Angel Beats! - Kanade Tachibana Character Discussion

Key Discussion
#11

Well dammit, Yerian just stole practically everything I was about to say about Kanade.

Well I guess this is as good a place as ever to bring up a topic that’s been in my head (and may seem controversial for others); Kanade is extremely extremely grateful for Otonashi for giving her his heart, but she doesn’t love him in a romantic sense. What put this idea in my head was the fact that, in the last episode, no matter how much Otonashi was bawling, telling her he loves her, she would only reply with a bunch of "Thank you"s. From there on, I was observing their relationship, and I felt like she didn’t feel anything towards him in a romantic sense. Well, to begin with, she doesn’t really show much emotion, but there has to be something if she felt anything romantic towards him…

That aside, she probably greatly cares for him, as is evidenced by how she helps him throughout the series. However, I just simply cannot feel that care as anything romantic.

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#12

[quote=“Yerian, post:10, topic:1164”]
READ HEAVEN’S DOOR
[/quote]

bandicam 2015-04-22 21-05-14-407.jpg800×600 124 KB

If Kanade doesn’t get very much development in Heaven’s Door anyways, then that’s just another reason for me to avoid it altogether.

[quote=“Pepe, post:11, topic:1164”]
That aside, she probably greatly cares for him, as is evidenced by how she helps him throughout the series. However, I just simply cannot feel that care as anything romantic.
[/quote]If she retains that same attitude in the VN, I might just lose hope for her route… :’(

#13

Eh? I’m a bit confused what your grudge against Heaven’s Door is, not that I mind if you don’t want to read it.

You certainly see more to her character in Heaven’s Door (although not much). Compared to the personality she had in Angel Beats, or lack thereof, Kanade feels a lot more believable in Heaven’s Door, even if it’s just through small moments. Shame that you don’t see more of her, but that’s just the nature of the manga.

Even though I agree with Pepe in that the relationship seemed to mostly be a one-sided romance in the anime, I feel that it’s unlikely it will remain that way in the visual novel. I believe it’s intended to be a romantic relationship in the anime and that it didn’t really get enough time to become fleshed out and ended up coming across wrong as a result. Regardless of what the anime intended, though, I’d be shocked if there wasn’t romance between the two of them in the visual novel.

As for my thoughts about Kanade? Well, I don’t have anything to say that others haven’t. She, like most of the Angel Beats cast, has a lot of untapped potential™ and is just dying to have more time to herself. You’d need to make something like, I dunno, a visual novel route dedicated to her to even have the time to do her justice.

So here’s my verdict on her character:

Angel Beats!: 4/10

Heaven’s Door: 6/10

xth Beat: Hype/10

6 Likes
#14

For the record I don’t like Kanade very much! The moe in this one is very unlikable. Animade is -extremely- NO GUSTA.

However 4Koma and HD Kanade are actually good. She isn’t portrayed all over as HAHA AWW MOE HEHE and just acts like a person who’s above petty squabbles. She acts much more intelligent and empathetic. All around portrays more complex emotions as opposed to no emotions.

But yeah she’s horrific in the anime and I feel HanaKana makes it worse. I see what they’re going for but I’m worried that I’m going to feel like sleeping through all of her parts in the novel.

#15

Seemed like the same old brick to me in HD.

#16

Idk if it’s the way Yuriko draws her or what but when you remove the moemoe and HanaKanaing she seems alright. The Yusa thing and the other things and the MasaHisa thing all point towards good things with this one.

#17

I wonder if Kanade Tachibana has some personal theme like this song, it maybe really awesome for her.


When I thought like that, I have knew now that If Some of OSTs of Armored Core: For Answer are suited for Angel Beats!, Some OSTs of Angel beats! are too!

Q: What is an Armored Core?
A: Armored Core is a one of very difficult mecha game series that the player must beat the game by your designed AC.
Q: So, What about Armored Core and Angel Beats! Series?
A: why I said like that, Some OSTs especially AC: for answer have mostly similar to the OST of Angel Beats! So This is the reason why I created this topic to tell everyone.

Oh well, Because Armored Core can make a mecha as you want, so I have designed ACs for all members of Girls Dead Monster already, if you want to see their AC that designed by me, Reply me I will show it you. :grinning:

#18

I don’t get it. Instead of just using Armored Core OST, why didn’t you just say “BGM/OST from other visual novels, games, anime’s, etc. that would fit into Angel Beats!” ?

#19

Oh, I’m sorry that I said with the wrong word.

#20

I actually found Kanade’s emotionlessness kind of humorous sometimes. Whenever she says something that any normal person would add a lot of emotion too I can’t help but laugh.
And there’s that scene where she’s helping Otonashi steal Yui’s guitar and she’s really bad at acting. That always makes me laugh.
And I like the Mapo Tofu gag. Her Mapo Tofu song was great :stuck_out_tongue:

There’s a lot of AB! characters I like a lot more, but Kanade isn’t as bland to me as characters who don’t get as much screen time (like Fujimaki or Yusa or Takeyama).

I didn’t mind Kana Hanazawa as Kanade. Her English VA made me cringe though.

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#21

Kanade is becoming a very strange phenomenon because of how the AB! franchise is developing. As pointed out plenty of times already, the anime version is almost completely devoid of emotions. She gets a personality in Heaven’s Door, but because the early SSS only interact with her when they break school rules we mostly only see the serious part. The interesting bit comes when Otonashi enters the picture in the VN. The VN clearly displays that Kanade is actually dumb as a sack of bricks. She also has her weird Chuuni tendencies. It’s very cute in a pitiful way. Probably the best example is how she tries to restore Otonashi’s memories by pushing him down a staircase and he has to tell her that only works in movies. Despite all that, Kanade is the one to draw the most sensible conclusions about the after life. Though at the same time, her assuming everyone has drawn the same conclusions is basically the cause of the whole conflict between her and the SSS. Otonashi says that Kanade is awkward, and she agrees, but that’s like the understatement of the century. She’s completely incapable of interacting with people, yet she has helped a shitton of people graduate. So the multiple depictions of Kanade can be taken really differently; it’s pretty funny comparing them. Thankfully there is a lot of consistency between HD and the VN, so I can only assume Maeda has a plan of some kind.

A lot of things surrounding Kanade seems to revolve around not overthinking things. In order to clear Next Beat, you need several pieces of information, and Kanade tells Otonashi most of them. Among them are Kanade being human and that everyone reincarnates into humans. These are just misconceptions that Yurippe plants in Otonashi’s brain when he first gets to the afterlife. When talking to Kanade, she makes it all seem so obvious. Of course I can’t say where this “theme” is going, but 'tis probably a silly place, and I’m strapped in for the ride.

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#22

Hmm that being the case, I wonder if her awkwardness is relatrd to how she grew up. We know that she has had a heart condition (and how otonashi saved her life for a few more years) somaybe that can imply that she grew up without much social interaction? Like all her life was spent in the hospital or something

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#23

-wondering why I’ve never posted in this thread-
Kanade is by far my favorite character out of all anime. aka Waifu
-incoming random rambling-
But tbh if someone were to ask me why I love her so much I don’t think I could 100% explain why. And also I’m not even sure why alot of other people like her. I was suprised when I found she was super popular.
She served as a starting point for what my taste in anime girls are now. White hair and that calm/awkward personality are things that I really like in a lot of characters.
I can agree with a good number of things that has been said like, she’s pretty awkward and kind of slow around certain things and I really wished they did have more background information.
There’s much more I want to say but I’m bad at putting those words out properly which might be one of the things I like about Kanade because of the similiarities. ^^"

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#24

That is kind of what I had assumed.

During her goodbye to Otonashi, after he confesses to her and she explains her gratitude she says “Repeat what you just said” with a happy look on her face. I imagined she wouldn’t have done this if she did not feel the same way to Otonashi. I haven’t read Heaven’s Door yet (I know, I know, I’m getting around to it) but in the anime she never really said how she felt about anything really, so this is like the closest she would get to saying “I love you.”

Or, to put my argument a slightly different way:
LET ME BELIEEEVE!

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#25

Probably. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not the case either. A lot of people are naturally socially awkward. Then within those who are, only a small percentage tries to change.

But it is true and a pretty obvious fact that her heart condition may cause her to be outcasted by others, sadly. Not to mention even from what we’ve seen from her in the anime, she’s alone and is an individual, not relying on others, only herself.

Kanade is definitely one of the most lonliest and individual Key heroines, maybe tied with Yumemi and Nao.

#26

Could be. However, Im more inclined to think that this scene was a result of neither Otonashi nor Kanade actually “loving” one another, but being forced into a very emotional moment while neither of them fully understanding how they actually feel about each other.

Think about it this way. Otonashi has a huge sense of guilt concerning this girl. Not only does he feel terrible for fighting against her for so long when she had been trying to help, but now he realizes he has a deep, unknown connection to her, and all she wanted to do was thank him. Meanwhile, he does really like her, and they get along pretty well. Add a shitton of adrenaline from the situation and then contrast that with the stress relief response of crying, the body gets a bunch mixed signals. Easy to confuse that for love and just blurt something out in the heat of the moment.

Then there’s Kanade. She owes the largest debt to Otonashi: her life. Not only that but she’s been waiting to thank him for who knows how long. She’s also recently grown to like him as a person. But she also is much more collected. Perhaps she’s seen similar situations thousands of times with all the people she’s helped graduate. Or perhaps it a combination of that and her awkwardness. Either way, her main goal in this scene is to 1) make Otonashi happy and therefore 2) fulfil her regret of never being able to thank him so she can finally graduate. So when the guy blurts out “I love you”, of course she’s going to return his affection. Perhaps she even hopes that in acting in such a way, she could help him graduate as well.

Just my two cents.

You obviously havent read AIR then :yukitgla:

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#27

I’m curious to see which way Meada will take this in the VN. I can definitely see it going the way you explained, but it would also feel kind of against his style to not have a clear romantic pairing between the main guy and main girl.

#28

Wow gee, thanks for slowly breaking my theory that “While Otonashi loves Kanade romantically, I’m not sure whether she feels the same way towards him” :stuck_out_tongue: I still won’t let go of it until I have solid proof though!

(@Yerian got my back too)

Well now, it’s still arguable whether Kanade will be the “main girl” for the VN series. She might just end up having one route like all the other girls

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#29

The person I’m most trying to convince is myself :sweat_smile:

Well now, it’s still arguable whether Kanade will be the “main girl” for the VN series. She might just end up having one route like all the other girls

If Kanade isn’t the main girl do you think they would make Yuri main girl, or just not have a main girl at all? I would be kind of interested in seeing that…

#30

Based on the world of Angel Beats, this is actually my theory at the moment… Kind of like (other key series) Little Busters with Refrain

Little Busters! - General Discussion