Soulmates?
So I've never been a fan of the few fated mates or reincarnation love stories I came across so I just avoid them. The conception of soulmates can be fun, but I don't think many writers are skilled to please me specifically. These romances give me agony and suffocation because I would be horrified and the characters are all okay. It feels like I didn't have a choice and that my feelings aren't "mine", which is scary. So when I read "I Want to Hold Aono-kun so Badly I Could Die" I felt relieved that the protagonist, despite still embracing her love, reacted in the same way I would. I know there must be plenty of works that already did that, but this was the first one to me.
Also something that never clicked with me is love=time=numbers, like soulmates being valued because their love crossed space and time. Not exactly the same thing, but this also goes to more "regular" romances where relationships are judged too much by how long people have been together, instead of the quality of those moments. Also using time skips to increase the believability. I’ve come across someone who had similar thoughts, though I don’t stress about it as much. Even though the tone is quite harsh and I don't fully relate, I found this to be a valid perspective. Is a japanese blog post about Fata Morgana. If you like the game I don't recommend trying to read this. This person wasn't enjoying the VN and because of that, they can come across as overly critical. Used Google translator because I'm lazy and my japanese isn't that good:
"I don't like time loop stories, but I might dislike reincarnation stories even more. The idea of being reborn as the same person over and over again, hoping for a happy reunion with the person you love...""One reason I dislike time loop stories is that I don't like how they try to substitute quantitative factors—the number of attempts and failures in the loop, the immense suffering the looper experienced during that time, and simply the length of time that has passed—for the depth of the love, the strength of the relationship, and the emotional impact of the plot."
"It's like a game where kids compete to see who can say the biggest number:" "100!" "100 million!" "Immeasurable!" "Infinity!" "..It's like the absurdity and ridiculousness of competing over simple quantities, and that's what I feel in time loop stories. Even though it's described as a "love story spanning 1000 years," the player doesn't actually experience 1000 years. Within the constraints of a mere few dozen hours of playtime, the most simplistic and deceptive method resorted to move the player is, I believe, a "loop" or "reincarnation.""
"The way the years rapidly slide by and pass by feels empty. Are we supposed to feel her pain through such numerical displays?"
"The idea that their "pure love" and "emotional impact" increase proportionally to the lonely and painful experiences they endure while thinking of him for hundreds of years... the attempt to simplistically link numbers to the characters' emotions or the emotional impact of the story is truly disgusting."
"Is someone who has thought of someone for 1000 years superior to someone who has thought of them alone for 100 years?"
"So, if the heroine of my story continued to think of the other person for 392(031)(426)(57687)(8093)(57879)(821093)(9043)(0897)(627)(3819) years, would that be far more moving than that?"