In Episode 2 of the anime, there's just something so heartwarming at seeing LLENN laying back in the desert, listening to her favorite song by Elza Kanzaki, while enjoying some tea and cookies. For the first in a very long time, Karen is truly happy with her life.
When M asks LLENN if she's a "lucky girl," one of the things that was omitted from the anime was Karen realizing at that moment that it's true in a much more mundane sense: she has a big loving family and doesn't have to worry about money because her parents have a successful business in Hokkaido. After thinking about how so many people in the world come from broken families or live in poverty, she understands that she really was Born Lucky.
Sure it's funny as hell, but there's just something endearing about seeing LLENN's motivation manifesting itself as P-chan talking to her and urging her on. P-chan even takes the bullet for LLENN!
Despite M fearing for his life and choosing to hide, he still comes to LLENN's aid in the end, sniping out her would be killers from a distance.
Karen comes across the girl posse that's seen earlier in the volume/ in previous episodes. This time they decide to talk to her and want to become her friend, with Saki telling her how she likes how tall Karen is and wished she was taller too. They also notice Karen has cut her hair short, having gotten over her Height Angst, which Saki finds to be very cool. The end of the scene reveals that the girls are Team SHINC and Saki is Eva, where she and Karen shake hands and declare they would fight again in GGO.
In Episode 5.5 of the anime, Pitohui's So Proud of You moment towards LLENN, after seeing how amazing her protege was in the first Squad Jam. Sure it's a bit disconcerting with how psychotic Pitohui is and the glee she gets from the carnage, but her feelings of pride for LLENN are as genuine as any parent watching their child achieve greatness.
Squad Jam 2 (Volumes 2 - 3/Episodes 6 - 12)
Karen is now good friends with Team SHINC and have invited all the girls back to her apartment for sweets, while they watch footage of LLENN in the Squad Jam.
Fukaziroh answers LLENN's call for help as it is what True Companions would do.
When LLENN and Fuka arrive for Squad Jam 2, all the other teams cheer for LLENN. For all her loneliness in the real world, in GGO she's loved as a celebrity.
After seeing several teams gang up on Pito's team, LLENN tries to race towards their location using her Super-Speed, determined not to let Pito die. It just goes to show just how much LLENN really cares about Pito.
After Pitohui kills the entirety of the teams, all by herself, save for two survivors. One of them is dangling over an edge while the other is holding onto him and keeping him from falling. He never let's go even when Pito shoots him in the arm. These guys were actually from different squadrons, but the guy holding on declared until they've defeated Pitohui's team, they were comrades. His dedication to his temporary ally is truly amazing and Pitohui herself even remarks those two would probably be sharing a drink in the tavern together afterwards.
For all of Clarence's creepy, perverted behaviour, she was being genuine when she wanted to be LLENN's friend, shown when she pushes LLENN to the ground while taking bullets meant for her when Team MMTM ambushes them. She then tells LLENN to win before dying.
M's dedication and love for Pitohui is made clear for everyone to see after she gets sniped by Shirley and MMTM attacks. He rushes to her side to give her a med kit, carries her to bed in the log cabin after she passes out from the exhilaration of nearly dying, then watches over her bed side to protect her with his life while shedding tears.
LLENN makes Pitohui remember the promise to meet in real life if LLENN beat her. Pitohui is happy to keep this vow before LLENN kills her. M is seen watching the scene, shedding tears before thanking LLENN.
After the Squad Jam, Team SHINC is once again at Karen's apartment enjoying the sweets she offered. They also remember her birthday is the next day and buy her a beautiful necklace as a present.
When Karen meets Pitohui in real life and it's revealed she's Elza Kanzaki, Karen hugs the idol and cries, happy that she saved her life.
Squad Jam 3 (Volumes 4 - 5)
In the third SJ, most of the teams' reaction to a special rule creating a new team mid-match range from fury to denial to attempted Rage Quit, angered at the prospect of fighting their True Companions.
Despite her disappointment, Eva still encourages her team in light of the new rule by stating that she's always wanted to fight them, encouraging them to do their best in her absence.
The above scenario is inverted with MMTM, with David's team trying to cheer up their Leader and state their enthusiasm at getting the chance to fight him.
Cole's dedication to his team is rather admirable. Unlike the other traitors, who seem to have every intention of playing alone with rule despite their varying feelings on it, he instead plans to betray the other traitors so that his team can claim the victory. Undying Loyalty indeed.
Team ZEMAL greets the change with eagerness and enthusiasm, even though it pits the rest of them against one of their own.
David wanting to avenge Ervin. While he's always hated Pito, something we're all well aware of at this point, the fact that her betraying and killing this random guy, who literally no one would blame him for hating considering how his team won the last Squad Jam, is the catalyst that drives him to actually try and kill her shows that there he's really a nice guy behind that cold professionalism and that he valued their time working together despite how brief it was.
There's also Eva's response. While she makes it clear she has no intention of helping him due to wanting her rematch with LLENN, she also fully understands why he's doing it and promises to not shoot him in the back as he leaves. She doesn't.
Eva saving LLENN from the rest of LPFM and deciding to team up with her to take them out, further putting the match she's been looking forward to off further for the simple sake of helping her friend.
Soon after, when LLENN tries to apologise for not getting to give Eva a proper rematch, Eva just smiles and says it's fine, since they're on the same team.
When she and Fukaziroh are going after LLENN and Eva, Pito asks Fuka if it's really alright for her and LLENN to fight, worrying that it could negatively affect their friendship. Fuka however is quick to reassure her that they've been friends for a while and that it'd take more than coming to blows in a game to break that apart. And she's right; even after LLENN tricks Fuka into fighting her one-on-one and they get into one big insult fight, the two of them meet up for a celebratory drink after the tournament as if nothing happened.
Pitohui being concerned in of itself is also this. Despite still retaining her Sociopathic tendencies and not being above manipulating them for her own amusement, this show of concern is a sign that she does care for the two girls.
Test Play (Volume 6)
While largely Played for Laughs, it's nice to see that SHINC care enough about Karen that they're willing to literally form the committee and hold a meeting in order to think up ways to help her build her self-confidence.
Shirley and Clarence are shown to have become fast friends after their fight in SJ3. After killing each other, the two of them got to talking and found themselves striking up a partnership, teaming up to take out monsters and other players in the field and even deciding to take part in the Test Play together.
Clarence also reveals that Shirley promised to tell her what she did for a living IRL, which under normal circumstances breaks the unspoken "don't talk about IRL matters'' rule. This implies that in their time working together, they've gained a great deal of trust in each other.
The Reveal about the true nature of the Test Play. While to the main characters it was simply another competition, in reality it was an advanced form of Medicuboid therapy in order to talk Blood Knight mercenary Jacob into retiring before he gets himself killed, the whole thing being set up by his Best Friend, his wife, and the real life Doc, with the help of some other retired soldiers. And it works
Hell, Jacob's not even mad about it, just commending Roy for his acting skills as part of a joke from back when they were in service.
Squad Jam 4 (Volumes 7 - 9)
During their scene in the prologue, when Clarence mentions how she was kicked out of her old Squadron due to her Ax-Crazy nature, Shirley reassures her that she doesn't mind it herself, in part because she's somewhat similar, and because she recognizes that she's likely not like that IRL. Clarence responds that she feels the same about Shirley, stating that she would never work with such a menacing and dangerous person. While she makes an annoyed sound, Shirley does smile in response to that.
When Karen first meets Fire Nishiyamada, who's short and heavyset, and he asks her if she will laugh at him for how he looks. Karen says no, because as a Huge Schoolgirl, she knows what it's like to be mocked for an aspect of her appearance that she can't do anything about.
When being approached by her father concerning Fire's proposal, he takes the time to state that, personally, he approves of Fire as a potential suitor for Karen out of respect for his work ethic and figuring that since the two are not so different on account of the issues they faced due to their appearance, that they'd make a good match. However, despite his feelings, he still ultimately leaves the decision to Karen, citing that at the end of the day, her feelings are what's most important.
Despite she and Shirley planning from splitting off from and fighting them, LPFM opt to take out the monster that grabs Clarence's without shooting at them, instead having LLENN cut the hand to prevent Clarence from getting hurt.
When takes the role of driving the tractor they found, putting him in the position of being killed by an approaching DOOM, he tells the others that if he dies, they can pay him back by playing well. All of them seem willing to accept and honour his request, even Shirley in a rather backhanded manner, except LLENN, who insists on trying to strategize a method to keep him alive even if it'll make her late to her rematch with SHINC. Even Clarence is willing to chip in with ideas.
Despite Shirley's generally hostile attitude and desire for her and Clarence to leave and raise hell, there are hints that she enjoyed fighting with LPFM, such as when she silently clenched her fist during Pito's Rousing Speech and saying "sorry" when she and Clarence enact their betrayal.
During the fight with MMTM, not only is she Implied to have taken the brunt of the damage from David's grenade to protect LLENN, costing her a leg, but she actually tells LLENN to leave and escape David and Jake's pincer attack, knowing the two would prioritise her over LLENN. It's subtle, but this could be a sign she's growing out of her infamous Team Killer tendencies.
After witnessing Jake get killed, leaving MMTM with just him and Kenta and depriving him of another chance to kill Pito, David hits the Rage Breaking Point and is ready to just do one last suicidal charge. Thankfully, Kenta is able to reach out to him and talk him out of it, prompting David to apologise and pick him up so they can make a tactical retreat.
While brief, Shirley's relationship with the mechanical horse she and Clarence rode around in is rather sweet, with her goading it into letting them ride it with legitimate compliments, giving it a Mercy Kill when it's shot with an apology, and telling Clarence to give it a prayer in thanks.
To further affirm how close the two have gotten, Shirley actually gets pretty upset when Clarence plans to make a Heroic Sacrifice to deal with PORL and RGB, saying she wanted her to witness her kill Pito.
When Tohma gets shot in the throat, 001 of T-S is quick to try and save her from falling off the train.
During LLENN and Eva's fight with the Grenadier from WEEI, the both of them realize that WEEI must have specifically outfitted themselves with guns suited to the pistol only zone and wander if Pito intentionally lead them there with that in mind. After Pito kills one of them and drops in the save them from David at the cost of her life however, they regret suspecting her and wish to apologise.
At the start of the last chapter, Mai(Shirley's real life identity) accepts some work to give Ai(Clarence's real life identity) horse riding lessons. While it's ambiguous if they realize who the other is at any point, they hit it off rather well, with Mai repeating what Clarence said to her in-game.
The revelation that the people on the teams Fire Hired aren't mercenaries, but rather, Fire's friends and employees who want to help him, showing how much loyalty Fire commands in real life.
Five Ordeals (Volume 10)
Throughout the time we know her by this point, the only people Pito could be considered to care about is her team, who she frequently torments and, in the case of M, tortures for her own amusement, and most others she seems to view as verbal (or literal) punching bags for her to Troll (or toture) for her own amusement. So learning about how close she was to her grandparents for effectively saving her from her parent's Control Freak tendencies and giving her a normal life, to the point that she worked several part-time jobs to kickstart her musical career because of them complimenting her singing, serves as a sign that she does have a heart.
In a more morbid sense, there's the implications that her Death Seeker attitude isn't just motivated by thrill-seeking, but also a part of her thinking that death will reunite her with her grandparents.
The story of her past also reveals her as Kindhearted Cat Lover, due to the three cats that her grandparents owned when they were still alive. The white paw prints on her guitar were actually inspired by a white cat they owned, who she was closest to.
Upon spawning in the area for the Fourth Ordeal, a rocky, desert-like wasteland, LLENN and Eva take the time to admire their new surroundings out of nostalgia their fight back in SJ1, with the narration stating that it's where their friendship began.
Shinohara's Heroic Sacrifice, attacking the Dragon-Crab when it opts to ignore M and Tomtom in favour of the rest of the team, ensuring that he'll be the only casualty of it's onslaught. And, for a dose of oddly heartwarming, he uses his last moments to toss his beloved M60E3 to the side as far as he can so it doesn't get destroyed along with him.
Shinohara: Don't worry. I'll keep you safe.
Tomtom expressing his respects for M by saying their squadron accepts anyone who kicks ass, before shooting the buggy's fuel tank and blowing them both up at M's request.
LLENN, Fuka and Shirley jumping to the defence of Suuzaburou when told to kill, coming into conflict with Pito, Eva and Tohma in the process.
In Shirley's case, it's obvious that she's mainly siding with LLENN and Fuka for a shot at Pitohui. But when Fuka claims she's helping because she's a fellow dog lover, she's silent before saying that the other girl's not wrong, suggesting it is also partially motivated by wanting to protect Suuzaburou.
When the quest ends, Suuzaburou thanks Fuka for being so kind to him throughout it, bringing her a tears. After the spawn in Glocken and Pito starts explaining how they beat to MMTM and ZEMAL, LLENN's quick to console her friend.
Squad Jam 5 (Volumes 11 - 13)
In contrast to the previous Squad Jam, where Shirley and Clarence were planning to split up from the rest of the group until circumstances forced them to stick together briefly, here Shirley and Clarence affirm to LLENN that they're sticking with her and helping the group until they reach SHINC. Even when Fuka asserts that they're just doing it for the sake of convenience, LLENN's just glad to have them and trusts them to watch her back.
Of minor note, it's nice to see that T-S, whose poor luck in the last few Squad Jams made them contenders for The Woobie, seem to be moving past the poor reputation they got in SJ2 enough for 006 to form an alliance in SJ5 when they're separated from their teams.
Even after Fukaziroh kills Shinohara in an attempt to get to Vivi, the latter is shown to not hold it against LLENN or make an attempt on her life in revenge. After they escape the exploding manor, the two part on friendly terms with a clink of their gun barrels, despite agreeing that they'll be enemies next time.
While it has shades of Heroic Comedic Sociopathy, Clarence is very happy for Shirley managing to fulfil her goal of killing Pitohui, only bemoaning that she wasn't her spotter for it.
In the split-second the Sole Survivor of DOOM shows up and prepares to detonate himself, Eva immediately responds by kicking LLENN off the ledge to keep her from getting caught in the blast.
