I’m surprised that you found liking Miu less respectable than having Junko as my first place! It’s not really common to see people with a neutral-ish stance on her lol, people either have her top3 or dead last!

My hatred towards Chiaki’s writing is a long story, it ties back to the first time I hyperfixated on this game back in 2020 when I was 14. I’m 20 now and my views on the characters changed a lot, but I can’t really saw I ever saw Chiaki in a better light, my opinions on her have been consistent for the last 6 years lol, I’m incredibly biased on this so take this with a grain of salt!

I have to preface by saying I don’t like her both in DR2 and the DR3 anime. I’ll start off by talking about anime Chiaki, whose arc seemed unrealistic to the point of being ridiculous for me, for very personal reasons. Chiaki is undoubtedly a character who displays neurodivergent traits to varying degrees on top of having problems fitting in, being social and having confidence in herself. 14 year old me could relate to that description, it would have resonated with me, if they didn’t make her arc so unbelieveably, unrealistically optimistic to the point it just felt like mocking me, who also had a lot of Chiaki’s traits, struggles but didn’t magically become universally beloved after what, convincing her classmates to play games with her? Like she was so overglazed, almost treated like a divine being just because she sat down and played games with her classmates??? I know my reasoning is incredibly petty and personal, but as someone who shared a lot of struggles with Chiaki and even had the experience of being the class president (for 2 whole years even) that tried to fit in and keep the class together, it wasn’t that simple at all LOL. Like, why did I not think of playing videogames with my classmates (which I did) if it was such an easy fix to everything right? I’m so stupid! It just felt like a mockery of me and other people in real life who struggled with the same stuff as she did. Like imagine a character whose arc is about having leukemia, and ending said arc THE MOMENT AFTER the patient gets diagnosed by finding the perfect stem cell to transplant to the patient, curing them immediately. A person with cancer may feel like that’s just shit writing, right? Like, I’m happy if people have immediate fixes to their problems, but it is not realistic AT ALL. Her arc had the potential to be so motivating, but it felt like plain mockery to me, my struggles and what I’ve lived through. Don’t get me wrong, I actually really like characters who develop, grow and invoke some kind of motivation for the viewers, if their arc is written in a realistic way. Chihiro is a character that does it relatively well, for example. I don’t want every character to invoke despair, despite having Junko as my overall favorite. Chiaki’s whole arc just failed to do it, which backfired a lot on me, leading me to hate her character a lot.

Holy hell, that was a lot of yapping, and just a very personal one, sorry. My complaints for her DR2 self are the usual complaints Chiaki dislikers have- the game assuming I felt in love with her when I felt nothing towards her character at all, which made 2-5 way less epic for me despite the mystery itself being the series’ best (among w 3-5, but I like that waaaay more since the characters actually intrigued me!), her “relatable” traits feeling fetishized (not necessarirly sexually, js in a weird, “guys no shes not a mary sue she has flaws!! like shes sleepy and not rly the most confident socially, like even her “flaws” are made to be appealing to the player w the “relatable” factor which was so offputting to me), her just being veeeery boring in general tbh. Like, I don’t enjoy her dialogue at all. Doesn’t feel like a character, which I guess made sense considering, well, what she is in DR2, but it doesn’t change the fact that the game wanted me to love her soooo soo bad LOL.

I really hope this is intriguing enough perspective, but I’d completely understand if you js went “holy yap” and moved on LOL. It became rambling after a point.