The tsundere of Toradora…

IS IT AMI OR TAIGA!?

Taiga: Eh~? Baka-chi tsundere?

I get the feeling you want to leave now…well, it’s ok. Following this is just a nonsense ramble on my part on why I think Ami is more of a tsundere than Taiga. This, I guess, is blasphemy to the Taiga crowd…or tsundere lovers in general…>_>

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If you’ve seen enough anime, chances are that you’ve come upon the term “tsundere”…if not…watch more anime. But in a nut shell, a tsundere character is a moody combative character who hides his/her true feelings from everyone else…more so to the person of interest. But recently, this term seems to have been broadened and applied to any character who blushes profoundly and/or to characters who deny whatever made her/him blush…be it a comment about what the person likes…a la Kagami…or about the person he/she likes…just about any character in a romantic/harem anime.

In Toradora! the person labeled “tsundere” is Aisaka Taiga, it’s been carved in stone and no one will question it. But Taiga, is one of those character labeled a tsundere because of her blushing face and her rough character. She puts up a strong front saying that she’s shouldn’t be taken lightly. But behind that though exterior, is a small loli girl wanting some love and a girl whose a lot nicer than appears.

Is that’s really tsundere? Um…yeah, to an extent.

Well, she bad mouths/abuses Ryuuji any chance she gets, that’s the “tsun” part. But when alone or when Ryuuji does something for her…she shows signs of kindness…that’s the “dere” part. So by definition, she’s tsundere.

But isn’t “dere” the part of the character that has affection…in terms of love, not appreciation…towards the lead?

We gotta remember that Taiga herself has said plenty times that she likes Kitamura. Going dere dere {bashful and lovestruck} in front of him every single time. She’s dere dere to Kitamura, but tsun tsun {rough and violent} to Ryuuji…Isn’t tsundere supposed to be tsun tsun and dere dere to the same person?

You can say that she’s dere dere for Ryuuji because she screamed “RYUUJI IS MINE!!!”…later rebutting with “Yeah, Ryuuji is my dog!”…becoming tsun tsun. But wasn’t she just pissed off because no one came to Ryuuji’s aid because everyone was trying to get a look at Ami? She was just pissed and didn’t want anyone to get near him…probably thinking no one has the right to help him now that she alone brought him out of the pool. I’m not too really sure she has dere dere feelings for Ryuuji…

But no matter what I say, everyone has already labeled her tsundere…for Ryuuji…and I to would say she is {to an extent} a tsundere character. But the tsundere of Toradora!, I think, is Ami.

Ami too has all the qualities of a tsundere and is more true to the {real} definition than Taiga is. Initially, you wouldn’t know a tsundere character at first sight of them. The realization that the character is in fact tsundere is supposed to be revealed to you when said character either starts feeling love for the lead and is unable to properly voice her feelings…be it by being unable to voice them or by having an external force stopping her from doing so. Case in point, Kawashima Ami.

Our initial reaction to her was not a good one. She came across as a conceited b!tch who is waaay too in love with her self…and she was in fact just that. But as the series progressed and she got to be influenced by Taiga and Ryuuji…just like Kitamura wanted…her real self started coming out.

Since her appearance, she has been ‘playing around’ with Ryuuji…an effort just to make Taiga mad…or at least that’s what people concluded. But maybe she was playing around Ryuuji because she has feelings for him. She can’t really show her true emotions, so maybe she put up that playful mask to try to get near him? Tsundere quality? I would say so. Her playing around with him is the same as putting up a strong front…you can say it’s reverse psychology. By acting like she is just playing and teasing him, you can say she’s putting up a front to hide her feelings…which she is not able to properly convey.

Ami doesn’t seem to open up to anyone…not even to her childhood friend Kitamura. But around Ryuuji, she seems more herself and is more prone to releasing her true nature. So far, she has only talked to Ryuuji about things she hides from everyone else…like the stalker thing.

Originally, she would put up a strong front and act as if it doesn’t bother her…the tsun part. But when she was alone with Ryuuji and the stalker appeared…she just couldn’t hold up that front anymore and opened up to him, telling him the story and what she was feeling…not really dere, but close to it. She was more dere in the cave. There, she tried to voice her feelings…her feeling for Ryuuji…but her ‘chance’ was shunned with the screams of Minori.

Ami may not blush as much as Taiga, but I think that she is more tsundere than Taiga is. Her “fake” mask is her strong exterior, her “playful” mask is another front, but when alone with Ryuuji, she’s more of herself and can’t voice what she wants to say, unless she dons one of those masks…leading Ryuuji to misinterpret her words…

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*sigh* I really don’t why I made this nonsense post, no matter what I say people will say Ami IS NOT of tsundere quality…they’ll give it to Taiga. But as I was watching that scene in the cave, I couldn’t help but think of this…and the urge to voice it just grew the longer I thought about it. I’ll get rebutted, but I’ll just say with confidence that AMI IS IN FACT MORE TSUNDERE THAN TAIGA!

Palmtop Tiger VS Fake Chihuahua

CHIHUAHUA WINS!