Spoiler warning: This essay discusses Mika Egashira’s story throughout Season 1 of the Skip and Loafer anime. It does not include events from the manga or later anime seasons.
When I first watched Skip and Loafer, I thought Mika Egashira was probably the kind of character many girls would dislike.
She is calculating. She knows how she wants to be seen, especially by the boy she likes. She notices the people around him and sometimes tries to use a situation—or even another person—to move herself closer to him.
I found that frustrating.
Mika works so hard to present the best version of herself. She watches how she speaks, how she behaves, and where she places herself. Yet Mitsumi, who does almost none of that calculation, naturally earns people’s affection.
The unfairness of it seems to irritate Mika. At first, it irritated me too.
But after watching her for a while, I began to wonder whether some of what bothered me felt uncomfortable because it was also familiar.
For readers who are new to the series, our Skip and Loafer guide introduces its story and central relationships. Here, I want to focus only on Mika: a girl who envies someone and slowly begins to care about her anyway.
Mika Tries to Control How Others See Her
Mika does not move through school as freely as Mitsumi does.
She appears to think carefully about how she looks, how she sounds, and what impression she leaves. When Shima is involved, that awareness becomes even stronger.
She wants the boy she likes to see her as attractive and special. She wants to stand out from the other girls around him. She tries to choose the behavior most likely to bring her closer to that result.
It can look manipulative. That was how I saw it at first.
Mitsumi, meanwhile, is not trying to win the same social game. She can be awkward and unaware of how she appears, but her openness makes people feel comfortable around her.
Mika calculates, and Mitsumi connects.
The more naturally people respond to Mitsumi, the more painful Mika’s effort seems to become. She has spent so much energy learning how to be liked. Then someone who does not appear to be trying receives the warmth she wanted.
I could understand why that would hurt.
What Irritated Me Began to Look Like Desperation
I do not want to say that all girls behave like Mika. Her choices belong to her, and some of them are unfair to the people around her.
But the desire beneath them did not feel completely unusual to me.
Many people want to look a little better in front of someone they like. They may want to be more charming, more interesting, or more memorable than everyone else in the room.
Mika simply pursues that wish with very little hesitation.
She moves directly toward the boy she likes, even when other girls may judge her for it. Her behavior is strategic, but it is also strangely earnest. She is not pretending that she does not care.
She cares so much that she is constantly working.
Once I saw that effort, my irritation did not disappear completely. But it changed. Mika began to look less like a simple “scheming girl” and more like someone who believed she had to keep performing in order to be chosen.
Helping Mitsumi Does Not Erase the Jealousy
Episode 5 gives Mika and Mitsumi a revealing situation.
Mitsumi needs help preparing for volleyball, and Mika, who has experience with the sport, practices with her. Mika smiles and teaches her, but the sharpness in her feelings sometimes slips through.
What makes the scene believable is that her kindness and irritation exist at the same time.
She can help Mitsumi and still resent her. She can recognize Mitsumi’s effort and still compare herself with her.
The anime does not require Mika to become perfectly generous before she is allowed to do something kind. It shows a less comfortable truth: we can care about someone while still struggling with feelings that are not flattering.
That contradiction made Mika feel more real to me.
Friendship does not always begin after jealousy has disappeared. Sometimes it begins while jealousy is still present.
Mitsumi Is Difficult to Keep Inside a Comparison
Mika seems prepared to see Mitsumi as a rival. But Mitsumi does not consistently behave like one.
She is sincere with Mika. She accepts help without treating it as part of a competition. Her kindness does not seem designed to prove that she is kinder.
That may be what gradually makes Mika’s original way of seeing her harder to maintain.
It is easier to envy someone from a distance. From there, they can become a collection of everything we think they have and we do not.
But friendship introduces inconvenient details. You begin to see the other person’s awkwardness, effort, fear, and kindness. They stop being only the person who received what you wanted.
Mitsumi does not defeat Mika’s jealousy through an argument. She simply continues being a person whom Mika can no longer reduce to a rival.
The Zoo and the Girls’ Gathering
In Episode 8, Mika learns that Mitsumi and Shima are going to the zoo together. Although she knows it is not a good idea, she follows them.
Later, when she spends time with Mitsumi, Yuzuki, and Makoto, she still cannot behave as openly as the others. She tries to leave rather than remain in a situation where her real feelings might become visible.
These actions are not evidence that Mika has already “overcome” her jealousy. She has not.
She is still comparing herself with Mitsumi. She is still frightened of being left behind. She is still trying to protect the version of herself she wants other people to see.
But something has changed: there are now people close enough to notice when she is pulling away.
Nao’s intervention does not magically solve Mika’s feelings. It creates a small opening—a moment in which Mika does not have to keep managing everything by herself.
For someone who is always calculating how she appears, being seen when she is not performing may be frightening. It may also be the beginning of friendship.
Friendship Does Not Require Mika to Become Mitsumi
What I appreciate about Mika’s development is that it does not suggest she must become as naturally open as Mitsumi.
Mika’s awareness of appearances does not vanish. Neither does her ambition or her sharpness.
The change is quieter.
She begins to experience relationships that are not built entirely on presenting the most desirable version of herself. She is still capable of jealousy, but jealousy is no longer the only thing connecting her to Mitsumi.
This matters because friendship is not a prize given to Mika after she becomes “nice enough.”
It grows through moments in which her less admirable feelings are present, but do not become the whole of who she is.
Mika can envy Mitsumi and still help her. She can feel threatened by her and still be affected by her kindness. She can want Shima’s attention and still begin to value a friendship she did not originally intend to build.
Can You Be Friends with Someone You Envy?
I think Skip and Loafer answers this question carefully.
Yes—but not because friendship automatically removes jealousy. And not because the jealous person suddenly becomes selfless.
Perhaps it becomes possible when the person you envy stops being only a measurement of what you lack.
At first, I did not like Mika. Her calculated behavior irritated me, and I expected her to remain the familiar romantic rival who tries to use other people to get what she wants.
Instead, I began to see how hard she was working to be accepted.
Her effort did not excuse every choice. But it helped me understand why Mitsumi’s effortless warmth hurt her so much.
What made Mika moving to me was not that she defeated her jealousy by the end of Season 1. It was that she slowly allowed the person she envied to become a friend.
Sometimes we do not stop comparing ourselves with someone before we care about them. Sometimes caring about them is what slowly makes comparison less powerful.
And perhaps that is why Mika’s friendship with Mitsumi feels so real: it does not begin with perfect feelings. It begins with the decision—made imperfectly, little by little—not to let envy be the only truth between them.
