Darling in the FranXX: Defending Ichigo

As some of you might have noticed since the start of the Winter season, I’ve been sticking little references to my preference to Ichigo over Zero Two in the popular Darling in the FranXX. Up until this week though, those references have been tongue in cheek, personal nods with no substantial argument backing them up. Having watched episode 14 and seen the wider community’s reaction to it, I feel the need to speak up for what seems to be the most misunderstood anime girl of 2018.

The lay of the land

Darling in the FranXX is set in a post-apocalyptic future where humans live in moving fortresses called plantations; in this world adults have little emotion and children pilot robots called Franxx to defend the plantations against monsters called klaxosaurs. It is the children that the show primarily focuses upon – of the seven that are together to begin with Hiro (code 016), Ichigo (code 015), Goro (code 056) and to a lesser extent Mitsuru (code 326) have been together since they were training in ‘the garden’.

We discovered last week in episode 13 that Zero Two (code 002), the newest addition to the squad, is even more different from the others than we previously thought as she never went through the same training as the other children and at that time resembled something non-human – not that anyone other than Hiro knows that within the story definitively.

Ichigo and the team’s attitude to Zero Two

After Zero Two’s outburst and attack on Hiro in Strelizia, Ichigo lead her unit in prohibiting Zero Two from coming anywhere near Hiro. The question is: why? The easy answer is given by her confession to Hiro at the end of episode 14 – someone she doesn’t trust, that she has heard is genuinely a monster is trying to hurt (turn into a monster too) the person she loves and has always loved. This is the pinnacle of a love triangle – it is not forced drama, this is how anyone would react given the situation. This is why the reaction of the rest of the group isn’t surprising and should be seen to back up Ichigo’s stronger feelings – Hiro is integrally at risk by being around Zero Two, there is no denying that and it isn’t bad writing for her to be the least liked person in the show right now.

The issue of viewer versus character perspective

It might seem to many readers on wordpress that this is a patronising point to bring up, but I’ve been a little triggered by how much of the wider community has chosen to overlook this key point of story telling. This doesn’t just go for Ichigo in Darling in the FranXX, but for most characters in most TV shows, novels, films, visual novels and, oh real god damn life. There was a lot of love for episode 13 last week – in my Saturday review I wrote about how it could open up the world a lot more, while lots of people clearly liked it for the backstory given to Zero Two and Hiro as it was revealed that they had met when they were children.

To us as viewers, it became clear, if we weren’t already sure, that Hiro has a very strong connection to Zero Two – one that is unquestionably stronger than the one he has with Ichigo. Even as he speaks of the other children not asking questions, we see him placing Ichigo and the others in a different category, before finding Zero Two and preferring her company.

It really shouldn’t need to be said but I will – as this happened as a connection of minds within a FranXX, only Zero Two and Hiro knew about the events of that flashback. Ichigo and the team weren’t privy to it, and we saw Hiro’s interactions with them afterwards, he didn’t have time to talk to them about it, not that I’m imagining he’d have wanted to given the shock of the whole situation. So no, only two people characters with the show knew about it – and yes, us the viewers.

The conclusion

Darling in the FranXX might be set in an apocalyptic world, but it is about teenagers working out their emotions without the help of anyone else. Ichigo is in love and has always been in love with Hiro so when Zero Two, who she believes with good reason to be a monster, comes along and almost kills him – doing everything she can to keep them apart is not unrealistic, unfair or making for a poor character it is just what anyone else would do.

I concede that Zero Two x Hiro ship will almost certainly happen eventually, but the dislike of Ichigo is unmerited and criticism of the writing – for this issue at least – should, in my view, be reconsidered.

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Phew, I’m glad I got that off of my chest. It’s tough preferring the character no one really seems to like – someone had to stand up for #TeamIchigo! That aside, I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this – has the community been unfair to Ichigo or am I just getting a bit silly about the whole thing? Is the Zero Two x Hiro ship a certainty or does Ichigo have any chance?

As always, let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading!