For those who don't understand my frustration with this f**king trope, let me explain.
When you waste all your time and effort into one guy short of talking to him and ACTUALLY GETTING TO KNOW HIM FOR WHO HE REALLY IS, you are explicitly encouraging the notion that love can be earned. Even Kimi ni Todoke knew of this and called out this stupid trope through Ume Kurumizawa. While she arguably DID talk to her respective crush, she did as much as Kotoko Ahira into winning his affections, and arguably even moreso because she was willing to manipulate other girls who liked him into getting what she wanted.
None of her efforts produced what she wanted. Why? Because love can't be earned.
Ume couldn't force Shouta Kazehaya to like her despite everything she did for him. Why? Because he genuinely wasn't interested, on top of the fact that he was falling in love with someone else - Sawako Kuronuma.
The reason why love can't be earned is because it hinges on you for them to love you and not them genuinely caring about you because they want to. This defeats the purpose of love.
Yes, work is required to maintain a relationship, but the kind of work in question is about doing things for the best interest of the person you're in love with, not making them love you.
Besides, if they did love you for your efforts, what's going to happen when you stop putting in that effort that is the foundation of that love to begin with? That means that they didn't love you for you, but the efforts you put in for them which, by extension, is very selfish.
When Irie is asked by the end of the anime why he loves Kotoko, this is his answer:
"Kotoko is incapable of doing 90% of the things that I can do. But as for the 10% that I or anybody else can’t do she succeeds. She’s incredible."
I'm sorry, but incredible at what, exactly?
Plus, this cements my point: Irie only loves her for what she can do, not because he genuinely cares about her - at least in the Swan Princess, Derek wasn't quite sure how to put such a profound thing as love into words because he cared about her to the point of laying down his life for her.
The implications behind Kotoko getting what she wanted (the affections of Naoki Irie) without getting to know him first is... disturbing.
Yes, she lives with him through most of the anime, but they constantly fight, disagree, and blackmail each other, which are two things that, after some point, are obvious red flags that someone doesn't feel the same way you do.
