Responses
You're right and same.
As the elder sibling of my family and who loves her siblings with all her heart, I love family and friendship bonds.
I love stories that focus on other forms of love, specifically family and friendship as they are underrated.
Society focuses too much on romance and indoctrinates us that romance is vital and necessary in our lives.
I think a reason inherent to me being fearful of any romance forming is because in a story where romance is not central, the author can focus on developing a character’s own personality and sense of self for the readers to enjoy. Forcing romance into a story that focuses on building platonic bonds often reduces that sense of identity the author created, making the reader feel disconnected. Unfortunately, in many cases I’ve read, the female characters are at higher risk of having their character reduced to fodder for their romantic counterparts (I hope this doesn’t happen since I love Akino’s storyline). I wonder if anyone shares the same sentiment