Tanaka

**Tanaka** (田中?) is the protagonist and the titular character of *Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge*.

Tanaka has a slender physique with short, fluffy dark-brown hair (colored black in the anime series). The left and right side of his bangs are swept toward his ears, though the middle falls between his eyes. His black-colored eyes often appear to be dull. He is usually seen wearing an apathetic expression. He is described to be handsome and prince-like by Oota's younger sister, so it can be thought that Tanaka is more good-looking than one might come to expect of his character.

When not wearing his school uniform, Tanaka's casual wear is simple jeans with a t-shirt or hoodie. Due to his indifference towards everything, it can be assumed that his choices in clothing are arbitrary at best and lazily thrown together otherwise.

## Personality

Tanaka is a listless teenager who always dozes off and acts exhausted when awake. He often sighs and avoids putting effort into things, all while being accompanied by his friend, Oota. Due to his disdain towards hard work, he often relies on his family and friends to assist him. Tanaka is apathetic and hardly ever outwardly expresses how he feels. When he does, it's normally done in a lazy manner, thus making him seem mature at best and uncaring at worst. He rarely exerts more energy than required of him; however, he shows a surprising dedication to maintaining his lazy lifestyle and daily routine, even going out of his way sometimes to maintain it even at the cost of expending energy he'd rather not use. Tanaka only exerts effort for things that he is either interested in or believes to concern him a great deal. Though, he is noted to be a kind person, such as buying Oota ice cream or worrying about not being a good brother to Rino. Although Tanaka's personality may come across as self-centered or overly demanding, he has no malice behind his behavior, and just genuinely desires an uneventful, peaceful life.

He is somewhat scatterbrained at times, coming up with eccentric ideas that hold some merit behind them, but end up with stupid or bizarre results. Examples include the ONA specials (*Tanaka-kun wa Kyou mo Kedaruge*) where he lays out various ideas centered on how to buy food from the cafeteria lady. However, there are times when he shows genuine wisdom or insight into certain topics, such as the conflict between Echizen and Miyano, or his conversation with Shiraishi about her struggles. His reasoning and point of view on their issues are birthed from his general lifestyle, which brings with it a certain wisdom that works well for the people he interacts with. He once got a low score on a test just because he specifically intended to, and he lost in an Othello match against Echizen, though not before he managed to turn all of his remaining pieces into the Japanese character for the color white (白). This indicates that Tanaka is actually smart and capable, but only chooses to use his head for things he wants to use it for. Additionally, Tanaka can be quite poetic and, despite his indifferent nature, very understanding of other people and the world around him. He is also a bit of a superstitious person, occasionally reading horoscopes and believing that a string of lucky events will foreshadow impending disaster.

## History

Tanaka's parents are always working abroad and rarely visit, so he and his sister Rino live alone. Rino acts as the caretaker of the house, cooking, cleaning, and looking after Tanaka. After Tanaka and Oota met through being in the same class, Tanaka started depending on Oota for almost anything, making them quite close.

## Etymology

The surname **Tanaka** (田中?) means in the rice fields", from 田 (ta) meaning "field, rice paddy" and 中 (naka) meaning "middle".

* This is a reference to **Oota** (太田?), whose name means "big rice paddy" and how Tanaka relies on Oota such as having Oota carry him around.

## Trivia

* Tanaka is allergic to cats.
* Tanaka hates going to the dentist.
* Tanaka's English voice actor is Blake Shepard.
* Tanaka knows how to play the piano and the board game Othello.
* Tanaka's ideal type would be a mom who takes care of him everywhere.
* Tanaka's texts are occasionally incomprehensible due to him using the speech-to-text function.
* In Chapter 16 of the manga, it is shown that Tanaka scored 86 on the practice test, implying that he has the capability to be good at studies. He later scored 60 on the actual test after accidentally studying the wrong things.
* Due to his listlessness, Tanaka is actually quite flexible. In Chapter 43 he scored a 10 on the seated forward bend stretch during the sports test. However, he scored a 1 for everything else.
* Tanaka is a fan of Bump of Beef (their universe's version of BUMP OF CHICKEN).
* Both Miyano and Sora regard Tanaka as their "master" (師匠, *shishou*).
* Tanaka has no preference when it comes to steamed buns, and actually likes the bread more than the filling itself.