1104: Tsuntsun, Deredere

It’s funny to think that it was only this time last year that I played Katawa Shoujo, rekindled my love for all things Japanese and got properly “into” the visual novel medium. Over the course of last year, I played a bunch of VNs and took some tentative steps into the world of anime, too, and I haven’t really looked back since. I’ve found a medium (well, several forms of closely-related media, really) that “speaks” to me, and that’s always a pleasant feeling, particularly when there is a whole shitload of stuff in that medium for you to explore and discover.

Because it was only last year that I got into all this shit, though, it was only last year that I found out what the word “tsundere” means. I had occasionally heard it mentioned by people I knew were into anime and Japanese games, but I’d never thought to look it up before — perhaps because I assumed it was an obscure, specialist piece of jargon relating to something that I wasn’t, at the time, particularly immersed in.

There’s a good chance that there are a few of you reading this who have absolutely no fucking idea what I’m talking about right now, so allow me to educate you. Then you can walk away from one of these posts feeling like you’ve learned something for once. Wouldn’t that be nice? Of course it would. Let’s go, then.

“Tsundere” is a word primarily (though not exclusively) used in relation to characters in Japanese media (manga, anime, games and everything in between) who run “hot and cold”. Tsunderes are usually female, though not always. The word is a portmanteau that combines parts of two different words to describe the two main moods of the character — tsuntsun describes the part of the personality that is aloof and/or irritable or even outright hostile; deredere describes the soft, squishy and adorable lovestruck centre that the abrasive exterior is protecting.

The tsundere is a stock character in a variety of Japanese works, and can pretty much be guaranteed to put in an appearance in any “harem” stories — i.e. those that include a male protagonist and a disparate gaggle of female heroines who flock to him for various reasons that are not always to do with love or sexuality. (Popular anime Sword Art Online has been described by some as a harem work, for example; even though the main focus of the story is on the romantic relationship between protagonist Kirito and female lead Asuna rather than Kirito attempting to knob his way around cyberspace, a number of episodes introduce a female character who is drawn to the protagonist for some reason before disappearing without a trace by the next episode.) They are a character type that is obviously exaggerated for either comic or dramatic effect — sometimes both — and thus it’s unlikely that you’d find a real-life tsundere. At least, not one that takes quite the same form as you’d see one in an anime or game.

The tsundere can be recognised through a number of different means. Most commonly, it’s through the use of the iconic combo of stuttering slightly when around the object of their affections, and the curiously-specific denial of something that belies their deredere side through what initially appears to be tsuntsun behaviour. (“What? I-it’s not like I’ve been thinking about you or anything…!”) Other tell-tale signs include excessive use of the word “baka” (idiot, stupid) for the slightest misdemeanour and blushing beet red when confronted with an obviously romantic or sexual situation that they haven’t steeled themselves for.

Most tsunderes have tsuntsun as their default behaviour pattern and lapse into deredere when they let their guard down, but characters who represent an inversion of this format exist, too, spending most of their time adorably lovestruck and occasionally lapsing into abrasiveness and hostility if provoked. The latter type can easily be confused with the yandere, which also has deredere as their default behaviour type, but hides proper full-on psychotic mania underneath if the object of their affections either doesn’t want them or is taken away from them. (A tell-tale sign that an anime yandere is about to go bonkers, incidentally, is that their eyes go completely blank, lacking the usual “sparkles” seen in the corner of anime eyes. If a character goes like that, you should probably get worried, and you can pretty much guarantee that someone is going to die very soon.)

Yanderes aside, the tsundere’s behaviour is usually tolerated and accepted by their friends, and rarely commented on directly — it’s just the sort of person they are. The object of their affections usually has to take the brunt of the tsuntsun side, but close friends who want to help the tsundere get closer to the person they obviously like often have to deal with this, too. More often than not, the long-suffering best friend either just shakes it off or is completely oblivious to it, having presumably learned to tune it out a long time ago.

There’s something oddly attractive about a tsundere character, which probably explains why it’s such a commonly-appearing trope. I couldn’t possibly speak for everyone on why this is, but from my own personal perspective, I find the commonly-used “hard-hearted bitch showing a softer side” approach to be an effective one that helps me to sympathise with the characters in the relationship. Reasons that “tsuntsun by default” tsunderes act the way they do vary by story, but one thing is constant — letting that deredere side out is a sign that they’re letting down the barriers around themselves and showing another character that they both trust them and care about them. It can be a very touching moment if handled effectively.

Here are a few of my favourite tsunderes. Oh come on, you knew this was coming.

Noire (Hyperdimension Neptunia)

Noire, the character who represents Sony and the PlayStation in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series of games, is very obviously a tsundere thanks to her regular use of curiously-specific denials when talking to Neptune in particular. She seems aloof, arrogant and abrasive most of the time, but gradually reveals herself to be someone who just really likes to try and do their best at all times. She obviously likes Neptune, despite what often appears to be open hostility, and has found that her efforts to make the land of Lastation as good as it can be have left her lonely.

Irina (My Girlfriend is the President)

Irina Vladimirovna Putina, the Rusian [sic] president in the visual novel My Girlfriend is the President, is a textbook tsundere. Spending most of her time early in the game alternating between yelling at the protagonist Junichiro and twatting him around the head with her slapping fan every time he does something pervy (which is quite often), she eventually shows a softer side and ends up being a positive influence on Jun. Jun also has a positive effect on her; while she manages to mellow him out somewhat, his easygoing nature helps her be less uptight.

Ayano (Yuru Yuri)

Poor old Ayano is the butt of a bunch of jokes in the slice-of-life anime Yuru Yuri. The feisty redhead is obviously carrying a rather large torch for resident chaotic character Kyoko and is completely unable to express her feelings adequately, instead regularly flying into a blind rage at Kyoko’s slightest misdemeanours. Kyoko, being Kyoko, doesn’t mind at all, and is oblivious to Ayano’s feelings. The only one who is truly aware of Ayano’s crush is student council member Chitose, who regularly fantasises about the pair of them, usually resulting in a violent nosebleed.

#oneaday Day 980: I Love You, Starship Ezekiel

It’s another visual novel post, I’m afraid. (I’m not sorry at all. Aside from finally running through Persona 3 FES, which I am loving, VNs have been pretty much all I’ve been playing recently. And I have no problem with this.)

Ahem. Let’s start again.

I saw Ell’s route of My Girlfriend is the President through to its conclusion this evening, and it was just as magically adorable as I was expecting it to be. It was also quite a bit shorter than the previous two routes I’ve completed to date — those for Yukino and Irina — and structured a little differently, unfolding over two “episodes” after the initial setup instead of three.

Spoilers after the break.

Continue reading “#oneaday Day 980: I Love You, Starship Ezekiel” →

#oneaday Day 967: I Love You, Irina

I have already said a few positive things about batshit crazy visual novel My Girlfriend is the President on here and done a writeup over at Games Are Evil, but I feel it’s worthy of another post as I’m still playing it. My initial writeups were based on a single playthrough, you see, and like any good visual novel worth its salt, there are several possible “routes” through the narrative. (Interestingly, once on a route, there only appears to be one ending and minimal decision-making along the way — something which I thought would bother me a lot more than it does, which is not at all.)

(Author’s note: it is nearly 2am and I am tired, so I apologise in advance for incoherent rambling.)

Mild to moderate spoilers follow.

Currently I am about halfway through Irina’s route. Irina Putina is the Rusian (sic) president who shows up early in the game’s (fixed) first act and then sticks around for varying amounts of time in the remaining three, depending on which route you chose. She’s a textbook tsundere in almost every respect, seeming abrasive, grumpy and quick to anger on the surface but regularly demonstrating that she has a soft centre beneath all the slapping. And to be fair to her, protagonist Jun deserves every single slap he gets from her.

Playing Irina’s route directly after Yukino (the titular “girlfriend” — actually better translated as “childhood friend”) is interesting. On Yukino’s route, a huge deal was made out of her history with Jun, particularly a key event in their past which made them the close friends (and, later, lovers) that they are in the game’s story. On Irina’s route, the pair are still very close to one another, but Jun’s attitude towards Yukino is markedly different, at least so far as I have progressed. The pair still play with one another — Yukino’s “puppy” impression is particularly adorable (“Wan! Wan!”) — but over time as Jun becomes increasingly aware of Irina, he becomes self-conscious about his relationship with Yukino and about how he is stringing her along and making her jealous.

Jun, just in case you haven’t read my other entries on the subject, is a bit of a dick at the start of the game. Specifically, he’s a wannabe sex pest, constantly making inappropriate comments and lusting after his female friends, most of whom know exactly how to put him in his place. It’s worth bearing in mind that he is a teenage boy, however, and consequently is wracked with perpetual horniness and no outlet into which to channel this energy. Moreover, his “harassment,” as he calls it, doesn’t escalate beyond ill-chosen words and an occasional bit of peeping at things he shouldn’t. His actions are regularly completely inappropriate, of course, but he could also be much, much worse.

It’s this thoroughly objectionable nature that Jun has at the start of the story that allows him to take such a bold personal journey over the course of the narrative, even as utter insanity is unfolding around him and his friends. By beginning as a heavily flawed character, a pervert, he has the potential to grow and change into something better, and the girls of the story provide the catalyst for him to change. In the case of Yukino, he learns to respect and respond to the feelings of others; in the case of Irina, he learns restraint and gentleness. (I can’t speak for Ell or Ran as I haven’t played their paths at all yet.)

It’s actually quite touching to see. We first witness Jun going through some changes on Irina’s path when she comes with him to a judo class and shows him her passion for the sport. When he ends up pinned beneath her and starts teasing her about her breasts, she gets absolutely furious at him and storms out. Normally, Old Jun would have just shrugged this off, but he actually feels bad that he has hurt her feelings by mocking something she loves so much. He goes out of his way to try and make things right — even more remarkable given that he knows she’s going to leave in a couple of weeks and thus he could just as easily stay out of her way. His feelings grow, and he realises that he wants to make her happy, to give her the opportunity to be a “normal” girl for those two short weeks rather than the “girl president” position she’s been lumbered with.

It’s an interesting twist on what happens with Yukino’s path. When Jun and Yukino become lovers, Jun stands by her, swears to support her and goes out of his way to help her complete her mountains of work — without her knowledge in some cases. As he grows to love Irina, however, he seemingly wants to provide her with an “escape” from reality for a short period, to let her be “herself” rather than the “Rusian Fairy” facade she normally has to keep up.

I really love that a game with such an utterly nonsensical overarching plot as My Girlfriend is the President still has such wonderfully-defined characters and a genuine sense of emotional engagement in its narrative. The game is absolutely masterful at building up sexual tension in particular, meaning the player is right there with Jun throughout, feeling the electricity of every stolen glance, flushed cheek and hesitant word of affection.

That sense of involvement, of being inside the heads of the characters? That’s why I love VNs. There are few other places in gaming where you can have such profound experiences.

#oneaday Day 960: Moe Moe Kawaii… Wait, What Are You Doing…?!

Where do you draw the line between art, entertainment, sexist nonsense and porn? It is a rather fine and difficult line to walk, particularly when the definitions of all of those terms vary enormously from person to person according to their open-mindedness, experience with various works, gender and general social attitudes. It’s a particularly pertinent question with regard to the genre of games that I seem to be spending a fair amount of time with at present — the ol’ visual novel.

The current game I’m playing is called My Girlfriend is the President. I will refrain from talking about it in too much detail as 1) I haven’t yet finished it and 2) I will be doing a READ . ME column on the subject for Games Are Evil this Sunday. Suffice to say, however, it is utterly bananas — and yet, there is a slight sense of discomfort while playing. Not enough to prevent me from enjoying it, but just enough to make me think that it might, in fact, be deliberate.

The tension stems from the game’s protagonist, whom in TV Tropes terms is probably best described as a Chivalrous Pervert. He openly admits to sexually harassing women and getting turned on by ogling his female peers in a less than honourable fashion. He takes every opportunity to make a smutty comment just to “try his luck”. And he’s a peeping tom. In short, he should be an immensely dislikeable dick whom any self-respecting player wouldn’t want to spend any time inside the head of whatsoever.

And yet he’s not. At least part of his perpetual horniness can be attributed to the fact that he is a teenage boy, and consequently subject to the same hormonal urges that all teenage boys find themselves afflicted with. His supposed sexual harassment never leads anywhere, as his female peers are all well aware of the fact that he is a wannabe pervert and thus make sure he doesn’t have the opportunity to do anything truly inappropriate — not that he actually would given the opportunity. Several of them even take every chance they get to toy with him, making him more and more wound up and frustrated while at the same time making it clear that they are the ones with the true power in their relationship.

And alongside all this perversion comes the fact that, at heart, he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to these girls. He takes every opportunity to attempt to prove his “manliness” and “protect” them, even if they don’t really need protecting. He gets embarrassed, flustered and overexcited if anything actually does happen, and when it comes to his adorable childhood friend (the titular President) he is — for the most part, anyway — respectful and sweet.

It puts the player in something of a quandary. Since the game takes place from the perspective of this horny young gentleman, we’re frequently subjected to his male gaze sizing up the bodies of the people he’s with and pondering what’s under their clothes. If he thinks there’s the chance he’ll see something naughty and the girls in question aren’t in any actual physical danger, he’ll stand by and watch rather than preventing something embarrassing happening to them. But when the chips are down and Bad Things are happening, he’s the first to spring into action in an (often misguided) attempt to keep them safe — usually with hilarious slapstick results.

So what does all this mean? Is the game itself sexist, or is it simply putting the player inside the head of a protagonist with definite sexist tendencies? Or is it somewhere in between?

I don’t know for sure. Whatever it is, My Girlfriend is the President is most certainly a gloriously guilty pleasure that I have absolutely no shame in saying that I am enjoying a great deal right now!