I practically made up this scenario in my mind where her parents are placing unrealistic expectations on her and when she fails, they call her the most troublesome, worthless, miserable failure of a child ever to exist etc. So in her own way of saying “I’m not bad” she’s trying to find somebody who’s demonstrably much more of a failure than she, so she can stand up for herself and say “Well, at least I’m not as bad as him”.

Another scenario I have is basically along the same lines, but maybe her religious parents were telling her “You’re so pathetic you can’t even save your own soul, let alone anyone else’s”, and she’s trying to prove them wrong. Although externally demure, she shows her defiance by choosing the hardest possible task to prove herself: save the immortal soul of a hopeless hikikomori otaku lolicon!

Maybe I’m making all this up so that there’d be at least one speck of light, one pure angel in the midst of the grimy, gloomy, rotting nest of rats and cockroaches that is NHK’s portrayal of modern Japanese society. So that there’d be something still untouched by the cruel world around them. Maybe I’m just hoping for too much, and she’ll have her own weaknesses, and her sins, but… Until proven otherwise, she’s an angel to me!