It's not helped that she spends the first half of the Fourze portion mute, too. Makes Gen seem extremely shallow as a result.

And that all his friends go 'Gen you're being shallow and stupid' then almost literally five minutes of screen time later 'I will die for you so you can cry over your "girlfriend"'.

I actually like the Twilight franchise, and I recognise all its flaws, so I never expected to see a romance both paced and realised in a way worse than Twilight but fuck me this film did it.

What an absolute pile of trash.

I always took it to be a true love/love at first sight type of thing. Maybe he could see through what the outside looked like? I didn't really think it was terribly detrimental to the story either. I don't really care how he fell in love, it was just the means to an end for that film. Love can take any form or at least that's what I've always believed. Man, woman, goo, or sasquatch even.

Trash is a pretty strong word for arguably the best Rider team-up film ever.

I really don't understand how you can defend the story of a man falling in love with a pile of goo with a stolen face entirely on that stolen appearance.

And I mean the Fourze section was trash, not finished the cross over bit yet, but the Fourze section was such garbage and so insulting to the series that I needed to vent my frustration with it.

The problem is that it was (Until the end) a pile of non-sentient goo that looked pretty.
I know love at first sight is a thing. But she could literally do nothing but stand and look around until the last 10 minutes of the Fourze portion. It makes the attraction extremely shallow, since it's made clear that, until the end, the SOLU was never sentient, so everything Gentaro felt for her was on a strictly physical basis.

Even when she gained 'self awareness' or whatever the proper grammar is, sentiency? Lol. Any way yeah, when she gained that, she was still completely bland and uninteresting anyway. It isn't like she suddenly developed a kick ass personality or whatever, she just said Gen's name, hugged him and then died.

I agree. Gen is a character that has unbelievable ideals like befriending everyone, so I don't see how believing in love at first sight is a far stretch for his character.

It's a stretch for a hero, Gen was a role model, built entirely out of idealistic qualities. Then he sees a girl fall out of the sky, gets a boner and calls it love. It isn't out of character for Gen in how usual unbelievable nature but I do believe it contradicts his morals and idealism.

Gen wants to save the world through friendship, not just befriend every person he ever meets... well until the second half of the show but this is supposed to take place in the first half.

But maybe it was love to him? He still loved Nadeshiko even though she was space goo. How is that harder to swallow then him crying for 10 minutes about not being able to befriend a spaceship?

Because he wasn't trying to get into the spaceship's pants in the process.