Tsundere - the one person love story

This post shall focus on the female tsunderes. There are male tsunderes as well, but they are not nearly as prevalent.

Okay, let's try to post again.

Last post I focused on dere, mainly kuu- and tsun-. Now let's drill deeper into the more popular tsundere, as I ask myself, "Why the hell is it so popular?"

There are a couple of reasons, actually.

One is addressed in this article by the escapist. By making conversation a bit of game, you can't help but feel satisfied if you manage to reach the point of sweetness. The tsun makes the dere sweeter, like a bottle of water is all the more refreshing after a marathon. Contrast, say, the yandere, which undergoes a deterioration of affection, making them not as appealing (they still have a scarily large amount of fans).

But the popularity of tsunderes not only lies in the demand, but the supply as well. Tsunderes are popular to write because they are easy to make story out of, especially a romance. Stories require a complication, a conflict to overcome. In many romantic tales the conflict lies in a third 'wrong' love interest that one of the main chars falls for. But making a third character, even a flat one, takes effort, and can backfire spectacularly trying to balance between making the character likable enough for a char to fall for, but unlikable enough to come second. Another source of conflict can be a clash between the two members of the couple, but we have another balancing act. Too little conflict is boring, too much ruins the romance. And again we need two compelling characters.

A tsundere is love and conflict all in one.

Her love interest doesn't even have to be interesting (and a lot of mediocre anime leads aren't), a stock generic male is all that's needed for tsundere to act tsundere towards. Show the conflict of emotions in the tsundere and bam, instant story. Added bonus; making the male bland and generic makes it easier for the audience to project upon.

Tsunderes have their female fans, too, those who see them as role models. Admittedly, the 2D tsundere is a rather big step up from the 1D prize trophy, but the 2D tsundere is rather flat. Unfortunately, this had led to the 'only weak women are girly' train of thought which is not good for feminism or the rest of us.

What I think I would like to see more is female characters that go beyond a simple '-dere' archetype. Yes, characters can be tsundere, but by god, please don't make it all they are.

Dere

Sweetness! That is basically what dere is all about, but in the otaku community, it has become a suffix of terms to describe particular female character archetypes.

I swear I've talked about this before.

Checking my meager past posts, I see that I haven't leaving me to rant about these things at length.

According to my research, there are four main types of the -dere archetype:

1. Tsundere (Sweet hidden by hostility)
2. Dandere (Sweet hidden by shyness/antisocial tendencies)
3. Kuudere (Sweet hidden by coldness/lack of emotion)
4. Yandere (Sweet not hidden. Too sweet, in fact. Psychotic Sweet.)

Tsundere is by far the most common (and popular) of these archetypes, followed by Yandere. In fact, that's why the image above shows these two. It's not surprising, really. Tsundere is by far the easiest archetype to squeeze out cheap drama and shallow slapstick. Tsundere can be done well, but it's easy to do a 'good enough' mediocre attempt. Yandere is second as it provides an effective foil to the tsundere, especially as the romantic false lead, only to reveal her possessive tendencies.

I hope my opinion about tsunderes didn't show that much in my description, because I don't want the impact of the next sentence to be lessened in any way. I HATE tsunderes. They always struck me as idiotic and immature. I am fully aware that that reaction is not dissimilar to how a tsundere might act (ho ho irony), but really, I dislike the fact that they have, in my vain and overstated opinion, over-saturated the market and overshadowed the other -dere archetypes, which are more interesting and appealing. the dere (sweet) is supposed to be enhanced by the tsun (rough), but any dere is tainted by the tsun in the bland, cookie-cutter tsunderes that are out there. It may be because of Naru from Love Hina (one of the first anime I ever watched) being such a bitch, but there you go.

It really should come with no surprise that Danderes and Kuuderes are my favourites. Before, I would have had Danderes as my very favourites, but with, well;

• Ai (Amagami)
• Lain (Serial Experiments Lain)
• Rei (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
• Eriko (Kimikiss)
• Yue (Negima)
• Chane and Ennis (Baccano)
• Angel (Angel Beats!)
• And, of course, the queen of my heart, Yuki (Suzumiya Haruhi series)

...as my favourite characters from their respective series, its pretty clear that I have a serious Kuudere bias. Yes, some of these are cookie cutter (Angel, anyone?) but I love them all the same.

Kuudere; tsunderes with much-needed sanity.

Year 12, or; Bonfires

I haven't posted on this for a long time, for a good reason. I am now in year 12 and that means I should be studying. But, now I feel that I want to put some memories down on this thing, so I can look back and smile at the antics of my past self.

But here's something that might be useful later.

---

When was the last time you saw a bonfire? An actual, real, bonfire. A fire made of random twigs, branches and patience, radiating heat to warm your face, while your back freezes. Watching the flames dance on the wood, as it slowly shrivels.

Humanity was born through fire. Fire was the one tool that humanity uniquely wielded; even Greek legend states that ‘fire from the gods’ was what made us special. And fire was a truly wondrous thing. It gave light and warmth, but it also killed and destroyed. It was eternally hungry, and no matter how powerful it is, it eventually dies. Strong, yet fragile; like life itself. No, it would be more correct to say that life was like fire. Fires were burning for eternity in the form of stars. Yet even they die.

Everything dies.

There's no way a little sister anime can be this good.

If you were to tell me that there was this great new anime series called "There's no way my little sister can be this cute," I'd look at you strangely and slowly back away. But, in a fit of boredom, I watched it, and it was good. Well, better than I thought it would be.

This is mainly because the main male lead is such a good character. Kyousuke just wants a normal and dull life (like Rincewind form Discworld), and stays in the background. In contrast, his little sister, Kirino, is an overachiever, and thus is the favoured child. She's also a tsundere of the worst sort, so I don't like her that much. The two are distant and have a badly broken if existent relationship.

This is all turned on its head when Kyousuke finds out that Kirino is actually a closet otaku obsessed with, ironically enough, little sister eroge.

Repeat to yourself, it's just an anime, you should really just relax.

But not only does Kyousuke agree to keep Kirino's habit a secret, he also agrees to help Kirino find people like her. He would win just because of that little fact, but it turns out that the plot would do anything to cause trouble, and he usually sacrifices himself for Kirino, who both bosses him about and beats him up along the way.

Yeah, I really don't like Kirino.

Which is a shame, because she is, literally, the only character I detest. I like Saori and Kuroneko, the two other otaku; I like Manami and her family, who are somehow able to be simultaneously both kind and hilarious; I like Kyousuke's mum, who sticks up for him when he has to go up against his dad; I even don't mind Kyousuke's dad and Ayase, who provide an interesting antagonism to the otaku plot (and I understand them drawing the line at the NSFW material, I mean seriously Kirino, WTF?). But Kirino's there to be 'adorably' tsundere, and the ungrateful whelp doesn't deserve help. (Okay, she says thanks once. Once.)

Besides, the thoroughly unlikeable female lead, this is a decent anime. Check it out.

Oh, and KyousukexManami forever.

A morbid conversation

P1: (Me and a group of friends sitting around a table)

Me: Say, out of all of us, who do you think will die first?

P2: Darcy: Julio, can't you think of something a little less morbid to talk about?

P3: Me: Oh, fine. Something more lively...

P4: Me: Who do you think will live the shortest among us?

P1: Me: So, who do you think?

P2: Ned: Calum.

Me: Why?

P3: Ned: He'll probably say something like "I can make this jump."

P4: Nick: "I can block this bullet with my skull."

P1: Me: I'll probably die early. My genes have provided me with poor health.

P2: Ryan: Julio! You shouldn't think like that! Think positive!

P3: Ryan: "I am living my life to the full! I am NOT dying!"

P4: Me: Well, technically I am.

Ryan: This is the type of talk we're trying to avoid.

P1: Darcy: Well, in my family all the women lived over 90.

P2: Darcy: Yet all the men died around 60.

P3: Julio: Well, women do live longer than men.

P4: Ryan: When I'm 80, I'm going to have a sex change.

P1 Me: What?

Ryan: If I change sex when I'm 80, I might get an extra ten years.

P2: Ned: So, when you're 80, you're going to have doctors surgically operate on your abdomen.

P3: Ned: This is going to make you live longer, how?

P4: Ryan: Wait 70 years, and then you'll see my genius.

Me: Well, I would probably be dead by then.

Imagine

On the ninth of October, 1940, one of the greatest musicians of humanity, certainly the 2oth century was born. He would grow up on the advent of rock, and would gather a group that would change music forever.

Happy Birthday, John Lennon.

Ai is love

...Well. You know how I said that I only fanboy over one and only one character, the ever-so-perfect Yuki Nagato?

It's quite possible that another character may join this exclusive list.

Amagami is an anime that deals with the age old problem of compressing many routes of a VN into one timeline of anime in a unique way. Every four episodes a girl is pursued then the universe resets to start the next arc. This is because there is no 'true' girl in Amagami, every route is as canon as each other. One of the many side effects of this format is the drastic personality change of the main character, Junichi Tachibana (hereafter referred to as JT) to better fit the arc. So far there has been three arcs, three girls, and three JTs:

• 'Puppy' JT and Haruka Morishima. Haruka is possibly insane, and JT, bless him, reciprocates by acting like a dog. Fetish Fuel: Kissing the back of the knee.
• 'Rival' JT and Kaoru Tanamachi. Bro Arc. Sexy hair. Humorous denial of feelings. 'I'll show you something better than stars'. Fetish Fuel: Making out with a belly button.
• 'Instructor' JT and Sae Nakata. Shrinking Violet. Fourth wall is broken in an attempt to spice up the most boring arc. Fetish Fuel: Between the toes.

But I"m not here to talk about them, as you might have realized. I'm here to talk about none other than the seriously sexy Ai Nakasaki. Yes, that's right. The anime hasn't even focused on this character, and what we have seen of this character is seriously minimal. Anime-wise, Ai is just a satellite character so far.

So why am I gushing over such a character? Well, apparently I am genre savvy enough to recognize a character I would like from a few seconds of animation. I just didn't know how much I would like this character. But she was appealing enough to make me skip to reading the manga as the anime was taking its time to reach her arc. That in itself should have been a clue, as I did something similar with Nagato-san and Disappearance.

And oh, boy, if the anime was half as appealing as the manga was, I would be a very happy man.

• 'Awesome' JT and Ai Nakasaki. Dialog made of win and awesome. Kuudere. Awesome scenes both funny and sexy. Fetish fuel: Ai Nakasaki

Admittedly, Ai is not as awesome as Yuki, being, you know, human. But she makes up for it in pure sex appeal and snark. They both even have awesome character songs.

So, Ai's inclusion into the fanboy list is a great possibility. Kaede from Angel Beats was the last contender up for nomination, but she lost points in her later episodes for losing some of her independence.

So, Ai, are you up for the task of being comparable to the likes of Yuki Nagato? Only time will tell as your arc comes around.