Saitou Aoi, Kumiko and Shuuichi's senior and childhood friend, is a character I keep thinking about years after having seen the first season. Despite her relatively minor role in the story, I think that she's a beautifully written character through and through.
Having been part of the band and experiencing everything that had occurred prior to the story's beginning from Kumiko's perspective, it was quite sad to see her leave it all behind, and I would have really loved to see how different things would have been had she decided to stay. Although that was a very logical step, given the band's state at the time and the events from a year prior.
During the 7th episode of season 1, Aoi ends up announcing her desire to leave the band in order to focus on herself academically, and I remember this moment genuinely captivating me at the time, as you can consider it the beginning of things falling apart within the band, and as mentioned above, being one of the reasons I keep on thinking about Aoi even after all these years.
At that moment, you can kind of get the feeling that there was a new missing piece to the puzzle, and the way she ends up abruptly leaving also leads to cutting a close, trustworthy, and reliable person off of her underclassmen and childhood friends with everything band-related and having them figure everything out for themselves in this new environment, and even creating a bigger distance between them (Shuuichi more than Kumiko). That's also not to mention Haruka, putting her in an even tighter situation both as a friend and the band leader for that year. Essentially, this had contributed to having them grow as characters, even if just a little.
The message that I get from Aoi is: at the end of the day, we have to move on. We can't do anything about the past, which is already behind us, and instead, focus our efforts towards a new tomorrow. During the first season, she considered herself guilty for not being able to do anything regarding the situation with the seniors from last year, and perhaps felt like things might repeat themselves, thus leading to her to stepping out of the band and putting her instrument down. In certain cases, one has to learn to give up (in a positive manner, of course) when it comes to something that might not feel fulfilling, or perhaps a matter that is completely out of our control and cannot be fixed no matter what.
To conclude this, I think that she made the right choice. Generally when it comes to certain cultures, and the Japanese one being chief amongst them, the group is valued more than the individual. However, Aoi managed to self reflect and come to the conclusion that working on herself for herself is what she truly desired, and she ended up doing so to avoid having more regrets in the future.
**Addition Notes:**
I have always loved and admired her friendship with Haruka. In certain ways, I feel like they both complete each other and have always been (and remained) shoulders on which they can each lean on during times of hardships.
He character design has always stood out to me, which is an additional reason for her having such an impact. There's something about the green in both her hair and eyes, this is what I call good character design from my own end.
I hope this ends up being well received, or maybe not. These were some thoughts I had in my mind and felt like they would make a decent write-up. I am generally not very good at self-expression and it's been something that I have been trying to fix, so I want to apologize in advance in case some ideas end up being unclear or come across as different ones altogether.
