Pretentious.

Kokomo, the Serious Shiny Pikachu

What do Taiga and Ryuuji talk about?

What do these two do when they're not on camera?

For that matter, what does Taiga do when she's on her own?

We get to see so much of them being stupid teenagers together, constantly screwing up and failing together, like a bootleg Team Rocket, and it make us root for them, and want to see them be HAPPY together, but we never see them just BEING. What common ground do they hold? How do they pass time together? They both clearly share mutual interest as far as clothes and food go, but the one time they actually discuss "fashion", it's just in passing, in service of introducing Ami.

Out of the main 5 characters, Taiga is the least developed, with the other 4 having clear interests or potential paths to follow with their lives. Ryuuji enjoys cooking, cleaning, fashion, and interior design. Ami is a model and her mother was an actress. Both Kidamura and Minori both have strong interest in athletic endeavors, with Kidamura being a scholar additionally, with clear intent to follow his senpai to America. Shit, even Haruta and Noto give their two cents on what their futures may hold, working with their parents or going into publishing respectively. Taiga is the only one who never shows any active interest in anything other than sitting her pretty little ass in front of the TV and eating whatever Ryuuji puts in front of her. Believe it or not, there are two filler episodes dedicated to Kidamura and Minori's development when we get nothing on Taiga herself, those Episodes being the Photo episode and helping Minori at work, and those episodes grate on me to no end due to their dispensability and irrelevance. Even when the prospect of "the future" is brought up in the story, her response is "I'm rich, so I don't have to do anything," and every time I see that scene, I wanna grind my knuckles into her cute little skull. Throughout the entire run of the show, she never does anything of her own volition, she has to be pushed or dragged into literally anything. We aren't provided with enough information in the slightest to picture any events that would follow that adorable final headbutt to her future husbands face, and that's why people THINK they want a season 2.

Even in the Visual Novel, which is sort of an alternate reality dating sim, where Ryuuji can end up with almost anybody (including his Mother and Ms. Yuri), the ending doesn't provide us with much to go off of. In Taiga's "True" Ending, we skip ahead a few years, where Ryuuji is an up and coming interior designer, and Taiga is pregnant with his triplets, as they return to Japan from their new home in Italy to visit Granny Yasuko. Everyone's super happy and successful.

This ending SUCKS.

As much as Taiga about to pop being stuffed full of Ryu's babies fills me with immeasurable joy, it's TOO happy an ending for our stupid teenagers. The whole show is them struggling together. I don't wanna see them rich and fancy, I wanna see them be normal, working class people, making ends meet and enjoying the small things in life. There's actually, in my opinion, a far better ending where Ryu ends up with KIDAMURA, of all people, where they make a Bros.-Before-Hoes style pact, and they work together to buy out Ryuuji's apartment complex and renovate the bottom floor into a restaurant, The Dragon Diner, where Granny Yasuko can retire and live in peace while her son and his best bro thrive and grow up before her very eyes. And who do you think is their number one customer? Wouldn't you know, it's Taiga, who's miserable watching Ryuuji and Kidamura be happy without her. The final line in the ending is Taiga wistfully asking herself where she and Ryuuji went wrong, Ryuuji not hearing her under her breathe as he gets ready to go work, serving nutritious meals at reasonable prices.

I love this ending so much more than the Taiga ending, because, while they're not a couple, Taiga and Ryuuji are still TOGETHER as we knew them in the show, and Taiga isn't going anywhere, as she makes it clear in her usual stubborn way, declaring herself Ryuuji's number one customer, and telling the bros they'd be lost without her. It fills me with hope, that, even if they're not "together", the two are still inseparable, and those triplets might still be in the future for the two, just not right now.

Ideally, I'd like for these two endings to be mashed together, where, Ryuuji and TAIGA buy the place they fell in love, renovate the bottom floor into a restaurant, The Palmtop Tiger (now named after the proprietors wife), and they work as husband and wife, with the retired Granny Yasuko helping raise the babies. Forget "Interior Design" in Italy, I wanna see Ryuuji make a name for himself the way he made his wife fall for him, with his cooking and hospitality. I wanna see Taiga develop some responsibility and support her husband, rather than just be dead weight as he supports both her and Yasuko.

Uh-oh… Ah… Waiter? There’s a porn in my soup.

Yeah, so, from now on, this blog is gonna have any and all art I feel like posting, both NSFW and not, cuz why the fuck not. Managing two accounts is just annoying and too much work.