I'd say I'm polarized about this. I sympathized with Tatsuya when I first watched that ep, I think a lot of people have, but you've got to absorb the entire series before you can begin to understand that it's nowhere near a typical anime, and things that are taken for granted elsewhere are dissected and subverted, more often than not. His behavior of 'watching from the sidelines and loving her no matter what she does' is all nice and romantic and whatnot, but in his case, it comes off as selfish and patronizing. Sure it might seem like unconditional love, but his actions up to that point suggest that he's not that selfless after all.

Which is quite normal, really. But the problem here is that most people would root for such a character before they would for someone like, say, Saionji or  Nanami. Their own (numerous) issues aside, are their motives not pure at the core? Are they not motivated by love, when you come down to it? And isn't their selfishness similar to his, with the difference that they don't try to hide it from other characters and the audience?

Sure, he cannot become a Black Rose Duelist, precisely because becoming one would mean owning up to his baser urges and basically admitting to himself that his motives are ultimately selfish, or at least more selfish than he's willing to admit.

All in all I don't see Tatsuya as being bad because of this. He's just a kid with a few issues, and wow that's a first-timer in SKU...One of the major points of the series is that everyone is messed up to some degree, and the ideal is unreachable. And that everyone gets selfish sometimes and that's not such a big deal.

But then there's this

She’s so innocent! He’s going to have SEX WITH HER, and then she’ll be TARNISHED and she’ll run back to him and he’ll accept the poor, broken ruined thing who will now be dependent on him and he can look down on her all he wants! Jesus Christ, this dude totally hangs out on Reddit. In the end, he just doesn’t understand why he’s not good enough for her. LISTEN TO WHAT YOU JUST SAID DUDE. IN THERE YOU WILL FIND THE REASON.

I remember posting in a similar discussion on IRG a while back. I'm still not really sure how to feel about this. It's a chilling similarity to the whole ''Waifu'' thing that's been popular in so-called Otaku circles on the Internet. I don't know if it's just foolishness, but those people seem to believe that real women are sluts by default if they do anything sexual EVER, yet idolize 2D females they view as pure and untarnishable. Even putting such characters in sexual or provocative situations cannot 'ruin' them, as they don't actually exist. And somehow that's viewed as better and more meaningful than a relationship with a real person.
Honestly, I do not understand such behavior, but I can see what may be the reasons for it. Same goes for Tatsuya's tirade.

I feel that I haven't written anything meaningful here. That may be due to my own feelings not being entirely clear on this subject, after all. But nice article, food for thought...

I've seen arguments along these lines before, even on this forum. I think it's just a matter of certain lines and cues coming across to different viewers in different ways.

I agree with a lot of what the author of the post says.  It's just about the most unfavorable spin you can put on Tatsuya's actions, but it's legit; Tatsuya is indirect, passive, and mind-gamey in his approach to Wakaba, and that does smell like Nice Guy(TM).  (Then again, is he more indirect or passive than Keiko?  Shiori?...)

I think what I'm most uncomfortable with about the post is the author's lionization of Wakaba and demonization of Tatsuya.  Hypothetical question: if Wakaba had been kicked out of school and had nowhere to go, how would Tatsuya have dealt with that?  Would he, maybe, have offered to let her stay in his dorm room?  Left her some lunch money?  Would he have never ever hinted that he might have a sexual interest in her, yet felt horribly jealous and betrayed when he discovered that she still wasn't over Saionji, because in his mind she owes him for taking such good care of her?  Yeah -- yeah, that's exactly what he would have done.  The thing is that if Tatsuya is going to be crucified for being a Nice Guy (TM) vis-a-vis Wakaba, by the same standard we ought to crucify Wakaba for being a Nice Girl (TM) vis-a-vis Saionji.

Alternatively, we could crucify neither of them.  We could say, hey, these are fourteen-year-olds who have never been in relationships before.  The role models around them are people like Akio and Anthy and the Student Council.  And in spite of that, they have managed to muster what appears to be genuine caring about another person, even though they don't understand how to express that caring, or how to respect the autonomy of its object.  They have a lot to learn, but all things considered, they are not doing half bad.

The thing about Wakaba losing her purity that Tatsuya says in the elevator -- yeah, that's terrible.  She'll be tarnished by having sex with another man, oh noes, not my blushing virgin bride.  (Which, haha, sweetheart, Wakaba has deflowered herself very thoroughly already.)  Tatsuya has soaked up some sex-negative virgin/whore bullshit.  So sue him.  As Ragnarok said, this is not a twenty-year-old channer.  If Tatsuya had escaped the gender role expectations of his culture at the tender age of fourteen, that would be really remarkable, bordering on unbelievable.  We shouldn't be surprised that he hasn't.  What's more interesting, I think, is what Tatsuya doesn't say.  The true Black Rose duelists have lines like these...

Kanae: Up until now I've done my best to like her... But I just can't! No matter how hard I try... I CAN'T!
Kozue: That's why I purposely go out with people that I know Miki would hate. . . . But, Miki's attention is gradually going to that other woman.  It's going away from me.
Shiori: She suffered alone, looking at my picture in secret... That was Juri-san? Poor thing!
Mitsuru: I want to wreck the world!
Wakaba: That girl, with her face that says she alone is special, will steal* everything and anything away from me. I simply can't bring myself to forgive her.
Keiko: I was only with Nanami-sama to get close to Touga-sama, even the littlest bit. Without that reason, who'd want to be with her?

*[And geez, Wakaba, are you even listening to yourself?  Don't you know that no one can steal a person from you, because people are not your property, and they get to decide who to be with for themselves?]

But Tatsuya says:

Tatsuya:  But it's okay. No matter how much of her purity she'll lose, she'll come back to me.
Tatsuya:  Because of my love for her.
Tatsuya:  Yes, 'cause in the end, love always wins.
Tatsuya:  I would be able to make you happy. I would be able to give away anything for your sake.
Tatsuya:  I would... I would...
Tatsuya:  Why can't it be me?!

Yes.  He's sex-negative and self-deluded.  But you know what?  He doesn't hate Wakaba.  Not even a little.  He actually does want her to be happy.  He wants to be the one to make her happy, which, okay, yeah, is selfish, but surely in a relatable way.  And he's convinced that no one else can make her happy, which is narcissistic in the way that fourteen-year-olds can be narcissistic.  But the endgame is for Wakaba to be happy.  No true Black Rose duelist is trying to make someone else happy.  Hell, only Mitsuru is even not trying to make someone else suffer.

And by the way, you can almost imagine Utena saying the same words to Mikage sometime during episode 12, can't you?

So I dunno.  No one in SKU is a good person without qualification.  But I feel like the author here is holding Tatsuya to an unreasonably high standard, considering his age and his peers.  In ten years, he has as good a chance of ending up an okay person as just about anyone in the show.

Last edited by satyreyes (11-28-2014 12:31:17 AM)

Whatever the validity of her opinion of Tatsuya's character, she doesn't really prove her thesis—that being that Ikuhara intends for us to see him this way. She does include a quote from the liner notes at the beginning, but like almost everything else Ikuhara's written, it's absurdly ambiguous...and I still read it more as "Tatsuya is too good to become a Black Rose duelist" rather than "Tatsuya is entitled and boring."

[Also, while I don't want to go off-topic, I wonder if she'd give the same credence to what Ikuhara writes about Ruka? He's pretty unambiguously favorable towards him.]

satyreyes wrote:

hard on

satyreyes wrote:

Wakaba

satyreyes wrote:

I'm coming

satyreyes wrote:

I'm sorry, Wakaba! 

satyreyes wrote:

purplepolecat wrote:

wow

Oh, I'm gonna go to the special hell.

Katzenklavier wrote:

BOBBING PENISES DANCING TO THE SUGARPLUM FAIRY.

This is also my opinion on Tatsuya.

You know, until this thread I never noticed how sex-negative that whole situation was. Yes, bent in that he figures he'll outstay her purity, but I didn't really consider the implications of that, and the conflicting message. We would see that line of thinking as very sex negative, yes, but in a culture that does still value virginity more than our own (which is saying something,) is what he's saying more virtuous or is it worse?

Satyr has a point, we tend to forget how young these characters are, and the extraordinary maturity they sometimes exhibit shouldn't become an expectation of advancement beyond their years. Maybe Tatsuya's outlook on sex and dating is the first step toward a wider enlightenment. It's a different step than, say, Touga would take...is it more healthy? Less healthy? The point's been made that Tatsuya does clearly place Wakaba's journey on equal level with his own, and he doesn't believe it's in his power, or that it's his right, to interfere. That's great! Touga certainly stumbled on that one.

But...I don't know. Even spun as negatively as the Tumblr post does, all I keep reading from it is Tatsuya's extraordinary lack of self-confidence. 'She'll come to me in the end,' feels to me to be said more in the tone of 'when she's run out of other options,' than in the tone of 'when she realizes I'm the best man for the job.' He feels like she'll eventually settle for him; the classic deluded friend-zoned Nice Guy. He tries to be a prince for her, but even that ends up sex-negative in the sense that it assumes that's what she wants. The show plays on the idea that to Wakaba, Saionji is her prince...but it's pretty clear even by her treatment of him that she isn't looking to be princessed, exactly. If anything, the other way around; Wakaba is happiest when she's protecting him. Even though, on some level, she realizes that privilege comes from him having no other options.

Tatsuya's ego is strained under this idea that he is the option she'll come to when all others fail. It's inevitable! (We won't get into what that says about his evaluation of Wakaba's odds with others.) But this lack of self-confidence appears to be in his head for no reason; we're told he's actually quite a little playboy, so where's this idea come from that he should sit back on the sidelines? Wakaba, by contrast, is living the reality of being a last option; for many, the experience she has with Saionji would be crushing. Imagine the guy of your dreams right in front of you...and knowing he's there by necessity, and not choice. Need drove him, not desire. Nevertheless, she drags a positive experience out of it, even if she deludes herself to do it. Would Tatsuya be as eager to bask in the glow in her position, if she came crawling to him because no better suitors favored her? In the situation she's in with Saionji, we see what Tatsuya's victory would look like. It's bittersweet, at best. And depending on your outlook, what does it say about either of them that they'd ultimately make themselves be happy being the last resort?