I'm Not Analyzing Tsundere For You, I Just Don't Want It To Go Unanalyzed

Well, I just finished watching Asu no Yoichi; it ain't great, but it's decent—and it provides useful examples in the use of the de gozaru construction, which are of use in writing samurai. But it got me to thinking about tsundere characters, because Ayame, the second sister, is one. The amount of analysis and thought I am about to expend on this topic should shame and disgust us all.

• Remember here, when I said one of the aliens in my SF book is tsundere? I don't really think she is, actually—she isn't tsun-tsun, just extremely crabby (unto outright bitchiness), and she doesn't do the dere-dere flip (yes, there's technical terminology for tsunderes—weep with me, for humanity, into the cold cold night). One of the other characters, one of the revived samurai, is pretty tsundere, although she doesn't get a love-interest till the third book in the trilogy; she just puts up a tsun-tsun front toward people she's actually pretty fond of. Which leads into


• the fact that tsundere, properly so-called, only works because the tsun-tsun is insincere. It's a front, a defense mechanism. That's why the alien gal in my book isn't one: her bitchiness is entirely sincere. But the samurai girl (same book) pretends to be crabbier than she is, because she's very conflicted about what she wants from life and other people.


• This is actually the interesting thing about tsundere—all the truly successful ones are girls who are actually very, very insecure. Louise the Zero is bad at (non-void) magic; Palmtop Taiga is short, flatchested, and neglected; Ayame's always comparing herself to her sister. Even Shana (who isn't actually all that tsundere, especially considering who does her voice) is a weakling among Flame Hazes. The hook for the character—the thing that generates all the moe (he said, feeling dirty as he typed the word)—is that they're so sad. Without a fundamentally vulnerable, insecure nature, there's no reason for the tsun-tsun—and the dere-dere isn't as satisfying, either. You're supposed to root for the tsundere girl because you want her to finally catch a break.


• This is why there aren't really many tsundere male characters, or rather why the equivalent of tsundere works very differently with males. Actually Washizu in Asu no Yoichi would be an example of the type (which is probably why he's much more successfully paired with Ayame than with the girl he actually likes). Rather than being standoffish and defensive, a man with similar insecurity is over-aggressive—because the place he's starting from is significantly more yang to begin with.


• Tsunderes don't have to actually have love-interests, at all—lots of them are tsun-tsun to everyone, but then go dere-dere once they get to know them. As I said, the samurai girl in my book is like this; she doesn't get a love-interest till the third book of the trilogy, and she's mostly tsun-tsun to her friends and family, only going dere-dere when she's worried they might die.


• The term "tsundere" gets thrown around a lot; I am, as I mentioned, guilty of its overuse myself. Some people seem to think any violent girl is tsundere, like the various Takahashi Rumiko heroines. Only, they're not really tsun-tsun; they, like the alien gal in my book, are just ill-tempered. Tsun-tsun is an attitude, not a pattern of behavior; though Taiga and Louise are just as violent as Kagome or...the chick who's always bludgeoning Ranma, they're still cold and hostile when their love interest is behaving himself; Ranma's friend and Kagome are excessively dere-dere when their wrath isn't stirred.


• The other thing tsundere isn't, is abusive—which a lot of morons say it is. In actuality they really just don't care for the character type; but rather than advance arguments founded on aesthetics, or acknowledge that taste exists, they insist they have a moral problem. Bullshit. Anime slapstick, since the cartoons are usually targeted older, is often more explicit. It's no more abuse when Louise beats Saito with a riding crop till he can't move, than it's assault with a deadly weapon when Fubuki beats the Maid Guy bloody with a spiked metal club. No kidding there's a problem with domestic abuse; people don't treat their coworkers as well as they should, either. You can't go calling foul on one fictitious, stylized portrayal, or decry the possible social effects of one kind of work, unless you do it with all fiction. There are tenable criticisms of the concept of tsundere...but the people who don't like it, don't make them.


• Finally, those tsundere cosplay cafes they have in Japan. Very NO! I mean, cosplay cafes are creepy enough, but to have strangers pretend to start off tsun-tsun, and then pretend to go dere-dere? Can I just chew on the pure essence of discomfort itself, instead?