40 year old dude saying "he loves" a 15 year old girl, same age as his daughter.... big yikes. But of course, the self-inserts are going wild, wanting the dad to abandon his own daughter and actually "get with" the underage girl -_-
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sure the MC's been under a lot stress/pressure from death of his wife, his daughter shutting herself in, work and so on... but he is hardly acting like an adult and his own actions are a large reason why things are so fcked for him. The reality is that stress is not an excuse when you are an adult and a parent.
It's true that he was also suffering from his wife's death and he was indeed in a low point in his life, but the dude didn't try and seek personal help for his grief, he never tried to deal with his stress or get advice on how to help his daughter as well as himself... dude just hid away in his work and let things stew for the worse
I mean, this dude is literally thinking to himself how fcked it is to be going out with an underage girl, kissing her and all that... yet he didn't bother to try and get help to deal with that such as with a therapist. And no, "waiting till she's legal" is still bad cause he's still having an emotional relationship with an underage girl. And he just kept seeing her despite knowing all this, and piled on the issues. Being "broken" does not justify his actions
He didn't truly try and help his daughter after the mother died, which is his role and responsibility as the adult and parent. He just left her in her room, and sure the kid needed some space but he just left her there for way too long. And by the time he did make real attempts to help/connect with her, she had basically become a stranger to him and then the whole shit with koto and him choosing to go on date with her <---- he failed as a father, if you have the child and are unable to take care of them without devolving into a person who can't make rational decisions, then let someone else take care of them
and now, how in hell is he actually just leaving his daughter like that? running away from his issues and responsibilities... to attempt to fulfill some delusion about how he is the only person on the planet who could ever help Koto. She needs actual REAL professional help and care, not ur creepy ass love that even you admit is fcked up and wrong
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koto's a kid with a lot of her own issues and mental problems: from bad childhood, parent divorce, mother abuse, father abandonment and so on. This led her to try and seduce an older man, i.e. a father figure, to try and get some of the attention, care, love she is desperate for in her life right now. Also it's a sort of cry for help to an adult, as she wants to free herself from her abusive mother
note to the self-inserters who want the dad to date koto: that's actually the worst thing possible, koto needs actual help and not an unhealthy and messed up relationship with a person she's looking at as a father figure
also, the above doesn't excuse Koto's actions... she was seducing the dude, being incredibly manipulative, causing drama, but at least she does have her reasons for doing so. What it comes down to is that she's a mentally unstable child who desperately needs help
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as for the daughter, who the some ppl think is the devil incarnate, yes she's been a stupid brat and running away like she did was incredibly dumb... but she's just a kid who lost her mother after which her relationship with her father completely broke down. The fact is that her dad never really tried to help her when he should have.
Ya she shut herself in, but it's the parents job to try to help the child, to offer guidance, to push them to not shut themselves away, to provide help from others and so on. The father should have done a much earlier and better job at trying to help or get help for his kid after the mother's death, he let things go on for way too long before he tried.
and then when her father finally did try to reconnect with her and help, and we saw it actually starting to work, she finds out he's a creep dating an underage girl... her friend no less. how else do you expect a kid to react to that? And let's put aside the underage part, just the dad suddenly dating someone new leaves her thinking things like her father is "replacing" her mother so soon after her death
again, running away was stupid, but you add on to the whole dating thing that the dad tried to run away from his problems with "oh let's move" after he was caught, and moving is a big thing for kids who have to deal with losing friends, changing schools, leaving their home and so on.
also, to the people who actually think that a child should be held responsible for the mental health and maturity of her father... just what?