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The story
Reactions online are split over the engagement announcement by figure skating pair “Riku/Ryu.” On a 5ch thread, critical comments like “women tend to overreact to other people’s love lives” and “the way they showcase their relationship feels forced and creepy” clashed with rebuttals such as “I don’t get why people are attacking them for just being happy on their own.” The gap in temperature between the critics and the criticized became the heart of the debate.
What people said
Can't stand seeing other people happy
If it bugs you that much, take it out on the media hyping it up instead
Huh? There's only one option
"Do whatever you want, you delusional one-hit wonders"
They just posted it on Instagram, that's all, right?
Even random nobodies do that much
They're just doing their own thing
If they like the couple they cheer way too hard, if they don't like the couple they attack way too hard
They also gang up to bash cases where the guy is older, stuff like that
Guys just aren't interested in other people's relationships.
There's a decent age gap this time, but I haven't seen many comments bashing them over that
Seeing everyone so irritated about the Riku/Ryu marriage news made me wonder if my own sense of things was off
Good to know other people feel the same way
Nah, you're alone in this
You don't have any allies anywhere
Where's anyone actually saying that?
Though there is some mystery person here saying "Someone got married? Stop bashing women!"
It's women who are bashing Riku/Ryu though?
The "platonic" thing is just your own impression
Using that as the basis for "but they were secretly dating!" is ridiculous
But back then, if you'd said "come on, these two are obviously dating," you'd have been piled on with "why are you looking at it that way, that's gross!"
That kind of atmosphere definitely existed, you know?
That's just how people around them reacted, not something the two of them actually said
They themselves said "we'll leave it to your imagination"
You're the one who got the wrong idea
Was the person in Re: #45 a woman?
It has this unnatural, promotional vibe
That's plenty creepy on its own
Other athletes just get married quietly
That's just the media cutting weird clips and airing them on their own
LOL none of that has anything to do with the two of them
isn't something you get to experience every day
so it's probably jealousy
It really was a nice photo
Is it really that rare?
I did that same pose for my own wedding photos
Well, doing it on an ice rink is romantic and all, but it's not something an amateur can just copy the same way
You proposed during your wedding photoshoot?
Doing it because the photographer told you to and doing it on your own initiative
are completely different things
Women feel the aversion more strongly
Funny how it's only in their 40s that men dislike couples being lovey-dovey more than women do
They had me fake a "proposal" shot for my wedding photos
Then the situation's different from Riku/Ryu
You haven't actually experienced it either
LOL you're getting mad for some reason
Sorry about that
There's always someone who gets mad just because their mistake got pointed out
I'm only saying your example was wrong, I never said don't compare it to Riku/Ryu, you know?
The general public mood might have been more like "it's a bit creepy, but that's the sport for you, and they're gold medalists after all…"
A vague survey like this isn't much of a reference
It doesn't even say how the question was worded or what the answer choices were
Their own X (Twitter) account is full of nothing but congratulations
It's just some random weird accounts grumbling
At least they're not harassing them directly
I know that makes me sound like a bad person, but still
That's totally normal in the Reiwa era, update your worldview
You're finding it creepy for no reason
Calling a simple announcement "self-absorbed," what's that about
Don't act like it's their fault when you're just projecting your own insecurities
Background and Key Points
Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara are the pair being called “Riku/Ryu” in the thread — Japan’s first-ever pairs figure skating world champions (Saitama, 2023) and Olympic bronze medalists (Beijing, 2022), making them by far the country’s most visible act in a discipline Japan had never medaled in before them. There’s roughly a six-year age gap between them, which is the “decent age gap” one poster flags. For years the pair publicly deflected romance questions with lines like “we’ll leave it to your imagination,” a common posture in Japanese pairs/ice-dance culture where skaters often keep on-ice chemistry and off-ice relationship status deliberately blurred, partly to preserve a “pure,” marketable image for sponsors and fans rather than to actively mislead anyone.
The thread doesn’t really split over whether to congratulate them — it splits over whether the backlash is a gendered pattern (posters arguing women police other people’s relationships more harshly, both when they approve and disapprove) or whether that framing is itself just deflection from legitimate irritation at how the relationship was revealed in stages via social media and media coverage. A cited survey chart about PDA discomfort by age and gender gets used as evidence but is challenged for having no visible methodology.
What outside readers should know: several posters note the skaters’ own X/Instagram replies are overwhelmingly congratulatory, meaning the “backlash” visible here is a vocal anonymous-board minority, not a broad public reaction — a distinction easy to miss if you only see this thread excerpted.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Guys seriously don’t get why “Riku/Ryu” are getting bashed.”
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