)
That’s how I said before it’s the “perfect balance between casually being in love and and en epic love story”. Their “love story” isn’t something ordinary and they’re bound to fall in love again for another thousands of times before they get a happy ending (if Jin will allow them that at all that is), but their feelings alone for each other are just… so simple. They just always are there for each other, support each other and make each other happier and they don’t need any big romantic gestures to show their love and even though conflicts in their relationship sometimes occure, there is no drama to it.
I think it really manifests itself in the way Jin writes and develops this ship. As we learn about their past, we learn how big influences they had on each other, how important they are to each other, how big parts in each other’s lives they play and from current events we see how close they grew, how close they are and all the while their romantic relationship wasn’t something that was primarily focused on (which is in some part also because Kano is a huge idiot who didn’t realize his feelings until the love of his life died, but that aside) from neither of their perspectives. It has its own pace and gets its time to be developed.
Their “love story” is really more just… “their story”. They’re deeply in love with each other, but it’s the kind of pure love that makes them better together, yet not defines them.
They’re more important to each other than the feeling between them after all.
(*cough* Those of course aren’t exactly my thoughts when more than four years ago I began to ship them, in the end I let myself do a little analysis on their relationship as well as a retrospective analysis of sorts on what made me notice this particural aspect of their relationship that drew me to them ^^; But I think it’s alright if I still managed to answer the quesion somewhat directly, right…?)
{Yo ask me kanokido questions!}