🔥 The way you perceive a character
Send me a “ 🔥 “ for an unpopular opinion.
『 Well, I believe this one seems pretty unpopular, but I do believe that Shu was, in a way, just as mean and salty as Reiji when he was a child. So, first things first, I believe this should be addressed, but Shu started to act cold towards Reiji first, and only then did Reiji reciprocate those feelings. This is meant to be only an opinion post, but I bring evidence, like in Reiji’s Vampire Ending in MB, where he says this:
Back then, he still hadn’t started being petty and mean towards Shu, and he showed genuine hurt while talking about his older brother being cold towards him, about Shu being cold towards him and not trusting him, even when he was simply trying to help:
We also see that in the violin scene, Shu shows once again that he doesn’t trust Reiji, and makes that very clear to him, by ignoring his words and continuing to think his younger brother was the one that broke the violin (even when he wasn’t):
In that scene, he had already started to dislike his older brother back, but that’s not the point. What matters is that it’s clear Shu showed signs of not being too fond of Reiji first, and only then did Reiji began not liking Shu, as a defense mechanism to protect himself from the hurt and the pain that came with being lonely and disliked by his family:
See? First he berates himself, then he activates his defense mechanism to protect his mind from the loneliness he feels. As one last piece of evidence, and before anyone comments saying Reiji isn’t lonely as a child:
So, I rest my case on how I see Shu as someone that can be cold and act superior towards others, especially towards his younger brother back then. Because he’s not innocent in all of this, but many people seem to forget that. I’m not saying you can’t like Shu, I like him, but just don’t treat him as this victim of big, bad wolf Reiji, this angel that got hated when he did nothing wrong. You can like characters that have done things wrong, that have acted wrong, just like them for who they are, and not for what you want to see them as. 』
Credit for the translations goes to prevolt, all the screenshots come from Reiji’s routes, HDB and MB.