Yea it's weird. If she's living in our shadow I'd expect more implications of it.
Garret for instance is the perfect example of living under his father's shadow, he has a whole talk about it even, to the point it actually affects him, to the point that we see that it does and see that yes, he doesn't want to live like that. But with Kinu, the Champ is not mentioned anywhere in her scenes. She (At least with Inari in my experience, idk about Hime but probably similar here) IS allowed to be her own person in the den when she's not around her parents, do her own thing, make her own choices, the champ is never mentioned in her vignettes at all, in fact Kiyoko is mentioned more (Due to the fact that unlike us she's allowed to be present there), not much in terms of talking to most others in the den yourself implies it, she doesn't bring this up to you in either of her adult outcomes either for us to even tell that this is a thing going on, and she unlike Garret is NEVER compared to the champ or reduced to "The commoner's/champion of Kero's daughter" or anything to suggest she's struggling to live on her own without anything hanging over her of the such.
So it just leaves me asking.... literally what shadow is she stuck under? Because as it is, it feels more as if she's trying to distance herself from her father without that even needing to be there, leading to just cruelly once again making the PC the punching bag even moreso regarding his relationship with Kinu on either outcome of her adulthood, we get that she doesn't wanna be babied anymore but that's not the same as "living under someone's shadow" and she's gonna get stronger and kill Raphael later anyways. There is literally no shadow she's stuck under, because the writing does not from all I've seen so far, outside that Komari thing you mentioned, write her under one, not even in a "oh this happened off-screen" thing. >.>
With Garret, while we are told that he is under his father's shadow, we actually SEE that it affects him personally, that he doesn't like it and wants to not live that life. With Kinu on the other hand, we're ONLY TOLD that she is stuck in your shadow by Word of God only and that she needs to get out of it, but this is never SHOWN to us in a way that is actually readable to see that yes, it is a thing that is happening. And I think that's another reason as to why this bothers me so much about this being the point of KinuQuest, it's so weird. If that is a legit thing and plot point it should at least be shown to us somewhere, implication or otherwise. As it stands, the implication of what the writer is trying to go for not shown ANYWHERE in the actual writing itself, and yes, that is a problem.