Kusunoki-san wa Koukou Debut ni Shippai Shite Iru - Ch. 44.1 - Why Do I Even Like Him? (First Part)

[ilusatus]

Did she realize she just confess right there that she want him to date her?
I hope the instant realization comes from both of them in the next chapter, it will be hilarious.

 

[ppaaccoojrf]

No, she's written to excel at everything she tries, the first time she tries it.

• asks Keisuke for help with a test; Keisuke studies with her, gets a 95; Kusunoki gets a 100.
• during dodgeball, Big Kid gets a whole team out, then Kusunoki solos him with ease (2v1-ing Hebikawa at the same time, mind)
• volleyball at the beach; 2v2, and Kusunoki & partner aren't even winded after trouncing Keisuke & partner, who're left gasping on the ground
• gets picked as lead for play, never done it before, has standout performance with a bit of improv even
• can't make friends and is awkward, whole reason for needing Keisuke's help with 'debut'; first time at café with three girls, makes friends with each within a couple lines of dialogue, winning them over entirely.
• and, during flashback when she meets Otobe, it's when she's a goalie during a game of football, and Otobe gets made at the boys for "going easy on Kusunoki" because as an elementary schooler Kusunoki's athletic enough to block every goal attempt.

Sure, she appears awkward, but other than some as-yet-unexplained backstory from elementary school, she has never once failed or even stumbled at anything she's tried, surpassing others even when they put in the equivalent work & effort.

That sort of characterization is why people call her 'perfect' and why her character also is deemed less interesting than someone like Hebikawa that has actual faults (not 'oh no I'm so awkward').

Sure, Kusunoki is a much kinder character, but she is the far more flat, dynamically, of the two.

She's mentioned to have good athletic ability since childhood, and most of the things you mentioned are either athletic in nature or it's just her putting into motion what she learned from Keisuke.
She's bad at studying that subject until she learns from Keisuke, and the difference between a 95 and a 100 is almost always just careless mistakes. We know from her dance practice that she's the type to stress about careless mistakes, so it stands to reason she wouldn't make them if given the time to review her answers in the test.
For improv in the play she literally repeated what Keisuke told her almost verbatim. When she became friends with the girls at the café, it was half because she had already become friends with one of them during the whole play arc, and half because she's an otaku. She didn't pull off anything amazing to make them like her, and we've already seen how she bombed when she hung out with snek's friends.
All in all, it's obvious that Kusunoki is quite talented, but I maintain that the only reason she comes off as perfect is that she still has the mindset of a child when it comes to human interactions, so her naivety makes it seem effortless even though it's not. If Hebikawa was great at sports or got 100 marks we'd just accept it's part of her hard work and it wouldn't come off as out of character.