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The original was posted on /r/characterrant by /u/Dragloncon on 2023-10-06 23:58:25.

This is gonna be a pretty short rant lol. Beware of any manga spoilers I might give down below.

Riko gets way too much hate for not going through any explicit character arc, at least not as of yet. People will say “Reg and Nanachi are way better”. However they also don’t bother speculating what Riko’s role is in the story and what’s left for her character. A familiar happening of this situation is like how people say there’s nothing to Gon from Hunter x Hunter.

Back to Riko, to me it seems like her being stillborn, and being brought back to life through delivery up the abyss in the curse-warding box, gave her soul a connection to the abyss in some way. From the beginning up till current, we see Riko as someone who is brave enough to venture into the known whilst risking her life. Maybe that connection to the abyss, is also an intimate connection to death itself. That predisposition for wanting to return to the bottom of the abyss, makes her a candidate to potentially symbolize everything Tsukushi wants to express to his readers (foreshadowed in the lore in the beginning chapters) through the narrative. Much like Faputa and the “beyond human”, Riko can also come to encompass and become a beacon of light for the ideas of the narrative. Being an effective driving force for the ideas of the narrative, imo, is the most necessary component to being a good character. She has a lot of potential and people shame her writing as if she’s filler and a stain on a staple element of the series- the theming. Now I think she’s interesting and has a lot of potential, but she’s only being built up subtley atm and I wish people gave her more respect. We won’t know how good of a character she becomes until this final arc/saga which I’m sure is likely to do wonders for her. There’s probably plenty of nuances I missed like her interactions/or/dynamics between Bondrewd, Wazukyan, and other characters, that I haven’t even begun to look into.

All in all, No More Riko Hate 🤬