>>283689100
>>283689293
People are incapable of treating works individually, and filter it through whatever bullshit lens is in fashion at the time. Gojou is shy and largely unwilling to take the initiative in their romantic dynamics, and so people just shitpost about him being "generic everyman anime protag." When in fact Gojou is a more peculiar character. His self esteem issues are intentional, and not just some rote recreation of enduring anime protag archetypes. He's not some listless highschool everyman, he has specific goals and situations that direct the story to its culmination. It's not as simple as "I dare not confess to Heroine."
The larger theme of story addresses this specifically, both in his crippling childhood trauma (never explicitly connected to but one should probably think about how it happened right after his parents died from the one person who was trying to connect with him) over his passion and also his social awkwardness. It's repeatedly treated in the story as something peculiar and that he needs to come to terms with. He's offered multiple, regular, varied examples of other people dealing with the socially odd nature of their interests and how they navigate it. It rather seamlessly then becomes about his inability to be truthful about his feelings to Marin, and pushing through that barrier, more than even his own trauma over doll making, becomes the climax of the story. It so seamlessly ties into the specific situation of his unusual interests that until he actually confessed people had no clue that's what was chewing him up inside.
This is more than "Yuri, unremarkable highschool student" confessing to the heroine in a romantic comedy. It's very clearly about the self loathing of your own feelings and being unwilling to put your true self out there for fear of what will happen.
