I've been thinking about this one for a while, spurred on by comments people have made about the character of Touga. People have mentioned that his character isn't developed, or that he doesn't have enough of a background. It's not that either of these things are exactly true; Touga isn't as overtly fleshed out as some other characters, but he certainly gets as much or more background than Utena herself. The problem is that you have to dig to find out what kind of a person he is.

Now, I don't want to set myself up as the ultimate authority here; we all know that because of the way we see things, the show and the characters in it change. This is simply what I think about the character, and I hope you all post your own views.

The key to being able to decipher Touga's behavior isn't in his present actions, or his past experiences, but in the progression between the two which was not shown. The easiest example to pick, and probably the one that stands out the most about him, is the horde of girls. Touga's a self-assured, popular, handsome young man; it follows that he'd have a horde of girls following him around, right?



...well, not really. Juri is self-assured and confident, and beautiful. We never see her surrounded by adoring guys, or girls for that matter. Utena, on the other hand, does have her own entourage, but they don't cling quite so tightly as Touga's fans do. Utena's fans seem content to wave and be greeted, and only rush her when she's done something like beat the entire boy's basketball team. Touga, however, is surrounded almost constantly from what we can gather of his school social life. This doesn't strike me as being abnormal, either-- we expect the bishounen to be surrounded by girls vying for his attention. But then there's Saionji. It's pretty evident that the rest of the school has no idea that Saionji has such a lack of control over his temper, and that even if his fans know, they don't care. But even so Saionji looks to be, on the surface, as much a playboy as Touga except that you won't find him encouraging his fans.

There's the key-- Touga encourages his floozies to hang around him. We never see him do it, but there's enough evidence in the form of Saionji and Utena to say that the way the girls flock around Touga is not normal fangirl behavior. Why would Touga encourage girls to surround him in the first place? In a general sense, why does anyone pave the way for any specific thing to happen? Easy answer: because they want or need that particular thing to occur. Touga wants or needs his floozies to hang around him. A want or need is created by a lack; what is Touga lacking that makes this the easiest way to satisfy it? What makes the horde of girls satisfy his need in particular?



And what about this?

Touga has been surrounded by people all of his life. That much is easy to see. But does he seem any less confident when he is not surrounded? No, not at all. If anything, he seems sharper and more determined in the Seitokai meetings than he does when he's surrounded by his floozies. From that, you can assume rather a lot. The girls must be a comfortable place for him, or else he wouldn't seem relaxed around them. A group of people paying attention to him is a relaxing situation for him.

Take another look at that picture above. Does Touga seem at all relaxed there?

No. No, he doesn't. His posture is very proper, and very stiff. His knees are drawn together, his back is straight, his head is held high, and his hands are in his lap. Sit like that, and tell me how it feels. I know how it feels on me-- it feels formal, forced, and a bit uncomfortable. I can only imagine that he must feel the same way, as you never see him sit quite like that when he’s relaxed. It isn't just the presence of others that makes Touga comfortable. The birthday party is different, and here’s where we have to leap into assumptions.

First assumption: the birthday party isn’t held for Touga’s sake at all. Sure, it’s his birthday, but this isn’t a groundless assumption to make. The interaction between Nanami and his parents makes it clear that Nanami wasn’t allowed to choose a present to give to Touga. Not that she was told she couldn’t give him a present; if she’d been told that, she wouldn’t have gone out and found one. She’s too young to rebel against her parents in such a visible way. But she wasn’t given a choice in what Touga received, and she was given no opportunity to give a gift of her own. This speaks rather loudly about their parents; how many parents can you think of that wouldn’t be delighted to help their adorable little daughter give a present to their son for his birthday? I remember times in my childhood when I was told to pick out a present to give to my brother. But since she wasn’t specifically told not to, we can assume that their parents simply never thought to tell her. The company at the party is also very strange, isn’t it? It seems out of place for a group of adults in formal wear to attend the birthday party of a young boy. Where are Touga’s friends? People haul in entire classrooms full of children for their children’s birthdays, so where are the children at this one? Further than that, whose great idea was it anyway to put a young boy, probably eight or so, into a room full of adults, sit him on a ‘throne’, forget to let his sister give him a present, and call it a birthday party? It’s no wonder that Touga looks very formal and a little uncomfortable. He knows, even if Nanami doesn’t, that this is a social function and not a birthday party at all.

Surprisingly, he takes it well. I certainly wouldn’t. His thoughtless parents have used him as the reason to get their friends or business associates together, but he stays on his best behavior even so. There are several possible reasons for this. Touga could be learning the use of social graces, for his own purposes. I put that one a little beyond him, due to his age. Social niceties are not high on any young boy’s internal list of things to learn. He could be naturally well-behaved. Surprisingly, compared to his behavior later, I think this does have some bearing on it. Touga says something in the later episodes that seems very out of place for his character, but makes sense with this theory.

Touga:  You're driving quite fast.
Akio:  She's purring nicely, don't you think? Care to take the wheel?
Touga:  What? But I still don't...
Akio:  You're too strict...

This has been translated in various ways (‘but I’m not’ being the one I remember right now), and can have many different interpretations, but the easiest one is to finish Touga’s sentence thus:

Touga:  What? But I still don't have a driver’s license.

He’s 17, and in Japan, you need to be 18 to drive a car. He’s driven a motorcycle, and  driving a car is the same idea with a different configuration; unless we want to stray into the realms of the magical (Akio’s car having power of its own, which I’ve never given credence to), the main reason Touga would give a kneejerk refusal is because of an internal respect for rules. This also shows itself in the repeated elevator sequence; if we’re to take that as actually happening whenever the Seitokai meets, the fact that Touga carries it on even though he very likely could call it quits and no one would care, shows again a respect for rules. As does his order to Saionji in the last episode; he tells Saionji not to take off the ring. Obviously, nothing bad is going to happen if they do take off their rings, as Nanami removes hers, but this too shows a respect for rules. As I said, it’s possible that he was a naturally well behaved child, as we see these instances of respect for rules popping up at odd moments throughout the show.

Another reason Touga would behave well in a situation like that, and the one I think had the most bearing on it, is desire for approval and affection. People desire approval. It’s a fact of life. There is no person that can get along knowing that no one approves of their actions. This assumption is the hardest to find evidence for, as Touga doesn’t overtly desire approval and affection in his later life. It is the one thing, however, that strings together Touga’s behavior at that long-ago birthday party, his hordes of paramours, and the callous way he treats people that desire his affection. If he tried every day of his life to make his parents love him and approve of him, and he failed, he would try it with others. This is the reason he would collect and encourage a horde of fangirls. He would need someone to show affection for him on demand, and that demand would be all the greater if it was frustrated earlier in life. It would take more people to satisfy it, as he would very often need the reassurance that he wasn’t inconsequential and that someone cared about him. When he had satisfied himself that he could get affection whenever he wanted, this affection would become unnecessary to him, which explains the lack of consequence he attaches to his floozies. As well, a lack of affection would make him bitter; to need someone’s affection is to be in their power. They are able to control your mood simply by giving or withholding affection. If he saw that and resented it, he would certainly do the same thing to others out of a need to make up for his previous powerlessness. Nanami desires his affection; obviously he gave and withheld that affection as he saw fit, and it turned her into the slavishly adoring creature we see now. Saionji desires his affection, and Touga has done the same there as well—it has turned out far worse for Saionji, however, as our perceptive green-haired friend saw that Touga was amusing himself, and developed an inferiority complex over whether he was worth anything. The fangirls desire Touga’s affection, and he plays them off each other for his own amusement.

What could possibly make this need so strong that Touga would warp the people he should have valued most? This much is simple. Touga is older than Nanami, and as Gio said in Motive and Source, he very likely remembers what it’s like to be loved for himself, by his birth parents. That’s the only thing that could guarantee that he would search it out with such single-mindedness—the memory of love, and the knowledge that he no longer has it.

Touga has sometimes been accused of being a heartless character, but by my line of reasoning, he is quite the opposite. It’s true that he’s cruel, and it’s true that he’s manipulative, but in my opinion, he learned these things out of self defense. He very likely made himself into a playboy because he needed to be loved any way that he could find it, and he very likely toys with the love of others in revenge for the way his child’s heart was toyed with. No matter what, though, he is not heartless, and it is in fact the needs of his heart that drive him to be what he is.