☔️

Like this might just be my bias towards him since he is one of my favs, but I can picture him being a true literary author. I can see him being able to write heartbreaking stories about family, love, the society and the injustice in the world.

The tri. interviews have this general habit of bizarrely misinterpreting the Adventure characters and then claiming that this was “always” the case, but one thing that really confuses me is that even the two scriptwriters who were childhood fans of the series claimed that Takeru had been flirtatious with girls since 02.

Huh??????????

Was he?!

When you look at the way he approaches Miyako, he…actually keeps his distance from her. Despite all of her ridiculous antics throughout the series, he never really teases her nor gives her trouble about it to the extent others do, and he generally treats her neutrally and with respect.

Hikari? Well, he’s certainly close with her, but…that’s one girl, whom he has an existing prior relationship with, and it’s not like he’s flirting with her nor actively seeming like he’s trying to get into her good books. It’s a very natural relationship that just kind of happened to fall in that way, if anything, and he genuinely cares about her a lot, too.

It’s to the extent that his own voice actor from 02, Yamamoto Taisuke, said that he felt that his single mom must have raised him to be nice and respectful to girls. Obviously he wasn’t the writer for Takeru or anything, but it does say a lot that the person assigned to read his lines got this impression, and personally I would agree that he seems to come off this way; he keeps a friendly but safe distance with girls in general.

Now, there are definitely times he gets tease-y and puts on a playful （＾ｖ＾）  face. But, uh…

and he’s just not shy about the attention

(could argue that he was lookin at his teammates or anyone else, but these came immediately after each other so i could understand if someone thought they were related)

He also emphasized Takeru as one of the most pure-hearted characters (source)

That lines up perfectly with what we see in the series. In Adventure (when he was a little kid), Takeru was already shown as kind, empathetic, and good at soothing others — including girls. In Zero Two, the Christmas arc moment with Catherine (where he and Taichi kiss her on the cheek as a friendly/French-style greeting) is playful and cultural, not him being a flirt. In school, he's quite popular with the girls. But does he come off as a "ladykiller/playboy"when he interacts with them? No.

I read some headcanons and stories where Kari gets a boyfriend and Tai gets overprotective over her, but I think otherwise.

After rewatching the series and watching Tri, I believe that Tai's reaction would be initally be acceptance and would be easygoing to Kari's boyfriend (and if Tai personally knows Kari's boyfriend aka T.K. *cough*, he would be more friendly to him). Tai respects his sister's decision (since they grew up together and Kari eventually gains her independence) and would be thrilled to see that she is growing up to be a more responsible and sensible woman. Tai would even give Kari opinions and advice to ensure that they have a good relationship. Tai might even be a third wheel on some untimely occassions and Kari (and boyfriend) would happily help him find a partner to ease the awkwardness.