MAN LET’S JUST FUCKING TALK ABOUT CHIHO SASAKI
Chiho gets a lot of flack for being a sweet, “perfect” character who everyone loves and how dare she steal maou away from emi, yadda yadda. this series has always been about showing people are more than just one trait and that they have their own little worlds and experiences and how nothing is black and white. so if that’s the case, why is CHIHO so perfect? …well, she ain’t. chiho’s 16/17 years old. she’s sweet, yes, and most of the gang take to her because of how open-minded and helpful she is. but she’s also naive, overbearing, and selfish.
she’s told throughout the series, over and over again, that maou did terrible things. ALL of the demons did terrible things, but the blood on maou’s hands in particular is astonishing. she stubbornly refuses to listen, basically telling emilia and suzuno that their past with him (and trauma related to it) is invalid. maou is her friend and co-worker and she has a crush on him so NO BAD HE HAS EVER DONE IS APPLICABLE NOW, YOU CAN ALL FORGET ABOUT SAVING ENTE ISLA FROM HIM. she also lets herself be constantly blinded by her crush to the point of seeing conflicts, especially with the other women in the cast, when there are none. she gets jealous of maou and emi raising alas ramus when neither one of them asked to have her and at that point in time are still mortal enemies. even before she knew who they really were, she’s upset at the thought of maou even HAVING A ROOMMATE. she sees herself in a romantic relationship with a guy who, and the books make this absolutely clear, she never had a chance with.
that’s the point to chiho: she will never have maou. maou has never once been interested in her like she is interested in him. is she important to maou? yes. she’s his co-worker. does he love her? yes, as a friend. her human kindness is one of the reasons he even remembered how to be a good person in the first place. she’s important to him and her emotions are important to him, so if he holds her hand and comforts her and dailies about not telling her what he really feels about her, it’s not because she has a chance. it’s because she’s his friend and he doesn’t want to hurt her like he’s hurt so many people before her. he kinda WANTS to be the good person she thinks he is.
but she will never get the guy. this is most apparent in book 13. yeah, it spends a lot of time harping about her depression that maou and emilia are getting closer, but a LOT of it is more about the fact that she’s actually SEEING her own bad traits. she’s seeing how selfish she’s being by having such a bad reaction to maou and emi just making amends and spending more time together, but she can’t help it and it makes her spiral into self-loathing. she sees how naive she is by comparing herself to rika–someone who had a crush on ashiya and, when ashiya showed her his true self and explained that they would never be able to be together because he was a demon and she was a human, she accepted it like an adult even if it did hurt her feelings. she respected what he had to say and, more importantly, respected his feelings instead of trying to push the issue because of HER feelings. rika still likes him, yes, and hopes he will change his mind, but doesn’t argue or tell him she doesn’t care about that stuff like chiho has done to maou. the comparison to rika is SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT to chiho’s character arc, because she DOES have one.
her arc is her growing up. it’s realizing that life isn’t a fairy-tale and maou isn’t her bad-boy prince. it’s breaking the selfish notion that, just because she’s the human in the world full of magical people, she’s the main character. she ISN’T the main character. she isn’t the love interest. they aren’t going to stay on earth for her. she’s slowly (OH SO SLOWLY) learning how to let go, because it isn’t her say whether or not everyone else leaves her. her entire point is to be irritating and frustrating because what teenager with a crush ISN’T?
WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS chiho is a more interesting character than a lot of people give her credit for and she’s never getting maou so ya’ll can just calm the hell down
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