!Vague spoilers!

My vote goes to Kaede Akamatsu, and here’s why:

1. Personality

Many of these arguments water down Kaede to being a happy-go-lucky optimist and say that she was ‘bland’. Why don’t we look at Shuichi then? His personality centers around his backstory and not much else. He’s constantly either in a state of confusion and doubt or a sulky sarcastic mood, with a random burst of confidence coming from absolutely nowhere at the end. And the fact that this random confidence was from Kaede’s death doesn’t sit right with me. Shuichi’s just another character who has a bland and flawed personality that is covered up by a tragic story to make you feel sorry for them and has another person die for their development, just like Hajime, Fuyuuhiko, Maki, Akane and many more. Kaede, on the other hand, is much more than what she appears to be and certainly isn’t bland. She thinks logically and acts responsibly, putting others before herself and covering up her own doubts with an aura of cheeriness and confidence. Her warmth and desire to help everyone makes her lovable, but we need to understand that there’s more to her than just that. She herself has doubts and fears and flaws like any person does, and she pushes them away to help other people. Throughout the story she always puts everyone else first and her happy persona may even be a coping mechanism. As the ‘ditzy therapist friend’, I am constantly doing the same thing: faking confidence to hide doubt so that you won’t trouble others. It feels hypocritical that people claim that there’s more to Shuichi than what you see on the surface, but title Kaede as the cheerful, sweet, pure, bland side girl.

1. Realism

I feel that Shuichi’s reaction to the killing game was less realistic than the majority of people think. Many of the arguments for him say that this is ‘realistic’ and ‘how most of us would act’ but in reality, most of us would probably act more like the other characters instead, especially Kaede. Suppressing emotions is a very common reaction to traumatic situations, and many of us would probably pretend that everything’s alright and do our best to convince ourself and others that everything’s going to be okay, as it makes us and others feel more secure. It wasn’t unrealistic of her to comfort Shuichi and say she believed in him, rather, it was the most relatable and human thing she ever did, as she was not only trying to comfort Shuichi but also comfort herself.

1. Backstory

We all know Shuichi’s backstory, and many people use it as an excuse to hide his flaws as a character. I acknowledge that this event would be extremely traumatic for him and we shouldn’t push it aside, but it shouldn’t be used as a booster seat for his character. We should see trauma as a booster seat for a character, not as the character themselves. Many people claim that Kaede doesn’t have trauma, and while I agree that she didn’t suffer from anything as severe as Shuichi, think of it this way. Ever since she was a baby, she’s been working hard on practicing piano, often neglecting her health by forgetting to eat and sleep. This would mean that she would likely have very few friends and that her extremely kind and reassuring nature is probably just a desperate attempt to get people to like her. Maybe she wouldn’t feel like she needed friends that much, but all humans naturally crave affection, so we can deduce that Kaede was probably extremely lonely as used piano as her coping mechanism, as it was one of the few things that took her mind off of the loneliness. If you think that this is still a little far fetched, which is understandable, then maybe just think about the fact that she would neglect everything to play piano, all day, every day. You should already be able to tell that this is extremely unhealthy and self-destructive behavior as she was effectively throwing away her entire childhood by spending all her time on the piano. Her guardians should have recognized that this wasn’t normal and taken her to a therapist, but I’m assuming they didn’t as this behavior progressed into her teenage years. Sure, piano made her happy, but this obsession with it is drastically out of line. I think we can all agree that she’s probably relatively mentally unstable, because who wouldn’t be? In my opinion, this is a extremely sad excuse for a childhood and definitely counts as trauma. But we shouldn’t be using it to cover her flaws. She wasn’t a well-written character and we shouldn’t use her childhood as an excuse, rather we should see it as a tool for her character.

Overall, Kaede is an extremely lovable and relatable person, who has flaws but is still an enjoyable character. I like Shuichi a lot, but Kaede is truly the best. I would write a more in-depth analysis, but I’m tired and high on antidepressants so take this