When it comes to the female cast, it feel that some favor Naoto in ways that seem hypocritical. They freak out whenever Naoto is in fan-service scenes or anything that slightly demeans her, but you never see them act the same way about the other girls. What? Are they an exemption? They’re female and just as important, you know.
This… is an interesting point.
A small headcanon I’ve had for a while is that Naoto really respects the girls on the team, because they are strong and capable, and they have no issue being, well, women. I’ve wanted to write something for this but never got around to it, of her watching them in battle, and how good they are. Chie is definitely strong, and Yukiko is quite dangerous. Rise, even if she’s in the background, is focusing on the entire fight and all of the enemies and giving them battle tips and things, which I imagine would take a lot of skill to control the persona she has.
I love all of the girls, but sometimes I feel like the fandom forgets about them because Naoto is so complex. And she is, and she is interesting, but when I see fanservice shots people cry out for Naoto more. But… none of the girls would do things like that. Even with the beauty pageant, for example, NONE of them wanted to do it. Chie just ended up giving in because of Hanako, Yukiko kinda went along with it after that, and Rise was like “whatever I’ve been in a swimsuit before (and no I don’t think she’d be for fanservice either, I don’t believe in the Rise = slut thing some people have, after her dungeon and her shadow why would she ever be o.k. with that? She may accept Risette being a part of who she is, but the whole "gunna git naked” thing is not what she wanted to be seen as). When ALL of the girls found out about the bathing suit thing (not just Naoto) they were pissed, I mean, Yukiko even said “that bear needs to disappear.” In fact, Naoto was mortified while Yukiko promised death. And Chie was so pissed about the entire pageant in the beginning that she signed the boys up for the cross-dressing pageant as payback, and smirked the whole time.
So yeah… this is an interesting point to me.
Anonymous