Amagami SS 20: It’d Be Nice…

Posted by Shin

Hehe… photos of you and me since we were small are pinned up on the corkboard in my room.
It’d be nice if I could pin up more and more photos of our memories from now on.
And… if, someday, there’d be a photo where you and I are more than just childhood friends…
If I could pin up a photo like that…
It’d be nice.

It took her a total of four lifetimes, four resets to get to where she is now, and yet Rihoko is still somehow swindled out of her Best End. I am usually one who can express his feelings through reaction images, but after staring at my folder for an hour, there is not one image that can be used to describe my dismay at how the producers have blatantly given Rihoko the shaft, and not of the Junichi variety, mind you. Perhaps it is the producers way hitting us where it hurts most, as Rihoko's unrequited love for Junichi may, in some way, reflect our own experiences. Either that, the producers are venting their own frustration for being friendzoned themselves. Up until now, I have accepted the producers' handling of each arc, as even though they have taken quite a few liberties, we were ultimately given the best possible ending for each girl. This sudden U-turn was a low blow of course, as I jumped the gun into thinking that the childhood friend archetype had finally won. Sure the ending may have implied the possibility of an off-screen, soon-to-bloom romance, but denying Rihocchi her much deserved outcome even in her own arc is just too much.