Happy (belated) birthday, Honoka Kosaka!
Your legacy has brought us more idol groups to love and appreciate, and I’m so grateful for you and μ’s!
I know you get some negative reception from some fans for an array of reasons that I’ll get into in a bit, but I really can’t see myself hating you for any of them. Flaws are what make characters interesting, after all. You’ve always been my favorite μ’s member after my best girls, so I’ll try my best to put some respeck on your name in this post.
It’s been said that you aren’t considerate of others’ feelings because of the way things went near the end of the first season, but I think that you’re plenty considerate. You formed a school idol group in an attempt to prevent your school from shutting down – not just because you loved Otonokizaka and wanted to continue your brilliant high school life, but because you knew how much everyone else loved the school.
Your friends and older generations of the Kosaka family held the school dear to them, and you wanted to take action so that your friends could continue having happy high school memories and that new potential students – like your sister – would also have the chance to find something to love about your school. Touching upon more differences between your and your spiritual successor in Aqours, while Chika wanted to become an idol to see what it took to improve herself as a person, you did it for the sake of the school and all it stood for.
Your defining character traits are the fact that you’re teeming with optimism and the fact that you never quit when you put your mind to something (sometimes to your detriment). I can see why your actions near the end of the first season were jarring because of this, but I don’t think you deserve hate because of it. It’s probably because I’ve been in a similar place of being overwhelmed from tensions running high from multiple things happening around me and quitting after putting in a lot of work into something. It made me feel more sympathetic towards you despite your actions not being the best concerning your friends.
Speaking of your spunky attitude, I’ve seen you get hate because of that, too. I can respect that the genki leader character type isn’t for everyone (in my case, I’m introverted as hell, but I’m drawn to energetic characters), and people are allowed to dislike characters, of course, but I don’t get it when people criticize you for being so energetic, but praise other characters in the franchise with the same traits. I, for one, love the magnetic pull that you have on everyone around you. It’s fun to see what Honoka’s world is like.
Other things I love are your love for school idols, your voice (your seiyuu is so strong for continuing to do what she loves despite being afflicted with dysphonia and you’ll never not sound amazing to me), and how wacky you can be. Never stop being the bread-loving, trailblazing idol that you are! Faito dayo!
