Top Dad didn’t bother me as much as I expected this episode, but I’m still not a fan of his inclusion.
Hibiki could have spent her house arrest with her mother and grandmother, but since they aren’t as well established characters they chose to go with Akira, and I get that, but I don’t like it.
He was there to have the connected them be fathers, with the rest of the episode focused on Tsubasa’s relationship to both Fudou and Yatsuhiro, and while this is certainly better handled than GX’s father parallels, Top Dad is still a bad character.
His acknowledgement that he can’t give Hibiki any real advice beyond reminding her of “heiki hechara” is a bit of a mixed bag for me. One on hand, Top Dad is absolutely useless, and this is an acknowledgement of that. On the other hand, this goes back to one of GX’s failings, forgetting that “heiki hechara” was an unhealthy coping mechanism of Hibiki’s, not the source of her positivity or strength.
Hibiki would always say it when she was falling apart in side, as a method of bottling up her feelings. It was useful sometimes when she needed to get through a tough situation before she could take the time to deal with her emotions. But, she wouldn’t ever take that time. She would keep telling her self everything is alright, until she fell apart even worse than she would have in the first place.
This is also why “datto shitemo” was a much better mantra. “But even so” acknowledges the bad things going on, rather than ignoring them outright, and says to keep pushing on in spite of them, rather than in ignorance of them. This is also something Hibiki learned herself and not from Akira.
There’s a.so the fact that the unhealthy coping mechanism she learned form her father was the only reason she forgave him, which was beyond frustrating in GX.
It’s used somewhat differently here. Hibiki brings back her old “I must be cursed” line from season 1, to which Akira’s assures everything is fine. He then says that there’s a thin line between curses and blessings.
This is likely foreshadowing something about the Curse of Balal and maybe even Noble Red’s situation (if they aren’t dead at least), and I am interested in how that’s all going to play out, but I don’t like it being framed with Hibiki’s bad coping mechanism. Akira is saying that things that seem bad can be good, but does so with something that seems good but is actually bad. This wouldn’t be so bad if the narrative actually acknowledged this, but it’s just played as good advice, and Hibiki and Akira get along great now, and we shouldn’t worry about because, well, “everything is fine.”
The Top Dad stuff didn’t leave me enraged like it did in GX, but it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. Hopefully that’s the last appearance he makes in the season.
