Waifu Wednesday: Tsugumi (Guilty Crown)

All Articles Anime Features Headliners Waifu Wednesday
Lilia Hellal
May 31, 2023
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Guilty Crown didn’t bring much of note to the world other than a banging soundtrack, pretty visuals and one great female character – Tsugumi’s a catgirl; you shouldn’t need much more convincing of why she’s best girl.

But Guilty Crown gave my younger self an early warning of ever getting excessively hyped up for anything that seemed to have so much promise. With all the big hitter names being on its team, Guilty Crown was set up for seemingly guaranteed success, but what a disappointing mess it ended up being.

But at least it gave us Tsugumi!

Who is Tsugumi?

Tsugumi is a supporting character in Guilty Crown and functions as main group Funeral Parlor’s most important hacker and operator during their many missions. Being part of the resistance organisation that Gai leads and that Shu ultimately joins the ranks of, Tsugumi is often seen alongside Ayase during any amount of downtime if she’s not already busy with any bit of operating – or is that her playing video games?

In any case Tsugumi is a star in my own eyes for looking out for her friends, being the thinker of the team and as the frequent saving grace of Funeral Parlor overall. Bless her!

Why we love her

Tsugumi, in contrast to the relative seriousness of the rest of Funeral Parlor, is the bubbly and spunky young soul of the group. Being the youngest member of the team in fact at the age of 14, she’s more of a “protect at all costs” type of character instead of conventional waifu material – and she’s full of energy, regardless of the situation.

Her behaviour is very much played up in a similar way as Yui from Angel Beats, another favourite character of mine, and that’s not just because they tend to land flying kicks on those around them. Rather, their shared similarity of having a hidden and rather underutilised amount of depth to their characters make them standouts from their respective shows.

Due to the vague background of Tsugumi’s, it is strongly hinted that she has been a lost, wandering soul for as long as she can remember. To put it simply, she is continuously battling feelings of loneliness. Despite all that she outwardly expresses, both vocally and visually, she is not as content as she tries to come across as all the time, and that is because of the abandonment issues it is suggested she struggles with.

Why you will love her (spoilers)

The most obvious indictor to her inner turmoil is with her Void, a physical manifestation of a person’s psyche which reveals her true colours. With Tsugumi it is the ability to replicate humans. It’s simple but revealing, and she’s very much against anyone seeing what her Void is.

Once an orphan, Tsugumi only ever found the one family she knew within the Funeral Parlor. Her fear of ever losing any one of its members becomes that much more touching since her excitement in either successfully saving, supporting them or seeing them come back home alive and well is so important to her.

With her outward behaviour always being infectiously uplifting, she’s always trying her best to keep everyone happy and united – regardless of how close they really are to her. To put it bluntly, if the show’s resident psychopath Daryl ends up falling head over heels for her, then you will too. He’s one hot mess, but as he not only chooses to save both her and those around her, knowingly blaming her for having such an effect on him, it’s very much a guilty pleasure of a trashy ship.

Much like the show itself. Catch it anyway for the few positives it has going for it on Crunchyroll.

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