Thread:AlexanderImAlsoGr8/@comment-44913534-20200926062248/@comment-38474342-20200926103917

SEG2195 wrote: Let me put this in bullet point perhaps it would make understanding between us easier... 1. Mutual affection- in the ship page and character pairing it would imply romatic affection on 2 sides when we only see one character feeling that deeply. He doesn't treat her differently, etc. 2. Affection- in this stance wouldn't soma also be seen by other ships as having affection for other girl characters like megumi since he is affectionate to her too as she is to him and again in her case it was one sided. 3. Erina is hinted at but the ending is open and we don't see that 'affection that grows into love' for soma. In manga erina is still trying to admit to herself her 'feelings' which are obvious as opposed to anime which are confirmed. A mutual affection in this case would imply love in this scenario hence my disagreement. I love Erina as a character and even gush at her cute tsunder side and while I would have been happy for her either way, again I have nothing against her. The Megumi argument is fine. Yeah, he has affection for Megumi too. I'd certainly argue its more apparent with Erina because of the aforementioned scenes, but I could see that being applicable to Megumi. You could easily have "Mutual Affection" and "one sided crush" it does not have to be one or the other.

Both the manga and anime confirm Erina's feelings pretty equally. Mutual Affection, from my standpoint and from the dictionary definition, is a fondness for each other which is not inherently romantic.