My first impression of Misuzu was very average. Girls who act immature for their age aren’t very appealing to me, and the whole ditzy element was a turnoff too. But man, my opinion of her did a complete 180 once we reached the Misuzu and AIR routes. I feel sorry for all the suffering she’s had to endure, but that just makes me admire her so much more, as she’s able to put up a strong front and smile whenever she needs to. They even made a point of how she can fake a laugh very easily, or switch from sad to happy like, well, putting on a mask. This girl is so damn strong, possibly stronger than any of the girls from her past lives. She had the strength and determination to sacrifice her own happiness and ultimately her life to ensure that she would be the last one to experience Kanna’s curse.
Of course, in an almost contradictory twist of fate, she couldn’t have done this alone. Happiness, as it turned out, was something very important that she learned not to throw away. She had Yukito, Sora, and Haruko all doing everything they could to support her and help her fight off the curse. And it turned out that simply accepting the love of her family and seeking her own happiness in the little time she had left was what was required to stave off the curse until the end of the dream, and finally break the curse.
Misuzu went from a B-grade character to an A-grade character once I got to know her better. Even seeing the revisit of her meeting with Yukito in AIR caused me to view it all in a very different, more positive light.
As for the route, Misuzu’s route was fantastic. Together with AIR, they make up my favourite part of the series, and one of my favourite story arcs in Key’s history. But I’ll go more into that in a later post.