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I know I’m really late to the party when it comes to this, but I feel like if no one else is gonna say it, I will. Nanami seriously deserves MUCH better than ANY of the male love interests in this series—ESPECIALLY Tomoe. Yep. She does. Sorry not sorry. At this point, I genuinely feel like all I'm doing is stating the utter obvious and I'm gonna lose it if anyone says otherwise.
Before we go any further, I wanna make it clear I haven’t read the manga for Kamisama Kiss, I’ve only watched the anime. So everything I am mentioning is going to be based on stuff that happens in the ANIME. I watched this when I was 12. And now as a 20 year old woman looking back on it eight years later, I can say with my whole front chest that Tomoe and Nanami are a terrifying asphalt of a couple. Tomoe is TERRIBLE love interest to the point where I think he's actually worse than Edward Cullen.
The OVA is something that deserves its own topic due to the APPARENT supposed ‘complexity’ that defenders of the ship will say is there (despite it being very clear what the truth actually was). But for the sake of not putting up with more bullcrap than I already have to by even mentioning the initial topic, I think there is one scene we can all agree that is absolutely NOT justifiable by any means—no matter how you look at it. Because some of us apparently don’t agree on the OVA, but I’m VERY sure we can all agree on this.
There’s an episode where Tomoe—pretending to be a male student at Nanami’s school—the emo black winged guy (can’t be bothered to remember his name because he’s literally another liability just like every other male character in this show—if not all of them) tells Tomoe to be cautious around Nanami because teenage girls tend to fall in love easily (I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the point).
Tomoe acts in denial about it and is like, “Pfft, not Nanami. She’s smarter than that.” Which, admittedly, would be a more wholesome moment if the following/previous context didn’t exist. Based on this alone, you probably know what I’m going to be talking about.
Nanami asks Tomoe out to the aquarium (not that he’s too aware of it being a date) and near the end of it, Nanami and Tomoe are on the rooftop of a building during the night. I know, soooo romantic (ugh). Tomoe then asks if Nanami is falling for him, to which Nanami confirms she is—much to the hypocritical chagrin of Tomoe (considering he marries her much later on in the series).
So what does Tomoe do since he doesn’t want to return her feelings? Does he calmly reject her? Does he explain it would be unprofessional? Does he at the very least say, “No.” and then leave with no closure? Newsflash, the answer to all of that is no because he then picks this 16 year old girl up with one arm, holds her on the open side, and WALKS ON THE OPEN EDGE OF THE BUILDING.
Nanami, obviously emotionally jumbled, starts questioning him and asking if he ever thought she was cute. During this ‘conversation,’ this piece of absolute SHIITAKE MUSHROOM then proceeds to DROP her.
“Oh, he dropped her on accident—” Yeah, but here’s the thing. It happened because this crazy turd was holding her near the edge of a building IN THE FREAKING FIRST PLACE. What sane person rejects someone’s feelings by HOLDING THEM on the EDGE of a 50 STORY BUILDING and then is surprised when they inevitably drop them?
Even if he DIDN’T, the fact he even DID IT at ALL tells me a LOT about who Tomoe is as a person. In what universe would this concept EVER fly? Would y’all be okay with this if it were a man were to actually do this to a woman and then his excuse was, “I didn’t mean to drop her?” BRUH, YOU WERE STILL HOLDING HER NEAR THE FREAKING LEDGE, WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN?!
I don’t even blame Nanami for telling this man to screw off as she was falling because what the actual heck, bro. I wouldn’t want him to touch me, either. At this point, I legitimately would rather Tomoe not respond, jump off the building, and dip. He’d still be a horrible jerk for that, but at least he wouldn’t have HELD HER OVER A BUIL—
I don’t care what anyone says or any other things that happen later on. “Oh, it’s just fantasy, it’s just fiction.”
I can tell you one thing—if you fantasize or gain entertainment from the concept of a man throwing an innocent woman off a building after he rejects her, I don’t think you’re okay. Why would you want that?
Obviously with Kamisama Kiss being a supernatural series, of course there are some logistics that we throw out the window—like the fact that it was somehow okay for Tomoe to propose to Nanami when she was a kid (oh yeah, I didn’t forget that gross mess). But there are just some objective realities I feel CANNOT be ignored simply for the sake of plot. And the objective reality is that you are wrong if you think that a guy holding a girl off the ledge of a building is something that can be ignored.
I don’t expect stories or couples to be perfect. Nothing made from humans is ever going to be perfect. But you got me messed up if you think I’m gonna look past a guy grabbing a teenage girl like a wine barrel and holding her off the edge of a BUILDING.