Thursday, July 29, 2010

Tasuku Kurosaki

Kurosaki is the secondary/second main character from Dengeki Daisy.

Like many of the characters in this manga, his personality is very complex. We know from small dips into the past that he was once a criminal hacker, as well as a someone who worked professionally with Teru's brother in some sort of business (or hacker ring). Back when he was a criminal hacker, he went under the name of Daisy, which actually referred to the war term Daisy Cutter. Its actually still rather unknown, but Kurosaki appears to have committed a slip-up so great that it not only caused Teru's brother his life, but also caused Kurosaki to take care of his younger sister Teru and remain using the name Daisy (a name he had long wanted to be rid of).

Now, we know that Teru was given a phone by her brother and told to contact the only person in its directory, taking her brother's place once he had passed away. Kurosaki of course was on the other end. So this tactic made it so that she didn't have a clue who he was, but since Kurosaki and Teru's brother worked together, it could be possible that he somehow already was given a heads up of who she was.

This being said, he seems to have abandoned his criminal ways (at least mostly) and is now a janitor at Teru's school. In some odd split sense of misplaced judgement, Kurosaki tracked down Teru after she broke a window at her school, and made her work as his janitorial helper to pay it off. Perhaps he made her work with him during her time off from classes because he wanted an excuse to keep a closer eye on her, or maybe it was because Teru was getting into fights with the student council, a road that could have had a very negative affect on her personality in the future. Whatever the real reason was, he made the choice to make contact with her. And his choice was something that would change both his life and hers forever.

Kurosaki may be old enough to know better than to go charging in and being the hero, but when it comes to Teru's safety, all hope is lost. He may have stopped being the criminal hacker for himself, but he isn't afraid to use his hacking skills and other means when it comes to protecting her. This not only includes a mean temper and an arsenal of phrases that can make people cringe in fear, but also a set of expressions that are reserved for those "if looks could kill" moments. For all his roughness on the outside, though, it isn't to say he doesn't have any common sense. For instance, when Teru's house gets broken into and she texts Daisy, Kurosaki gets pretty angry at himself for being useless and the person who broke into her house. In fact, when she happened to make her way back to the shop he was in, just out of pure memory and instinct, he almost lost himself completely at the sight of her. But the whole time before she came, he remained completely rooted to the shop, convinced that, no matter what, he could not go off and try to rescue her. Not only would he never be able to explain how he knew, but if she found out about him being Daisy, he believed it would ruin everything.

In the beginning parts of the series, Kurosaki used to tease Teru quite a bit, but this began to fade slowly after Teru spent some time living with him. There was a point where he woke up in the middle of the night for a nightmare related to Teru's brother. The result was tears pouring down his face, and a chain of heavy coughing. This woke up Teru. Now, he yelled at her to go away, but she didn't. Instead, she brought him water and a towel. This was probably the first time that he allowed himself to really hold Teru in his arms without the motive being to comfort her. It was even mentioned later that he had kissed the nave of her neck.

Another time where Kurosaki's tough exterior slipped was when Teru was moving in with a female friend of Kurosaki's. This would result in Teru leaving his place for the first time in a while. He teased her, and she countered. This continued until he mentioned something about spending the night with him. She fell apart on the spot, telling him to stop joking. She even left her seat at the table and walked into the kitchen to cry. Of course, this broke Kurosaki's heart. The second she got up and left, he called after her and his eyes followed her. He immediately got up to apologize to her.

The thing was, even after she moved out though, she lived just next door, so she often still ended up staying at his place from time to time anyway. This probably caused his feelings towards her to progress even more. There was one time when she fell asleep after crying about something. He came extremely close to kissing her before he covered her with a blanket and turned out the lights. This was probably about the time where he really began to lose his composure. But what we now know is that, this was after the time that Teru had already found out that Kurosaki was actually Daisy.

Not until recently did we know that Kurosaki can always tell when Teru is lying. He's caught her doing it several times, and corrected her, sometimes gently and other times with a knock to the noggin or two. But another crucial factor, is that he knew the second Teru found out that he was Daisy, but chose to say nothing to her about it because she denied any knowledge of an item that would prove he was Daisy.

From what we've seen, we might suspect that Kurosaki in fact just does what he can to protect Teru because he loves her, but in fact that isn't quite the case either. He once rescued a friend of Teru's who had just betrayed her, when he was about to be run over by a speeding car. He even helped her friend sort out his priorities after the fact. So as it turns out, Kurosaki is just a genuinely nice person.

Of course, to what extent Kurosaki's love reached was also unknown until he sheltered Teru from a falling desk and chair, taking a concussion to the head. It was an accident that could have been deadly under the wrong circumstances. So, with that knowledge, we can safely say that he would give his life for her, without a doubt.

SPOILER: There's also a chapter a little later in the series that has yet to be translated. In this chapter, Kurosaki saves her from drowning. When he pulls her out, he holds her close to him until she opens her eyes.

When she went missing for a few hours, after a guy she knew took her to a cake shop, and her cell phone died, Kurosaki ran all over the city, seeking out every shop that could possibly have her inside. When he finally found her, he was half mad and drenched to the skin in sweat, completely sunk in worry.

As a character, Kurosaki is haunted by the demons he created in his past. He struggles with the sin he feels he's committed and the intense love that he feels for Teru. His hard exterior is mostly a made up part of his personality, meant to push Teru and the rest of the people who know him away. Even so, it's also a product of the pain that he has endured. The closer he gets to Teru though, the more he's unable to maintain this rough image. He's extremely protective, the way he was meant to be... like a husband would be to his wife... but as he falls deeper in love, his protection turns into a kind of rage to protect her. She, however, only needs to spill a few tears, and Kurosaki looses all composure. He likes being in control, and will often do rash things when a situation is out of his hands. All in all, he is an overwhelmingly kind person, with a slightly childish temper. He wants to be the one in the middle of the action, but pays the price when things get too far out of hand. Yet he blames no one but himself. He sees the world as a kaleidoscope of goods and evils, and has no qualms with going out to meet them head-on, especially when Teru is involved.

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