Character · Toradora!
Ryuuji Takasu
The gentlest boy in the school looks like a contract killer, and only one very small girl has noticed the gap.
In Otakana the clue reads: Boy with a frightening face who loves cleaning
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Toradora!
- Letters
- 6 · Normal
Ryuuji Takasu inherited his absent father's eyes, which are narrow, sharp and permanently unnerving. Teachers assume the worst of him. Classmates cross corridors. What he actually does with his time is clean. He irons, he sews, he cooks, he complains about limescale, and he keeps the flat he shares with his mother in better order than most adults manage.
The story starts when he collides with Taiga Aisaka, a tiny classmate with a violent reputation who happens to live next door and cannot look after herself at all. They discover that each fancies the other's best friend and agree to help, an arrangement with a fairly obvious flaw that takes them most of a series to notice.
He works better as a lead than the premise suggests because his kindness has a cost attached to it. Ryuuji keeps that household running because nobody else will, and the story is quietly clear that a teenager acting as the adult in his own home is a situation rather than a personality trait. Takemiya wrote it that way deliberately.
Spelling RYUUJI
This one runs the trap backwards. Otakana wants RYUUJI with the doubled U spelled out, where most English releases print Ryuji and drop it. The Japanese opens with ryu for dragon, and that first syllable genuinely is long. Six letters, family name Takasu left off. If a row rejects RYUJI, the missing tile is a second U.