Long rant because I have personal experience with this and it hit pretty close to home, tl;dr at bottom
When it comes to people suffering from self hatred and depression, the relationship must be different. It’s like a struggle against an addiction, you must fight it every day and constantly battle against it.
It’s not enough to simply “accept” it. Accepting someone is an addict doesn’t solve the problem of them being addicted. It requires you being a support, not a crutch. It’s the same with depression or mental illness in general. You must help your friend get through that dark tunnel, not sit down with them and say it’s okay to be in a dark tunnel.
Love is a verb, not a noun. To love is to constantly care, to get through the bad, to choose to stay with someone for the rest of their life despite their flaws. Simple acceptance without introspection is at best infatuation and at worst indifference. I hope Tarou can figure out Umi’s troubles don’t stem from his approval, but from her own insecurities and a way to fix them.
tl;dr Tarou is 16 and way too young to get it, so F for Umi I guess