Takeru Takaishi (TK)

[Madame Pika]

Here's a character that for a long time I got completely wrong. I thought he was a Gary-Stu. He isn't after all.

However I still don't feel I really understand him. I know he is calm and good with girls. I know that in the first season he is desperate to prove himself and succeeds in the eyes of his brother that allows some of the complications in the second season. (Yeah, turned out that his experience was all adding to the team... wait a second, the whole fight with Ken due to Patamon dieing... okay, adding less than thought in more ways than one.) I'll explain later on, bit long. It is beginning to appear to me that he may not have a nurturing side.

Anyhow, I'd like not to focus on the bad too much. I'm sure that there's alot that I could find out that would show him to be throughly interesting.

[gatogirl919]

Well you're right he is a nice guy. He's extremely protective of Kari and cares about her deeply. He's also very fond of and very close to his Digimon Patamon.

[Digidestined of Trust]

I know it's just a show, but I can't help but feel that he has that nurturing side for her. It's just the way the approach it in the scenes that they're together, 01 and 02. He doesn't have to say it, it's just there. In a sense T.K. kind of reminds me of myself a bit, try to be calm, caring, yet I can get pretty angry when I am persuaded, when I'm a bit annoyed by something, aka Davis for him, my brothers for me, and when it's something I don't like at all, such as the evil, like cursing or something like that, I tend to get that riled up side like T.K. does. I don't really know what it would be like to lose your partner digimon in a battle, but it's one of those things that you still can come to understand.

And he's also not thingyy, he tries to be friendly with everyone, and I don't see him as one of those people that act cool around other people to get their attention.

[Madame Pika]

He does indeed have a nuturing side for Hikari. I was abit foolish to say that he could lack a nuturing side in the way I did. I meant it but, only in terms of being unable to understand younger kids. Of course, this never really being confrimed one way or the other in the series, it's hard to really say (unless you count Iori of course). Like I said, he's good with women which is partly way he is so good with Hikari. (This does not reduse the chances of Takari by the way).

I've heard that losing a friend in battle is undescribable.

Yep, he's not thingyy for sure. I've got more to say but I have to go.

[lordpata]

Well TK we can say he is a very interesting character, misterious in some ways, Cody showed us that when he had problems to understand him, little Cody was confused for him it was like if TK had two sides, the side that cares and worries about his friends and the side that can't stand the powers of darkness, but after talking with Matt and even with TK himself Cody got to understand him better, in the end of one of the episodes where TK and Cody are on the beach just them and their digimon, TK told this to Cody on the original version.

"Life isn't good nor bad, Life is simply wonderful"

in a sense TK had a maturity far beyond his physical age, this due to what he had to experience all those years ago, also there is a key part that explains why TK can't stand when the powers of Darkness use people or digimon for their own gain, it comes in something Matt told Cody after he told him about the battle with Devimon.

"Angemon taught TK the horror.... of the powers of darkness and the importance of the life"

Which is all true since Angemon had to die to defeat Devimon.

TK never showed to be a jealous guy, this is proven on episode 7, when he and Davis finally found Kari on Andromon's city Kari all glad said:

"Davis! TK! you came for me!"

Davis then started to gloat about it telling TK in a sing a long way:

"Did you see that TK, she said my name first"

And TK far to get annoyed or jealous just smiled at him and said:

"Congratulations"

So as you see I don't know where some digimon fans that doesn't like TK say he is a prep o.o

I do believe TK would have been a good leader for the 02 team but at the same time I think Toei was right in not give him the leadership, precisely because of his issue about Patamon's death, it would have been too risked like when he confronted the Digimon Emperor, still TK proved to be a pretty good strategist and to be a voice of the reason when Davis wanted to jump the gun and go straight to fight (episode when they save Gabumon)

All in all I see TK as a character with a lot of potential but that has been misunderstood.

Then again seeing the changes the US dub did to the personalities of the characters compared to the original version I'm not surprised several fans see TK like if he was a Gary-stu

Same applies to other characters like Patamon, etc. they had important dialogs in the original version but they got changed for bad jokes messing all the character itself with it.

[Digidestined of Trust]

Agreed. I'm watching some of the originals and in fact I was quite surprised on some of the actions of them. But that's because when translating it into English they had to remove some of those details mostly because of the language content. I don't like the language either, because I'm a Christian, so it stunned me when I started watching the Japanese Originals with the English subs and saw all that stuff. I'm going like whoa, T.K.!

[lordpata]

Well remember a thing, on the subs for some cursing words they have to use in english the ones that could express when they're angry, maybe it was a different word in japanese but since not all words have a translation to english they change them for common cussing used on this side of the globe ^^

Still taking aside the language you can see the huge difference because not all the dialogs had bad language, take for example episode 13, in the original Kari calls for Tai, Gatomon and TK but on the US dub they removed her calling TK and put her calling the national guard, I mean that wasn't really necesary o.o

Another example is with Patamon, episode 7 of 02 when as Pegasusmon he is hit by Andromon and dedigivolves falling on TK's arms, on the US dub Patamon after that said "I'll take two cheeseburguers and a big order of fries" his real line there was "Perfect digimon are too powerful" Perfect digimon is what we know as ultimate level here, but the main point is that there was no language issues for them to change those dialogs

About TK I think you saw episode 19 with subs right? the one of him vs Ken, I think there is some translation errors there for example after the flashback TK said "I didn't knew a d**n thing, I couldn't do a d**n thing...." then TK yells the "F" word (not putting it here for respect to you all ^^) it wasn't necesary the "F" word, with just have put in the subs a "d**nit!" would have been enough, is not as strong as the "F" word and yet keeps the context of how angry TK was.

Besides I doubt in Japan they have an exact word that means the "F" one remember that some cussing on the american english are modisms created in the country and that they don't have exact translation in other languages so it needs to use an aproximated word in the translation.

Anyhow back on topic. Taking out the language Issue you still can see that TK is not a Gary-Stu type of character, all oposite Digimon has a very human nature, the characters have their own personal issues like dealing with parents divorce (TK and Matt) mother-daughter issues (Sora and her mom), guilt charge (Tai when Kari nearly died by his fault), etc. They didn't gave us characters with perfect lives (well except Davis, he told MaloMyotismon himself that he didn't had any worries nor fears XD), they gave us characters that while dealing with the digimon they also had to deal with their own lives too but some fans misunderstand this thinking that the characters are Emos, or Mary-Sues or Gary-Stues, or Crybabies, etc.

[Digidestined of Trust]

Gotcha, good to clear things up on that. It's unfortunate that we have to do that, since we don't have the right translations. But yeah, that sums it up pretty well.

[gatogirl919]

Well guys, I hate to make this like a whole why does the U.S do this to dubs chat, but I think one of the reasons they do this(this is one of the shows in particular) is because its too serious. It's supposed to be a children's show. Or at least over here in America, that's what we portray it as. We can't make the show too serious for 5 year olds. They'll fall asleep! That's why they throw in the retarded/pointless lines like "I'll take two cheeseburgers and a big order of fries". No one would want to watch this. Now I know people are thinking what about the older kids like us, but let's be honest here. Do you really believe that all the older kids would want to watch this show that they think is retarded? NO! Now, no I don't think Digimon is retarded, but we all know that in the minds of some people, and especially in today's world will think like this. Now I know I'm not describing everyone in America, but still.
And I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being mean, but I'm not trying to, and I'm not calling us retards. I love everyone on here and everyone who reads Digimania.

Back on topic now.

[lordpata]

getting a bit off topic again, you have a point about the US dubbers aiming to children, plus that sure expands the viewers and that results in the merchandise selling better too .

I still remember how FoxKids made huge advertisment of the movie, putting the kids on america videoclip, then we have the famous digi-bloop what? (Myotismon: Behold my power! *nothing happens* okay where is my power XD), and a bunch of other stuff, but oddly enough Foxkids Latinamerica including Mexico didn't took the US dubs of any of the first 4 seasons to dub them to spanish, here they were direct japanese to spanish dubs, I compared the dialogs of the original version with the ones of the spanish dub here and they were pretty accurate, just small changes like one to another word or the phrasing but the main meaning of the dialog got retained, the changes were mostly for lip synch purposes.

Also there were things that got changed in the US dub that hadn't nothing to do with aiming it to little children like mixing Joe's brothers into one character, Joe has two brothers, Shin and Shuu Kido, Shin is the one Joe finds on the closet in 01 during the VenomMyotismon set of chapters, Shuu is the one Yolei met in Kyoto but in the US dub they turned the two brothers into one o.o

Though seeing the spanish dub gotta give the dubbers here a hat off because how smart they were to explain Yolei's name, on the first episode of 02 when TK meets with Yolei and Cody on the building's elevator, and he introduces himself to them, Yolei greets him and tells him her name is Yolei Inoue, Yolei because is the first silabes of Yoleito, pretty smart there to build up Yolei's introduction in the spanish dub xD

Now back to our normal schedule aka back on topic XD

[Madame Pika]

I still don't know if I can write this guy but, I'm going to try now. Thanks everyone.

To be honest, as a Chirstian myself, I felt more offended watching the dub than the original. In the original they tried really hard not to be offensive (Ken and Daisukes' chirstmas song is the first example that comes to mind) whilst in the dub they just arrogently assumed that they knew everything. (Also keep in mind that it's a downsight harder for the Japanese to find out about Western culture than it is for the dubbers.) *shakes head*

Anyway, back on topic (is everyone going to say this at some point), Takeru like I said from the start is not a Gary-Stu.

Without even looking at the character the opion that he is doesn't make too much sence. Daisuke says he doesn't have any worries yet he... well, do I really need to explain that Daisuke's got no/little idea on how people think. Even the older Chosen have been given new faults... like I think that Taichi gave Daisuke the goggles because he felt that Daisuke would be the best in making sure that he retained power over the team. Sora too has obvious extra fluats. It wouldn't make sence for them not to give Takeru a few extra, not in a series like this anyway.

Whilst I do think that we are supposed to compair the characters with one anouther (love trianges, Jogress evololtion, matching crests, ect...) I don't think Takeru is just a comparison character.

The main thing stopping him from being one is the death of Angemon (Wormmon died to, but I think that's different in so many ways that you can't really compair). This effected him greatly and causes the most conflit within him. When I first saw the arc leading up to Iori and Takerus' first Jogress evolution, I thought that it made it seem like it was all Iori's fault.

However, looking at it now, it appears that Iori is wanting to help Takeru but doesn't understand/know how.

By the way, I always thought that 'Gary-Stu' just meant male without flauts but reading this it seems that there is an actual sterotype for it. Was I right the first time, second time or really really confused.

[gatogirl919]

Well coming back to the part about Wormmon comparison, they do have something in comparison:realization. TK's realization was something about life. His life,everyone's life, and the value of life itself. But Ken's realization is about himself. He's waking up to the real Ken. The real Ken that Wormmon knew was there all along. He clearly states it in the dub several times.

And I think you were right the first time. Now I'm confused....*holds head*

[lordpata]

Exactly about Cody and TK, Cody sometimes didn't knew which was the real TK, the one that is caring and worries about him and his friends or the one that is harsh against the powers of darkness, that's why Cody went to see Matt to know more about TK, thing that confirms that during the episode of the Anniversary aka August 1st when they invited the new chosens aka Davis, Cody and Yolei, TK nor the others mentioned about Angemon's sacrifice during the battle with Devimon since Cody was surprised when Matt told him about it.

In a sense TK keeps some things to himself making him more misterious but he has his reasons to do so

[gatogirl919]

But that's understandable though.

[lordpata]

yeah, it sure is understandable, it wasn't something TK wants to return, another thing that helped me to understand each character was believe it or not the music score, for example when TK in episode 19 was remembering the battle with Devimon, the background music was a melody that really could make you feel what TK was going through, if there is something I have admired from Japan is their talent for the music, the way they make the music score for animes, movies, etc. es really amazing, it makes feel like if you're part of the anime or series you're watching ^^

In a sense that's what got me to understand the characters, guess it was so useful since it is how I translated it to my fics ^^

back on topic, TK in his very own style aported his good share to the team, I think I never gonna understand why some fans say he is a prep or an arrogant, believe me I have seen fans giving TK those descriptions, another one I saw once was that TK comes off as the
poster boy for Abercrombie, that one sure got me off guard, gotta admit that some fans are pretty interesting when it comes to the characters they don't like XD