Quote:
Originally Posted by Sol Falling
lol, let me just put it simply.
Those are neither the words nor the expression of someone who's feeling bullied/remotely suicidal. Yes, bullying exists in Japan and there are structural/societal reasons for it. Yes, Japan's suicide rate is also extremely high due to pressure to perform scholastically. It's true that awareness of that "need" to get ahead economically was part of what Tsutomu used to rationalize/encourage his own alienization. However, the social forces you are referring to have not imposed themselves upon him externally. He's not being bullied, and he's not being put under scholastic pressure. Tsutomu chose to focus on studies and alienate himself from his classmates himself; someone truly being ostracized would've been a thousand times more aware of/grateful for the social refuge the Karuta club offered. Tsutomu is not a victim, and the anime doesn't portray him as one; if anyone could have been said to be showing real conformity to the standards of Japanese society, the one person most clearly doing that in that class was Tsutomu himself.
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I agree that Tsutomu isn't getting bullied, at least not seriously. However, I don't think he chose to alienate himself from the rest of the class. His way of thinking is a defense mechanism he came up with after being ostracized due his difference. In order to deal with the crushing loneliness, he convinced himself that he's the one who chose to be alone, and even developed a sort of superiority complex ("those plebeians fools should be grateful to me for raising the class average") only kept in check by Taichi. Hard to pretend you're superior when somebody else is better than you at everything, after all. Even so, since studying is the thing he is best at -and the only thing he has-, he could do nothing but to keep trying. That is the only he found to exist.
Re-watch the flashback near the end of the episode (18 min in or so). Deep down, he desires to be accepted by others and that is part of the reason he immerses himself in his studies. He thought if he became number one, people would be forced to acknowledge him.