100%!

[Loonie]

Yep, I agree Oddball. But that is also precisely why he utterly fails as a teacher. Because the task of a teacher is not to push a student towards what the teacher wants, it is to guide them towards what the student wants. Compare, for example, how Mutou goes about this with Hisao in another path. He carefully asks him: "Well, if you're uncertain about college what do you think you'd do well in?" and only after Hisao says so himself, that he'd probably like to do something with science, does Mutou give a tenative suggestion that maybe they could form a 2-man science club, which'd basically be just them talking about that stuff, or gives him a few brochures.

In contrast to that Nomiya never even asks Rin that question: "Do you want to become an artist?" He just assumes that OF COURSE she'd want to become an artist! After all, she's so good at it! Look, she said she's interested in setting up the exhibition - that must automatically mean that this is what she wants to do for the rest of her life! Wrong: It only means that she wants to give it a try, to see if it'll work out - which by the end it doesn't. But that foregone conclusion on his part rather than, oh I don't know, actually asking Rin if that's what she would really want to do or taking the time to not just admire her art, but also herself as a person (something Hisao does do), is what leads to him being even less of a teacher, leaving Rin alone in that atelier at the risk of hurting herself and in the end, of course, completely failing to understand why she chose not to go that way and exploding over it. Unlike Hisao, who having exploded once himself at least went through this journey with Rin and could begin to understand why she turned away from it in the end, Nomiya doesn't even try. He just assumes away according to what he wants to see happen.

And I agree - Nomiya is certainly not Satan. If he were just that, I could've actually felt sorry for him because his one-dimensional nature would've meant he never had much of a choice in the matter. But he's a presumptious prick who decided to become a teacher when he got scared at the death of another artist - pushing kids towards a possible fate that his friend faced through his utter neglect of their wishes. Trying to live his artistic dreams and ambitions not by actually risking it himself (by going back to being just an artist, something he'd probably be much better suited to), but through trying to manipulate kids towards his personal vision of what an artist should be and completely ignoring his most prominent experience of an artist - his friend who wound up commiting suicide (or withered away into death through neglect).

And that utter lack of insight leading him to potentially cause that tragedy to happen again in someone like Rin makes him quite despicable to me. Because Nomiya might do very well in another profession, no matter his personality. There are many artists in the world with a lacking personality, who are nonetheless very good at what they do. But being an art teacher is the last thing he should be precisely because of his personality.

[Xanatos]

Uh, he blows up on Rin because he can't understand her.

Yes, and Nomiya blows up on Rin because she didn't do what he wanted her to do. And that's called being an irredeemably selfish dick, however you spin it. Hisao got pissed off at Nomiya because of that. Whatever Hisao's faults, he realized his own mistake. Nomiya never did. He just kept ruining things further despite that his past experiences with a scenario like Rin's SHOULD have given him some damn sense to see what he was doing wrong. Whatever his motivation, he fucked up majorly with no excuse at all and, unlike Hisao, never gave enough of a damn to either realize and/or fix the mistake.

Hisao did some stupid things. He also fixed them. Nomiya went from a weird-but-okay teacher to a complete raging dickwad in a near instant and never fixed any of the damage he caused, or even knew there was any to fix. Both did dumb things. The difference is Hisao is just some teen who fucked up but made up for it while Nomiya has literally every reason to know better. One of them is forgivable, the other is an irredeemable waste.

And also everything Loonie said. As a teacher, he sucks. And as a person, he still pretty much sucks. He basically knowingly drives Rin toward potential suicide just to fulfill (by proxy) his own frustrated dreams of being an artist. Without that little piece of backstory, he would still be a shitty guy but he might be redeemable. With it, he's a monster.

And Sae should totally get his job.

some kid that doesn't know anything about art

really isn't that great of an artist anyway

Gonna address these bits in not-entirely-KS-related ways:

1) NOBODY knows anything about art. Art is, and nobody knows why. Some is good, some isn't, and nobody knows why. Nobody can even agree on which is which! For that matter, many can't even agree on what qualifies as art at all. Nobody knows a single thing about art beyond the word "art" itself. Art is unknowable.

2) According to what? The script? Hisao's failure at art is largely an informed flaw. He makes a lot of shitty doodles but the one time he sits and actually works on making something, it's hardly a failure. The bird sketch he draws in that one classroom scene isn't a masterpiece or anything but it pretty clearly shows some decent artistic potential.

And I can get his point of view. But I also have to acknowledge that his point of view stems quite a bit from foregone conclusions, premature judgements, and just generally being an egotistical elitist twat about his subject.