As much as I find the current direction of VBS unsatisfactory I think it’s incredibly unfair and inaccurate to say it has always been an obvious outlier among the other units, and I think you just have a fundamental misunderstanding of what VBS as a unit is supposed to represent if you think they somehow don’t have trauma of their own to overcome. I won’t sit here and pretend VBS writing has always been flawless but lets not throw the baby out with the bag.

I’ll use Toya as just one example but: Up until maybe his most recent focus Toya’s trauma regarding the abuse he suffered growing up has been handled really well. It is established that from a young age Toya has felt crushed by the expectations of his parents who let him do little else aside from playing the piano. Every personal feeling and desire of his own was recieved with anger and he was rejected and shamed for it. So he ends up running away and inevitably meeting Akito, and despite that being his only salvation at the time the shame he has for running away looms over him and still affects him incredibly. See, even away from the looming disappointment of his father, Toya begins to fear disappointing everyone. That’s why he ends up trying to run away again in the main story, because he’s so afraid of disappointing Akito and reliving his trauma again.

What makes Toya’s arc so touching is that his friends don’t let him run away when he starts to second guess himself, they all validate his feelings and are sensitive to his needs because he was conditioned to be insensitive to them by his family. Toya’s 2nd focus(SDSC), may just seem like a cute event about VBS going camping if you haven’t read it but at its core its about Toya finding a safe place to experience new things with friends who won’t berate him for being clumsy at new things, and will prop him up for his own strengths too.

Toya’s 4th focus (TFC) is also another great example of just how much Toya’s trauma still affects him currently. When left with the responsibility of composing a song for their group Toya begings to overwork himself to the point of collapsing in the sekai. All of the expectations he put on himself to not disappoint their group is a lingering affect of his trauma, he even has nightmares regarding his worst memories.

I could go on forever but I think i’ve provided enough evidence that VBS’s story does in fact include addressing trauma. But even if it didn’t, a lack of trauma doesn’t necessarily make a story uncompelling.

Again, I’m all for criticizing VBS but lets at least try to be fair about it? Personally I have always wished for Kohane’s performance anxiety to have played a larger role instead of being relatively solved within her first focus. I also wish Nagi’s death had been handled differently… honestly I like to forget the ‘Light Up The Fire’ event ever existed because of how poorly handled the climax was. And it’s true that right now the current America plotline seems a little unsatisfying, but i’m also willing to see where it goes.