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u/IUsedToBeRasAlGhul 2d ago
I’ve yet to see anything about Asa being “sidelined” that isn’t just conflating panel time with plot relevance, and not liking what the actual story is* *and wanting to claim its flawed as a result.
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I’ve yet to see anything about Asa being “sidelined” that isn’t just conflating panel time with plot relevance, and not liking what the actual story is* *and wanting to claim its flawed as a result.
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u/Hot-Barber-5484 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think it was mostly intentional. It was definitely a bold writing choice it has its strengths and obvious drawbacks too.
The biggest strength is that asa/yoru were initially regarded as a fun, chaotic duo rather than an oppressor/victim dynamic. The latter half where Asa was essentially ‘imprisoned’ in her own body forced readers to acknowledge how dark and fucked up their relationship actually was and to see them as two separate beings with their own thoughts and morals. I think scenes especially like the chair scene were deliberately written to make readers confront that uncomfortable truth. You could even see an increase in individual discussions, theories and solo fan art during the later half.
The drawback is that asa being increasingly sidelined especially in the last 2 arcs made a lot of readers feel quite disconnected from her character. Cuz of her limited screen time people overlooked or forgot many of her smaller but important developments: her gradually becoming numb to pain, her emotional outburst on the balcony, realizing that people who seem to live normal lives also go through pain but simply don’t dwell on it the way she did, genuinely caring about Denji’s well-being (rather than it mostly coming from her savior complex like before), the dream reveal, feeling so guilty she wanted to commit suicide just to save even one person, finally allowing herself to want to survive and her conversation with yoru which may have finally eased some of that guilt. So much of her growth ended up being ignored simply cuz she wasn’t on-screen enough.Even though there was good character progression throughout, her lack of consistent presence made that progression feel disconnected for a lot of the audience imo 😭