[HirouKeimou]

Originally Posted by SleepingTerror

I have no idea what you mean by this.

You said it's only for helping a ship sail, which is not valid.

Originally Posted by SleepingTerror

I've stated before that Mirage is a lot like Ranka, glad to see you agree. Except Ranka got her time in the spotlight, and Mirage did not.

Episodes 9, 13, 14, 16, 20, 23, and 25 for Mirage did not count for you? Mirage did have scenes or even episodes where she shined, and not all in the love triangle; because her involvement in the Messar case is a good example of her being a supporter first and foremost. Mirage did not shine like her ancestors or even prior love triangle girls but she did shine where it's important for the story and her character, obviously.

Originally Posted by SleepingTerror

Did she actually grow? I couldn't tell.

She said it herself in episode 14 and 26 respectively.

However, if you re-watch even episode 1 again, she is more reserved and less friendly towards newcomers and less confident in herself when she messes up. In episode 14, Mirage admitted she discovered something in herself had changed on Ragna (because of Hayate and Freyja even if she didn't notice it until episode 16). In episode 20, her character development hits a peak because she's confident enough in herself not only to scold Hayate and Freyja but also promise she'll support and protect them later on regardless of the cost to herself, which she does in episode 22.

Her developments are small; but I don't count her as a failure overall. She is misused in areas but I do believe she had development overall.

Originally Posted by SleepingTerror

We got one mention of this in the anime, in the beginning, and that was it. GG.

And...?

Everyone has clung to her Jenius name like it's some superb brand name on a car. Her Jenius name is only that: a name. It's in her blood to be a pilot, does not always necessarily guarantee she'll be an ace. After all, Alto is born into a Kabuki family in Frontier; his father condoned him for his "failures" on stage, which is half of the reason for their indifference towards each other later on.

Originally Posted by SleepingTerror

There's obviously more to her character but the writers were stingy and didn't give her the time of day to showcase it.

As I said, if she could be only a supporting character, remove love triangle dynamics, maybe you'd feel differently about this subject; after all, side characters require less screen time for development because they're not overall important for the plot. However, because she's an MC and is one of the main trio, your disappointment is higher. I do believe she had potential but I also felt this for the Mikumo is not human aspect of the series (which could have gone a little like Macross II in terms of discovering Mikumo is a clone earlier on and helping her discover "humanity" and friendship for longer than an episode (23) and force her to be captured in said episode, too).

Delta writers had it bad on character development; because even glancing at episodes, I sometimes realize how swift this story evolves from "momentary peace for character development" to "oops, remembered someone needs capturing right now!" and "oh yes, insert battle scenes where everyone vanishes off-screen!" I could chop this all up to Kawamori; however, in the context of how Delta is written, it's almost like it's more than one person, of which all of them had ideas and crammed them all into one big bang of a series which... doesn't always play out like intended...