I realize that this anime blog is, as I always mention, intended for moe, and all it entails. It's not so much a genre as a style, an additional feature that can stand on its own (regardless of whether it should), but can also be added to another show as akin to a condiment. It is, in the popular definition, a set of traits and personality types which converge, however eventually, to a common point.

Even so, there is one particular form of moe which has never quite grabbed me in the same way as, say, glasses or silence. Strangely enough, at least in the Anglophone anime fandom, it appears to be the most popular, or rather the one with the most vocal contingent. It is a personality type that relies on being abusive, insulting, and unpleasant towards their target audience, in the hopes of some sort of payoff at the end. This is, of course, the tsundere.

This is one of those words which has no real English equivalent. It is difficult to explain with a definition, but somewhat easier to provide examples of. The vague idea has been around for somewhat longer than anime itself, but only reached its current form, complete with a Platonic ideal and a parodifiable stereotype, quite recently. TVTropes, as usual, has an article.

This post will be rather different from my previous posts on the aspects of moe, in that I don't actually understand this particular variety. (This must be how non-moe fans feel about us.) So I'll be relying on other people to explain why they like tsundere characters; in this case, a friend of mine who would like to go on the record as insisting that he is not speaking for all of the tsundere fandom, but merely his own personal tastes.

Since I am incredibly biased, I get to go first.

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