The thing about anime is that even tho you judge or fall in love with a person's look in real life but in anime it's all the person and there personalityor it is simply about love . if you have watched Darling in franxx you clearly see zero two love for hiro and that what's make her special. Her love for hiro is so pure and strong that she sacrifices herself just to be with him.
And in the end even tho they don't end up together but God decided to change their fate so that they once again they will be there for each other with a beginning more beautiful and bighter than before..
Yes, the reason people question whether or not she loves him is because of the way she was treating him when she called him fodder, but that was because she was only using her partners as fodder to get to her darling which she did love, and just didn’t know was Hiro at the time. I explained this in another answer if this makes no sense
I am assuming that you are talking about the anime ending because that’s what has caused more controversy among the fans.
Well the biggest reason is of course because of Hiro/02s death. For two people who loved each other unconditionally and vowed to remain at each others side forever, the least that they deserve is to be able to enjoy the future, that they fought so hard to protect, with friends who cherished each other from the bottom of their hearts and to fulfil their (Hiro/02s) long-standing wish of travelling the outside world together, while being no longer bound to the past.
Not to mention that for children whose sole purpose in life was to fight and who were intended to be sacrificial pawns for the adults to live, what do you think makes more sense - a happy or a sad ending?
(I know many people will point out that they reincarnated but it’s not obviously the same thing. They reincarnated 1000 years into the future when everybody was long gone and they will be different individuals than the ones we know.
The friends who stood by their side and the memories that Hiro/02 shared, no matter how painful they are will always be an irreplaceable part of them.)
Second reason I can think of is VIRM.
For a major plot point, they deserved way more screen-time and not the 3–4 episodes that they got. And sending over two teenagers to fight an intergalactic war which has waged on for centuries is just suicidal. Why wasn’t the Klaxosuar princess more instrumental to the plot, given that she was alive this entire time?
How come we have a battle which has waged for millennia between the two armies but all it required were two teenagers to put an end to the war? Did we really need to end the war just to come to a conclusion although everything about the story says that it won’t be realistic to do so?
That’s the reason why people dislike this ending - it’s because their deaths were unnecessary and their already herculean efforts could have been set as a precedent for humanity’s own battle for survival - now that would have been much more consistent and realistic. That way you wouldn’t have such a closed ending, you could have built on a Season 2 (if you wanted) and you would have Hiro/02 grown up and possibly have their children lead this war far into the future.
The possibilities are many.
A third reason is that the backstory of the other characters aren’t that great except for 02/Hiro (and possibly Ichigo) and I fail to see how they can end up with their partners without a compelling reason. Someone like Kokoro really has no reason to fall in love with Mitsuru whom she had known only for a short while, much less have a wedding and make babies.
As the viewer, we are really not that emotionally attached to characters whose only childhood memories are centered around Hiro. It was always about Hiro/02 and has always been that way.
In the end, Hiro had his eyes for 02 only and he ignored the advice from his friends even when they are well-meant. Goro was right for a change when he punched Hiro, he was right when he said that Hiro never thought about how his actions can impact people who are close to him, who genuinely cared for him.
I just hoped that the plot had given more relevance to the rest of Squad 13…in more ways than one. From being the punching bags who had to be saved by Sterlizia everytime to having their well-meant advice and concerns ignored time and again, Hiro’s friends were always getting the short end of the stick.
Despite that, they always looked out for Hiro and respected his decisions to the greatest extent possible, even when they knew what the outcome would be. That makes it even more depressing - when you think how they had to live for the rest of their lives, growing up into adults, never for a moment forgetting about the people who taught them to live their lives to the fullest.
Finally, the fourth reason would be the fact that the tug-of-war in Hiro/02s love life was slightly overdone by the end of Chapter 23. In my opinion, Chapter 15 was the perfect way for the two to come to terms with their feelings for one another.
This should have been it - 02 recognizing Hiro as her beloved darling from the past and the two finally acknowledging their feelings for one another and to never let go, no matter what. But instead, we had this -
A giant 02 robot…great. So after all those lovey-dovey moments of bumping horns, 02 never considered how her darling would feel if she stayed away from him, even if it was for his sake. She never understood the regret that he would have to live with throughout his life if something happened to her and he couldn’t be by her side.
They tried a bit too hard with the picture book analogy, if you ask me. It was sad, meaningful and sweet but it was also slightly overdone and repetitive.
For Franxx to work, a boy connects to a girl, but the girl connects directly to the machine. Because of this, all the damage and burden of the operation will directly affect the girl. Ikuno was trying too hard, leading to the aging process being accelerated more than usual. Meanwhile, Futoshi only controls through his partner so he is not affected.
Before reading below I want to say this that this is my personal opinion and it may vary person to person. As it is one of the anime that caused much debate in fans and so I don't want to get into that similar situation.
Personally speaking if you are new to the anime world you should not straight away watch darling in the franXX. I could name a few reasons but let's just say I don't want to spoil the show for other people who still want to watch it. Darling in the franXX covers various genres of anime so a person new to anime will not be satisfied with this mix and can create a bad impression of anime. Because there are plenty of other anime that stick to one particular gener but still makes a good first impression for new audience.
Now if you are not new and have watched enough anime to know all the different genres that exists in anime this anime is a full on roller coaster ride that some might hate and some might enjoy.
**Warning spoilers ahead -
This anime had a good story with equal amount of emotional depth, not to mention the great fight sequences and great quality animation, packed with good twists and turns along the way and an unexpected climax which is good to see time time as sometimes the pattern is too predictable.
To me the climax seemed a bit awkward. The back story of professor was compressed in one episode which was bad. They should have made more episodes to give a proper and timely back story, or they should have focused less on some of the character development aspects like the (wedding part).
It serves as a good example of anime that had a good story, characters, chemistry, climax and a climax after that, but got out of hand due to whatever the issues were to cut the series short or the poor management of content per episode.
That’s more or less the points which I feel that people dislike about Darling in the Franxx. I liked the ending and it was beautiful in my opinion despite its flaws - although it should have been kept a bit more open.
Here’s another one of my answers on the topic.
