The progress of a journey is an
archetype in literature... I was reminded of Pilgrim's Progress, Gulliver's Travels, in that this journey was intended to show us different aspects of a problem, to make commentary
upon it, but unlike those allegories, this one also had real
characters I could identify with and care about.
The main
characters adhere to classic Japanese
archetypes upon first blush: the childhood friend, the contrarian («tsundere»), the class president (a straight - laced leader), the athletic tomboy, the buxom ditz, and the mysterious delusional girl («chuunibyou»).