Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-26397825-20160518062840/@comment-24534644-20160521155604

Don't get impatient buddy, we all have lived that sometimes require us to do things other than sit in front of the Wiki tabs all day. If others reply, they reply. Until then, you wait. Lucky for you, I'm not doing anything at the moment.

Now then. I'm typically not a fan of when a character's backstory, personality, likes, and dislikes all include the name of a DIFFERENT character. It makes the one I'm reviewing seem less like their own person and more like someone who exists only to bounce off of someone else's interactions.

Let's take Weiss for example, since this whole romance thing you've got going on as well as her personality is how a lot of people view Snow Flower (ugh). After being talked to by Port, Weiss starts endeavoring to become a better person, but it doesn't happen happen overnight. She's still bratty, sophisticated, and all those other things, and it takes a while for her to reach the changes we see in the third volume (and even then she's still a bit of a birch). Now, you'll probably argue that the romance angle inspired her to change faster, but then that's the issue. By having her start changing her personality so early on, for the sake of romantic interest in someone else, she becomes less interesting as a character and more along the lines of one of those high-school prep girls who has no personality and is willing to be whatever if it means getting to be the girlfriend of that one hot jock guy with the cool car.

Personally, I liked Ratree's character up until Yuri started defining her as a person, rather than her own decisions and actions. I'm not saying romance is bad, certainly not, but having one of the characters entire character practically dependant on it isn't good, because regardless of your intentions it comes off as shallow. I think it'd be better if it was more of a Weiss thing, where she starts off changing herself for the betterment of herself and her team, and THEN (maybe in year 2 or something) starts changing ever so slightly more for her romantic interest.