Tsundere love: "Takako Itsukushima" figure, novel, goods

(tags figure, anime, game, PlayStation 2, telephone card, bishojo, tsundere)

Takako: You are my rival! (cold stare)

I wouldn't want to fight her over a battle of wits.

Ah, yeah, that was a failed photo-op.

Anyway, Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru (「乙女(おとめ)はお姉さま(僕)に恋してる」, my trans (flaky convoluted): Girls in Love With Elder Sister (Who Is Really A Guy)) that 2006/10 anime is over but I've gone crazy over tsundere princess Takako Itsukushima (厳島貴子). I even bought the Saito Fumiki (斉藤史樹) figure published by Alter Limited, pictured above and below. Here's some photo reviews at other places like Jouji Reso-su Busoku (常時リソース不足), Senaka (せなか).

Takako is one of the traditional tsundere examples. Takako is the student council president (seito kaicho 生徒会長) of the all-girls high school in this shojo-themed love story. She adopts a rival stance towards the newcomer Mizuho, the enigmatic but alluringly elegant transfer student who just happens to be a guy (let's forget this plot detail for the sake of introduction). But Mizuho doesn't act clearly as a rival or as a friend, and Takako begins to develop romantic feelings towards Mizuho. "Tsun" because she can't read Mizuho. "Dere" because despite the doubt, she feels attracted to Mizuho.

Regarding Mizuho (瑞穂), I always thought that it was strictly a girl's name. Can it really be used for a guy?

Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru (JP wikipedia) was originally an adult ecchi PC game. When converting to consumer mainstream, the porters first change the title from "virgin" (shojo, 処女) to "maiden" (otome, 乙女) (both kanji have the furigana "otome" as a forced reading). Both the PlayStation 2 game and the anime use this new title.

Because I loved the anime, which was essentially the "Takako" scenario from the game, I wanted to play it. But it was quicker just to read the novel (shown above). Actually I bought the novel after watching the second to last episode, and finished reading it just before watching the final episode. The novel goes into more events and more depth, and makes the anime feel rushed. Now that both the book and anime are over, I don't feel like reading any other scenario, since they don't seem as interesting.

Finally, around the time the PlayStation 2 game came out (2005/12), that Takako telephone card (photo lower left) which was a Gamers exclusive, tempted me to buy the game. But since I decided to pass on it, I picked up just the telephone card later somewhere in Nipponbashi Den Den Town, probably Books Lashinbang. I think the same goes for the other telephone card.

BTW, the other person in those pictures is supposed to Mizuho. Does that look like a guy to you?

I am planning to buy this anime series at Gamers, with yet another telephone card omake "carrot", mainly because of the high visual quality and the scenario/story. As a DVD exclusive, there will be one more non-broadcast episode tacked onto the 4th DVD.

Personally I think the voice actresses on this one don't add anything special to the story, even though my favorite seiyuu Yui Horie (堀江由衣) voices Mizuho and Masumi Asano (浅野真澄) voices Mariya. Horie doesn't do a convincing job of making me believe that Mizuho is a guy, but then again, the whole story is a rip of a shojo fantasy, albeit made palatable to guys with bishojo tendancies. I rather enjoy Asano's Mariya, because she is active and outgoing and off the wall. Who voices Takako? Chiaki Takahashi (たかはし智秋), who for the life of me I can't remember what other roles she did. But I know she's in IdolM@ster. Um, I am ambivalent actually.