I uttered a Gundam blasphemy the day before yesterday, so, to be fair, I’m going to blaspheme against all you Haruhi devotees’ object of worship: Haruhi isn’t Hirano Aya’s greatest role. Manabi Straight’s Mei Etou is. And I’m not just saying that because Mei is the tsunderekko who made me love tsundere.

Alright, maybe I am.

Moment the Fourth consists of the entire fourth episode of Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight!, which deals with Mei Etou’s tsundere properties. That’s right: Mei gets an entire episode of justification for her being tsundere. She isn’t the only tsunderekko with a reason, by any means, but her marginalization and exploitation by classmates gives her tsuntsun side a bit of weighty realism. In terms of character quirks I’m most likely to encounter in people I might actually meet, I probably have to go with Ogiue, but Mei holds the unique honor of turning me on to tsundere to begin with. Not that I disliked tsundere beforehand; I guess I have a thing for girls with problems. But Mei showed me the potency of the device.

It’s hard to pick one point in the episode that stands out above the others — the whole thing is fantastic — but a few scenes really stuck with me. In the first, Mei, afraid of being hurt by Manabi and co. as she was hurt by her classmates in the past, holes herself up and falls back on one of my favorite forms of escapism.

The drawback to this, as I’ve also found, is that, as video games are ostensibly a kind of narrative art, it’s very easy to see oneself reflected within them. I have a hard time running from my problems by way of stories, whose business it is to represent and discuss the human universe, which includes my problems and problems like them. Mei faces the same difficulties, apparently. The game even tells her as much: “Mei runs! But she couldn’t run away!”

The other scene I usually recall — perhaps my most vivid memory of Manabi Straight — is very simple. It involves the throwing of a pillow and the scariest tsuntsun face ever.

Lest we forget that tsundere can be more than a harmless moe subtype, that, in a realistic context, it’s a very serious problem, Mei exists to remind us. She lashes out at her friends not necessarily because she bears any ill will toward them, nor even exclusively as a defense mechanism, but because she hardly has any idea of how “normal” friendship works. It’s fortunate that she finds herself squarely in the path of Manabi’s optimistic rampage; I wonder, and not hopefully, what might have become of her otherwise.