There’s a lot going on with Yuta and Rika’s relationship in Chunibyo. They both have their issues, but they’re also both dealing with similar things, and the way they react to what’s going on in each other’s lives is a pretty good indication of what kind of couple they are.
But while there are definitely positive things about them being together, there are also a lot of alarm bells that go off for us about their relationship, and we can’t decide we love them together or think they might be a hot mess of a couple. Here are five reasons they’re great together and five reasons why they should probably break up.
10 Best: Yuta Takes Care Of Rika
Deep down, we probably all want someone who’s interested in taking care of us, regardless of whether we’re men or women. And maybe “taking care of” just means being there and offering support, but even that goes a long way.
Yuta often goes above and beyond to take care of Rika and to help her out whenever he can, even before they’re officially dating. He knows his own feelings about her through his interest in making sure she’s okay, and this selflessness shows he’s a pretty good partner to have.
9 Worst: Yuta Takes Care Of Rika
On the other hand, Yuta and Rika are both teenagers who have just started high school. While they’re pretty young, they should both be starting to learn to take responsibility for themselves and for their own mistakes.
Rika gets into a lot of weird situations where she needs to get bailed out, and Yuta is always there to help her, which is great, but it also means that she’s not learning how to get herself out of tricky spots, making her more dependent on him, which is definitely not healthy.
8 Best: Yuta Accepts Rika For Who She Is
The premise of the series is that Yuta and Rika have a particular thing in common: chunibyo, or 8th-grade syndrome, which essentially just means that these kids have over-the-top beliefs about who they are and what they’re capable of.
Yuta grew out of thinking he had magical powers once he got to high school, but Rika still wholly believes she has psychic abilities. Yuta’s ability to just accept these things about Rika, even when it was hard for him or he found it embarrassing, is a pretty solid show of love.
7 Worst: Yuta Encourages Rika’s Delusions
On the other hand, Yuta probably shouldn’t be quite so accepting of Rika’s chunibyo. While it’s probably mostly harmless and, at most, embarrassing for Yuta, since Rika doesn’t seem to care what people think of her about it, it’s also probably not a great idea to encourage her to go on with it.
While she’s still fairly young and will probably eventually grow out of it, the fact that she’s used this delusion as a coping mechanism for so long is not a great thing psychologically, and the fact that Yuta tacitly encourages it is not especially healthy.
6 Best: They Support Each Other
Rika, in particular, is going through some hard times as the series begins, and it’s no wonder that she’s figured out this weird way to cope in order to deal with her emotions about it; teenagers aren’t great at figuring out how to deal with their moods on the best of days.
Part of the reason Yuta is so encouraging of Rika’s chunibyo by the end is because he knows that it’s helping her through some difficulties with her dad dying and her family otherwise being strict. The fact that they can lean on each other is a good sign of a strong relationship.
5 Worst: Yuta Tried To Avoid Her
This happened at the very beginning of the series, but it gives us a lot of awkward “ouch” feelings regardless. When Rika first confronted Yuta to declare that she knew that he also had powers, Yuta was freaked out and embarrassed by this person who had not grown out of their chunibyo phase, so he did his best to stay clear of her.
The fact that Yuta’s first reaction to meeting the person he is eventually in a relationship with is to stay far away from her out of embarrassment is not a good sign for things to come.
4 Best: Found Closure Over Rika’s Dad
Part of the reason Rika has held onto this chunibyo delusion that she has magical and psychic powers is because her dad died unexpectedly.
It has been her way of coping with it, especially since she didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye, and she feels her powers will ultimately give her the opportunity to see him again if she tries hard enough. Yuta encourages her to find closure, helping her accomplish what she thinks she needs to do in order to say goodbye properly and to move on.
3 Worst: Rika Is A Mess
We have already talked a whole lot about the fact that Rika’s psychological state isn’t in a great place, but there are so many other ways in which Rika just seems to be a total mess. Part of the reason she and Yuta get to know each other in the first place is that she lost her wallet and he had to take her home.
She later can’t find her keys and needs to stay with him. It’s all making some real warning bells ring in our heads that she doesn’t seem to be able to keep it together enough to get through the day without help.
2 Best: Rika Helps Yuta Not Care So Much About Others’ Opinions
Rika, by nature of having chunibyo and thinking that she has magical powers, has pretty much decided that she doesn’t give much of a hoot whether or not anyone thinks she’s crazy or weird. Regardless of how we feel about whether these delusions are healthy, that is a pretty good way to feel about yourself and a good way to look at the world.
Yuta is pretty heavily invested in being embarrassed by things and caring what his classmates think about him, hence him encouraging Rika to stop wearing her eye patch and stop acting like she has powers. But ultimately, he decides that none of that matters because Rika matters more.
1 Worst: Yuta Has A Bad Temper
We definitely don’t want to paint the weirdness of this relationship as being one-sided. While we totally understand some of Yuta’s misgivings about what’s going on with Rika and his part in dealing with it, we also think his reactions to her are sometimes way too over the top.
Yuta gets really mad whenever someone mentions his chunibyo, since he’s embarrassed by it and doesn’t want to think about it. The fact that he yells at Rika, who is pretty preoccupied with it, whenever she brings it up isn’t great. We firmly believe losing your temper is a pretty bad way to be a partner, and there should be better ways to communicate your feelings.