When everybody thought it's Tsumugu x Fish

Anime: Nagi no Asukara (Lull in the Sea) 

SPOILER ALERT! 

"You're always so quiet & calm, & yet sometimes you become so fierce that I cant handle you. At that time I thought you were the sea"-Tsumugu to Chisaki

       To be honest, at first, I'm really a Tsumugu x Manaka shipper. And during the first half of  Nagi no Asukara, Tsumugu x Chisaki seemed impossible (for my point of view, that is). Manaka and Tsumugu's first meeting, after all, looked beautiful and made me think that oh, this is something.

  

          Meanwhile, Chisaki and Tsumugu's meetings doesn't stand out much the way he does with Manaka. To me, it seemed okay, they're talking and it seemed they contradict one another very much.

             Manaka seemed to have a crush on Tsumugu; she's always blushing and is always aware of him. Tsumugu's characteristics fit that kind of role anyway--the stoic, calm and composed character who the sort-of-clumsy-main-protagonist will secretly fall in love with. While Manaka "having crush" on Tsumugu is very obvious, Tsumugu's feelings was hard to read.

              "Kaname likes Chisaki who likes Hikari who likes Tsumugu who likes... probably the fish." I saw a lot of memes like that during the showing of the first half. Who could blame them anyway? Tsumugu seemed to be interested in none of the girls except for the fish.

 

                The first half of Nagi no Asukara ended. Chisaki and Tsumugu started to live together with Tsumugu's grandfather during the second half and then oh boy, there's a possibility for Tsumugu x Chisaki. That "time-skip" also just made the chances greater.

              Tsumugu had been showing his affection for Chisaki since and it has been clear that Tsumugu likes Chisaki and Chisaki probably still has feelings for Hikari (it's really confusing during those times like seriously, who likes who?).

 

      Well at Episode 23, Hikari asked Tsumugu to even at least pretend that he likes Manaka but Tsumugu refuses and said it was Chisaki whom he really likes. Chisaki heard it, jumped on the sea, Tsumugu followed her, obtaining an ena before drowning completely.

 

            For me, it was probably one of the coolest confession I heard. It's not cheesy, and mushy--more like explaining and justifying while being romantic and yeah, it's cool. Tsumugu's confession was like:

Tsumugu loves the Sea. Chisaki is the Sea. Tsumugu loves Chisaki.

            And what made me surprise is that Tsumugu has been developing his feelings for Chisaki during the first half of Nagi no Asukara while most of us thought that his feelings for her just started to grew during those five years of time skip.

  "To think that people could become so pathetic for others..." --Tsumugu to Chisaki

          So all this time, when we were thinking that maybe Tsumugu's only interested with the fish, Tsumugu actually liked Chisaki.