Chet Rippo
Member
This so-called "fourteen-year-old disease" works as a vivid representative amalgamation of the various immature behaviors that children are forced to give up as they age, and if the events of the series were meant to be symbolic instead of literal it would potentially ease my concerns toward Rikka, but taken at face-value and not as a representation of anything else, the "disease" just isn't something that I associate with the struggles of coming of age. Children certainly have wild imaginations, but an imagination so overactive that it completely obliterates one's ability to perceive reality as it actually is isn't relatable to me personally.
Yuuta's struggle to overcome his past and gain acceptance among his peers is actually my favorite thing about the show. If this was a story about him battling against his own eccentric tendencies, the content would be much more believable and I'd enjoy it a lot more. If we're talking about being able to relate to the difficulty that some people face in gaining maturity, the scene in the first episode where Yuuta is absolutely flabbergasted by a simple invitation to have lunch with a group of other students is the kind of thing I'm looking for--that immediately made me think "yeah, that was me at fifteen". If Rikka was, say, the same as Yuuta--delusional tendencies but earnest in a desire to gain social acceptance in spite of these quirks--the character dynamics would have more potential to go in some interesting places. Personally, I generally don't like any personality trait taken to an extreme.
But Yuuta's extreme effort to come off as "normal" is just as insincere as Rika's rejection of reality. If anything, the show is more about him growing up than it is for Rika.