User blog:AustinDR/PG Proposal: Shouko Hida

What is the work?
Happy Sugar Life is a 2015 psychological horror manga that was adapted into a 12 episode anime series last year. The series revolves around high schooler Satou Matsuzaka who seems to be an ordinary girl who does extremely well at school and works a part-time job at Cure a Cute. But behind that bubbly façade is an utter psychopathic young lady who has a young girl named Shio Kobe living in an apartment room (don't worry; nothing sexual ever happens between the two, and the series later shows that Satou actually did not kidnap her like initially thought). So from there, she goes to any length of keeping her "happy sugar life" with Shio.

Who is she? What has she done?
Obviously, it's not Satou herself who veers on the side of being an antihero/anti-villain. Rather, it is Shouko Hida. Shouko was Satou's best friend and co-worker at the Cure a Cute restaurant. She was born to a rich family, and as such, she was someone who was mainly isolated and had the inability to speak for herself. Despite this, Shouko goes to show herself as being arguably one of the most benevolent characters in the series. Case in point? Upon meeting Shio's older brother Asahi Kobe, Shouko dotes on him; gives him food (as he tends to live in the town park; it's a long story); and makes it apparent that she does care for his well-being and wants him to be happy even of he doesn't manage to find his young sister.

Besides Asahi, Shouko frequently expresses concern for Satou due to her keeping several secrets from her lately. Fearing the worse, Shouko tries to support Satou in her own way to "keep her from falling into darkness." Eventually, Satou introduces her to her aunt (a nymphomaniac if there ever was one), and despite her saying that she'd never turn her back on her, Shouko gets too weirded out from her aunt. From there, Satou severs ties with her, and she rings Taiyo Mitsuboshi into her scheme of nonlethally dealing with Asahi by taking advantage of his pass trauma.

Shouko meets back up with Asahi who tells her that he had received a sighting of his sister in another district. Before he left for the district, Shouko gives Asahi a kiss for good luck stating that while he didn't meet her criteria for what she wanted in a young man, but she would've loved to have him as her prince. That day, Satou was going to head out of the apartment to purchase some treats for Shio, and Shio gives her a hug that pushes her outside. And then there was a snap. Shouko had somehow followed Satou to her apartment and had taken a picture of her and Shio and sent it to Asahi. To say that this was a crucial moment is an understatement.

Satou drags Shouko into the apartment room and while we never hear what the two were arguing about until the last few minutes of it, it is made clear that Shouko loved Satou regardless and tried to appeal to her to change her ways. However, it falls on death ears due to her previous betrayal when Satou to her aunt. As Shouko was about to exit the apartment room, Satou grabs her and apologizes to her saying that because she had not been truthful earlier, she couldn't trust her to not tell the authorities. With knife in hand, Satou stabs Shio in the neck, her dying not too long afterward after her feeble squirming ceased.

Satou later decides to pass herself off as Shouko and has her aunt set the upper room of the apartment ablaze to hide the evidence. When Asahi arrives to the apartment, he discovers Shouko's lifeless corpse. He then closes the corpse's eyes and cleans the blood away from her neck wound as a sorrowful apology.

Goodness Zone/Corrupting Factor
Honestly, not that difficult, really. There's honestly no other character in the series that could be called "good" maybe except Asahi, the manager from the Cure a Cute, Sumire, and Shio. Asahi in the manga was someone who you could consider a "nice guy." Even when going against other characters that meant him harm, he deliberately chooses to not use violence. Even when he has to resort to it when trying to extract some answers from Mitsuboshi, he relents due to feeling sick from having to do it. Anime-wise, Asahi is the same way, but he doesn't have that disgust holding him back and leaves Mitsuboshi to die in the burning building for lying to him. Sumire...she had a disturbing attraction towards Satou, but otherwise, she doesn't do anything necessarily good or evil. Shio is a child, so she's mostly innocent at the start of the series...Satou herself tries to justify her actions as being for the sake of love. At most, she kills people who threatened Shio in some way, but she otherwise had no problem with setting the upper room of the apartment on fire despite knowing that people could probably get hurt or killed. Otherwise, she is a clear instance of a heroic sociopath where she does good, but mostly out of self-interest and that the antagonists tend to be worse than her.

Shouko on the other hand has no setbacks. She has no preexisting mental orders, no moments of insanity; and ultimately does whatever she can to help other people even when it cost her life. Corrupting factors? None. Even when she finds out about Shio, Shouko tries to convince Satou to change her ways and that she would help her out of love.

Admirable standard
Well, she helps Asahi in different ways from providing food and support for him, tries to help Satou when she thought she was going down a dark path....the pivotal example of this is snapping a picture of her and Shio and sending it to Asahi even though it cost her dearly. Ironically, this is one of the few examples of true love that is performed in the series as she didn't even have her own definition on what she thought love was.

Verdict
Personally think she's a keeper, but that's just me.