This I will be tackling the first anime character of the blog and it is a character that up until somewhat recently I really didn't like. But now I adore her!
So who is the subject of my fourth Favourite Character Praise Friday?
Ruby Kurosawa from the Love Live! Franchise
For those who are unfamiliar with the Love Live! Franchise, there are two series' as it currently stands; Love Live! and Love Live! Sunshine! The series' focus on a central character, Honoka Kousaka and Chika Takami, forming school idol groups with students at their schools. Ruby is a character introduced in Love Live Sunshine! she is a first year High School Student at Uranohoshi Girls' Academy, with great interest in school idols, being a fan of Muse, the group Honoka established several years prior in the original series. She is co-erced into joining a new group called Aquors by Chika and her friends in the year above, and from there, the only way is up for Ruby.
Before anybody asks, yes I do in fact play the game, but my account is a third year oshimen, so I barely get any Ruby cards, so I will not be using the game to validate her development, as I do not have enough of her cards.
...So, why do I love Ruby, despite the fact that I used to strongly dislike her?
Warning! There will be spoilers!
In essence, the second season redeemed her character so much in my eyes that I just had to commend her development!
She tended to be in the background, always too meek to assert herself
Ruby was a very quiet character in the first season of Love Live! Sunshine! she was a character that therefore tended to blend into the background when compared to her more outgoing schoolmates, particularly fellow first year, Yoshiko aka Yohane, The Fallen Angel, whose quips and their friend Hanamaru's responses to them tended to summarise the majority of the first year students' interaction that was not plot-orientated.
HOWEVER, when the second season rolled around, she grew more comfortable amongst her friends, tending to also jab at Yoshiko, and eventually grew to depend on her friends and go out on limbs herself to help others independent of the other characters in Aquors.
Her main quirk was her immense shyness
When Ruby was introduced as Aqours' token "shy character" my mind immediately looped back to her predecesor, Hanayo Koizumi, who developed at a rate of knots after her best friend Rin, encouraged her to join Muse and pursue her childhood ambition of being an idol, even if it would only be whilst she was in High School.
Ruby found herself in a similar predicament, being pushed to join Aqours with her friend Hanamaru, but unlike Hanayo, who managed to find herself at the butt of many jokes due to her insecurities about her weight, shyness and love for white rice, the only thing that Ruby could be humoured for was how shy she was. I was originally very worried that her character would be pushed to the sidelines and not receive what the fans of the series referred to as a "development episode".
HOWEVER, in the second season her character was skyrocketed into a greater level, I was amazed to see that instead of a singular "development episode" the first year students, lead by Ruby, managed to have a completely independent development arc, which focused on them depending on one another to help their fellow School Idol Leah from rival group Saint Snow, after she made a mistake and she and her sister Sarah froze up, and consequently failed to qualify for the finals of the Love Live competition.
She was too reliant upon her older sister, Dia
At the beginning of the series, Ruby's central dilemma derived from a conflict of interest between her and her older sister, Dia, who had gone off school idols and refused to let Uranohoshi Girls Academy create a school idol group. When Dia's decision was overruled by the chair of the school, her friend and classmate, Mari Ohara, Ruby had the opportunity to join Aquors despite her sister disliking school idols.
Toward the latter end of the first season of the show, the conflict that caused Dia's opinion to change was resolved. Kanan, a fellow third year student and childhood friend of Dia and Mari, found out that Mari had refused an amazing opportunity to study abroad and refused to tell her friends about it at all because she wanted to be a school idol. Instead, Kanan decided to throw the Love Live Tournament so Mari would cave into the pressures to go abroad and study. When Mari found out that her friends had sacrificed their dreams of dancing together on stage, for Mari's academic career, she was outraged and heartbroken. She sought to right the situation, and in doing so, she Kanan and Dia joined Aqours.
With Dia now a member of Aquors, that meant that Ruby had access to her crutch; her older sister, who she had always dreamed of being a school idol with. And that factor, along with the previous two lead to making me worry that Ruby may find herself as an underdeveloped character, suffering immensely off-screen once her older sister graduated.
BUT yet again, the second season gave her redemption for her dependence upon her sister; when Ruby met with Leah, they bonded over how they both believed that they had the superior older sister, arguing passionately about the amazing quirks of the sibling that they felt inferior to. And with Leah and her older sister Sarah now out of the Love Live Tournament, it meant that Sarah would graduate High School on a sombre note, her last performance being influenced by Leah's mistake and their inability to collectively recover from it.
However, Ruby decided that just because their journey in the competition was over, did not have to mean that their final performance as Saint Snow had to be a sad performance. So instead Leah and Ruby worked along with Hanamaru and Yoshiko to create a stellar performance for the two idol groups for a Christmas Fair in Leah's hometown.
I found that Ruby seeing her relationship with Dia through Leah and Sarah lead to her developing in leaps and bounds because ultimately she understood what Leah was experiencing. The ideas of no longer wanting to be in Aquors, once the third years graduated and how she didn't want to be the reason Dia might feel negatively about her final performance.
So, what can we learn about writing characters from how Ruby Kurosawa was developed in Love Live! Sunshine!?
- It is absolutely fine to allow shyer meeker characters to take the spotlight, they have their own thoughts too
- Showing a character overcome something such as their greatly introverted personality and learning how to embrace its can be a great story to tell
- Sometimes characters that you underestimate can further the plot on levels the reader or viewer may not even consider
Thank you for reading my reasons for loving Ruby! I hope my praise influenced the way you perceive your own characters!
Until next time!
And remember:
Per Ardua Ad Astra!
- Imogen. L. Smiley
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