Why Did Tadano And Retsuko Break Up

Video Why did tadano and retsuko break upI binged period 2 of Aggretsuko over the period of a pair days, and idea naturally I actually appreciated it (though I believe I may have delighted in the initial period a little bit a lot more), I in the beginning didn’t have way too much to claim concerning it. Nonetheless, the prominent subject right now appears to be Tadano and his therapy of Retsuko, and I intended to publish my ideas considering that I can’t actually bring myself to concur with either of the prominent takes right now, mainly due to the fact that I feel they’re both also severe on either side of the divide. In other words, I don’t see Tadano as completely innocent and incapable of manipulation, but I also don’t see him as a malicious and definitively abusive partner to Retsuko, either.Further analysis beneath the cut.Reading: Why did tadano and retsuko break upAs noted above, the two prominent takes I’ve seen regarding Tadano have been:

Tadano only wanted what was best for Retsuko and he never did anything to compromise that (usually served with a side of blaming Retsuko for not speaking up sooner)or
Tadano was manipulative, creepy, and borderline abusive and it’s good Retsuko got out of there when she did

While these are the two most popular takes that I’ve seen, the truth is, in my opinion, a blend of the two. Tadano did have some manipulative behaviors (particularly with one line in particular, which I’ll get to in a minute), but I don’t believe that his manipulation was entirely conscious, nor do I think it came from a place of malice. Instead, I think it came from a place of desperate loneliness, and the desire to keep the happy little bubble that he and Retsuko had going in tact for as long as possible.Tadano is an interesting character not for his political views or for the fact that he’s a love interest, but rather because he truly is as much a failure (harsh though that word may be) as he is a success. Retsuko and the audience learn through the course of the season that Tadano is, in fact, not unemployed, nor is he poor; instead, he’s a very wealthy tech visionary who is revolutionizing the world of artificial intelligence, and has aspirations to overturn the economic system as we know it. But although Tadano is (at least thus far) a successful businessman in his field, he is also living out of his limousine … and is completely alone.At no point throughout the series do we see Tadano have a meaningful connection with another character, apart from perhaps ENI-O, which is an A.I. that Tadano himself invented. He has a driver, but he and the driver barely talk; the driver spends most of his time playing a game in the front seat, while Tadano sleeps in the back. ENI-O monitors Tadano’s health and keeps track of his appointments (/makes the appointments), but it doesn’t really seem to have a personality despite being an artificial intelligence, and isn’t really one for conversation. Tadano doesn’t have any other business partners; he didn’t choose Retsuko’s company himself and as such doesn’t have any connections there; and the fact that it’s ENI-O that he’s returning “home” to after the breakup (in contrast to Retsuko) speaks volumes about who he has in his life. Retsuko cries to Gori and Washimi after the breakup. Tadano … just has his A.I. It doesn’t seem like he has any friends or family to return to after the breakup.So, enter Retsuko. Tadano instantly jumps at the chance to talk to her at the driving school because he noticed that she was about his age. Note that this is something that Retsuko had noticed about him as well, but it wasn’t enough to prompt her to approach him, possibly because she has others (e.g. Gori, Washimi, Fenneko, Haida) in her life that she can talk to. But for Tadano, who appears pretty isolated and alone, seeing another adult at the driving school (someone his age who also didn’t have what is considered a basic skill for those their age) was exciting enough to strike up a conversation. He starts calling her by a familiar nickname (“Re-chan” / “Retsy”), even though in Japanese such a thing is usually reserved for close friends. Retsuko doesn’t call him on this (though it would have been perfectly acceptable for her to), which is fine, but the more important point here is that making acquaintances (because they weren’t even friends yet, really!) with Retsuko at the driving school was enough for Tadano to feel like she was enough of a friend that he desired to use a friendly nickname with her. One could argue that perhaps he’s just a nickname-y guy, but at the moment we can’t really make that argument because we don’t see him use nicknames for anyone else … because we don’t see him interact with anyone else in a friendly manner. For all that people claim that Haida’s character was reduced to pining over Retsuko, it’s worth it to note that Haida still maintained past relationships (e.g. with Fenneko) in this series, and forged new ones as well (e.g. Anai, Gori, Washimi). Tadano, on the other hand, was completely isolated apart from how he latched onto Retsuko pretty much immediately, going so far as to leap out of his limo in the middle of a traffic jam to run up to and strike up conversation with her when he saw her on the sidewalk.So for possibly the first time in his life (or at least the first time in a long while), Tadano has a connection with another person his own age, and it’s someone that he finds likable and fun, at that. She’s interested in spending time with him, just as he’s interested in spending time with her, and so he pursues it … as much as he pursues anything else he likes, which is about 50%. Because as Tadano himself says when he explains to Retsuko what he meant when he said he was just “fooling around” with work:“If you take something you enjoy seriously … it becomes a full-time job.”As a side note, I think this is the real reason Tadano is against the idea of marriage. Everything he says about it being “pointless” and “unnecessary,” while arguably true (my feelings on the subject slide closer to what he said versus what Retsuko would want), is just a logical-sounding excuse to hide the fact that, in reality, Tadano has commitment issues. He doesn’t commit himself fully to ENI-O or the work he does because he doesn’t want his work to feel like work. He enjoys it, and he wants to keep enjoying it, so he treats it like a hobby instead of a job. Similarly, Tadano enjoyed hanging out with Retsuko. He wanted to hang out with her forever. Marrying her would be taking their relationship seriously, which he didn’t want, because in his mind that would make it feel like work (and in a way, it is; relationships do take work to maintain). Therefore, he was against the concept of marriage, even though not budging on that subject cost him the relationship he so cherished.But that’s a bit off the subject.Read more: 13 reasons why hannah baker character traits | Top Q&ABack on subject: Tadano did cherish the time he spent with Retsuko. As he himself told her, he wished that they could stay together (read: hanging out) forever. The thing is, I believe that Tadano meant that in a slightly different way than Retsuko did, and not just with regards to marriage. Retsuko was fine with not spending every moment with Tadano because, again, she had other things going on in her life: She had her job, she had her friends, and she even had her overbearing mother. But although Tadano does have his work with ENI-O, again, he doesn’t have those other people in his life. All he has is Retsuko. And for a guy who has been very lonely for possibly a very long time, suddenly having someone to spend time with like that is probably like finding a warm blanket in a blizzard. Metaphorically speaking, he grabbed Retsuko and never wanted to let her go. Not in a commitment way, mind you—again, he doesn’t want to take the things he enjoys seriously!—but in a “let’s spend every second together” kind of way.And here’s where the manipulation comes in.After the article is published and the online harassment starts, Retsuko starts staying in Tadano’s limo (which, remember, is also his home given that, limo or not, the man is literally living in his car because his commitment issues apparently run so deep he can’t even commit to an apartment). Retsuko, of course, is super upset by the turn of events, which is probably why she’s choosing to stay with him, given that being with him at least affords her some comfort (given that she thinks they’re going to get married). As for Tadano … of course he doesn’t want Retsuko to be upset, but at the same time it would likely be wrong to say that he’s at all upset by the idea of her staying with him in his limo. In fact, he is probably thrilled. This is why, though he does ask her if she’s all right when she doesn’t respond to the first thing he says, he takes her “oh yes, I’m fine!” as truth, even though her body language clearly says otherwise. Yes, Retsuko could have been more honest … but:

It’s somewhat of a cultural thing in Japan to not complain unless the issue is Very Important, because you don’t want to seem a burden;
Retsuko was curled up on the car seat, faced away from him, wrapped in a blanket, not really responding to what he said. It’s pretty obvious she was lying, even without being in her head;
Even if her body language didn’t make it obvious, anyone who knows Retsuko even a bit knows that she tends to bottle things up, even if they don’t know how she eventually lets it all out; Tadano not picking up on that (particularly if it wasn’t him willfully not picking up on it, which I believe it was, even if subconsciously) goes to show how little the two really do know each other at this point.

So whether Retsuko could have been more honest or not, the fact that Tadano didn’t so much as ask “are you sure?” after she said she was fine speaks volumes. Instead, he dismisses her obvious upset as, “That’s Re-chan for you” with a little smile and goes back to work. Now, as I said, whether this is Tadano willfully not picking up on the fact that Retsuko is upset (i.e. he can tell but is choosing not to pursue it) or whether he just honestly doesn’t notice doesn’t change the fact that it makes their relationship look bad. Either he doesn’t know her well enough to tell, or he can tell and would rather not push because this works out in his favor. There is no positive outlook on their relationship here. But while I do not think that Tadano has malicious ulterior motives, I do think he was purposefully ignoring the fact that Retsuko was upset—not because he doesn’t care about her feelings, but because she’s here, with him, for the foreseeable future, and he’d rather like to keep it that way.And this brings us to the uncomfortable line of dialogue I mentioned at the start of this publish, the one that first jumped out at me as a red flag. This line comes from later in the final episode, when Retsuko has missed work for several days and is still staying in Tadano’s limo with him. At the start of the scene, Tadano asks Retsuko if she’s worried about missing work. Retsuko says that she is, a little. And that’s when Tadano says this:“Don’t force yourself. If you go back now, they will all talk behind your back.”I’m using the Netflix subtitles here, but while I would need to double-check this with my friend who is fluent in Japanese (particularly because Tadano’s speech is a bit hard for me to parse), but that first sentence sounds less to me like “don’t force yourself” and more like “don’t be” — as in, “don’t be worried” rather than “take it easy,” if that makes sense. Like Retsuko confirms that she is worried about missing work, and Tadano tells her she shouldn’t be—and then he tells her why.And it’s how he tells her why that strikes up a red flag for me, though again, I don’t think it’s Tadano being maliciously controlling or possessive.Tadano tells Retsuko that if she returns to work now, everyone will talk about her behind her back. Setting aside the logical flaws (won’t they be talking about her behind her back right now? wouldn’t they talk about her behind her back if she returned several days from now?), the reason Tadano gives Retsuko about why she shouldn’t be worried about work is not that she dislikes it (that comes up later when he’s pressuring her to quit), but rather that everyone there will talk about her behind her back, i.e., her fellow employees will be against her. Tadano is including Retsuko’s friends, such as Fenneko, Haida, Gori, and Washimi in this. Not specifically—it’s doubtful he even knows their names—but he says they will all, meaning he’s including everyone in her workplace. They’ll all be against her, they’ll all talk about her behind her back, so she should stay there, in the limo, with him. Despite how he told Retsuko to dismiss the internet backlash in just the previous episode because all they had was baseless slander and “the number of flamers is fewer than you think,” here Tadano is making it clear that the gossip will definitely be a problem if Retsuko returns to work now. Therefore, she shouldn’t. Tadano is playing on Retsuko’s anxiety and insecurity to motivate her to not go to work and instead stay there in his limo for him, waiting for him to return whenever he has to go to a business meeting (at her company!), and hanging out with him whenever he doesn’t.Now, again, as I said before, I don’t think Tadano is doing this maliciously. I don’t think that he’s consciously thinking up ways to manipulate, control, or possess Retsuko. But I do think that by this point in the season, Tadano has become so excited at the idea of hanging out with Retsuko full-time that he’s rushing into it full throttle, using everything he can in order to get her to stay with him. This is shown to us by how he not only suggests to her that she quit her job, but also pushes forward into her space as he suggests it:Being a visual medium, Aggretsuko uses more than just character dialogue to show us character intention and motivation. The fact that Tadano is so passionate about the idea of Retsuko quitting her job to be with him that he actually gets up from his seat, puts a hand on the car seat next to her, and leans in so that their faces are only a couple inches apart, is meant to show us just how gung-ho he is about this, how he’s throwing everything he has into it, as much or perhaps more than he ever does. Even though Tadano is usually pretty laid back (illustrated by how I believe this is the first and perhaps only time he pushes into Retsuko’s space like this), he isn’t laid back, not about this. And make no mistake, although he tells Retsuko that she can start her own business or do whatever she wants to do, he also doesn’t let his true motivations go unspoken in this scene:Read more: why is warhammer 40k so expensive | Top Q&ANot via marriage, mind you, because that’s taking it seriously, and taking it seriously means work. But still, if Retsuko never has to go to work, and if she lives in his limo, then they can hang out and be together all the time. It’s the ideal solution in Tadano’s mind. It would make him super happy, and Retsuko says she’s happy (and is smiling, even if forced), and he can go along with and believe that, so everything will be better and their future will be “so much better.” If Tadano doesn’t take their relationship too seriously, then he doesn’t have to think too hard about whether Retsuko is being honest with her smiles or not. If Tadano doesn’t take their relationship too seriously, they can stay as they have been. It can be fun hangout times forever. That’s what he wants, and at this point he’s willing to say or do what he has to in order to keep it …… but as we all know, it doesn’t work out.I think that Tadano’s desperation really shone through during the scene in the karaoke room, in the build-up to Retsuko’s song. Before she turns on the music, he doesn’t give her a chance to respond to one excuse before he throws out another: Marriage isn’t essential to their relationship, marriage doesn’t guarantee eternal love, social status is an empty expression, marriage isn’t part of the future he’s laying out, and she should think about whether marriage is really that important. Once Retsuko says that it is important to her, and the music starts, Tadano becomes even more desperate, his voice rising, his speech becoming faster, his expressions becoming more wild as they finally start to have a back and forth dialogue:Tadano: “It’s fine as long as we’re together!”Retsuko: “No, it’s not.”Tadano: “Don’t you trust me?!”Retsuko: “I do.”Tadano: “Then why … ?!”Retsuko: “I want to marry you, Tadano-kun.”Tadano: “Marriage is an illusion!”Retsuko: “I … want that illusion.”That first line is Tadano expressing what it is that he truly wants: He just wants them to stay together, forever—not married, not committed and serious like that, but together. When Retsuko says that it’s not fine so long as they’re together, Tadano assumes that she must be worried about him cheating (and in his mind, likely thinks marriage would prevent that), hence the “don’t you trust me?” line, which she again rebukes. By the time he gets to “marriage is an illusion,” he looks truly upset—but that’s also when Retsuko’s song starts, and there isn’t much more to say after that, as he finally gets the message.The fact that Tadano does get the message and leaves, alone, after their breakup speaks to what kind of person he is. If he were truly controlling and possessive, I think that he would have said or done anything—even lying about marriage, perhaps even going through with it if that’s what it took to keep Retsuko—in order to prevent her breaking up with him. But once he realized that Retsuko could not and would not be happy hanging out with him forever (and perhaps that not even he could pull the wool over his own eyes enough to make himself believe she was, especially if she wasn’t going to fake it anymore) he let her go. Tadano isn’t a cruel person. He’s not an abusive person. And I don’t think that he’s intentionally, or maliciously, a manipulative person. However …I think that, at the end of the day, Tadano is a very lonely person who, perhaps, does not have a lot of experience with relationships, even platonically. I think it’s entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that he didn’t really have romantic feelings for Retsuko, or at least not in the same way that she did for him. Retsuko was looking for a boyfriend, but I think that at the end of the day, what Tadano really wanted was a friend—a best friend, even. He was fine with being Retsuko’s boyfriend if it meant they could get ramen together and hang out in his limo. He wasn’t interestd in the whole romance aspect of it as much as he was interested in the companionship and friendship. The thing is, Retsuko has friends and companions, and so she wants a different kind of relationship—one that Tadano, quite honestly, is probably not ready to provide.I think what Tadano needs, before he can pursue a romance like this, is just … more friends, honestly. More experience in social circles that aren’t about promoting his software. Someone to talk to who isn’t an A.I. that he created. I think that friendship with Retsuko was good for that reason, but I think both of them approached the relationship from very different places, they didn’t know each other very well at all (Retsuko was jumping the gun with the whole marriage thing, but I think in her mind she just wanted marriage to be a someday thing, not a right-then-and-there thing, and it was just poorly explained), and as such they couldn’t quite be what the other needed. (Well, it’s not healthy to keep a friend full time in your limo either, but that’s why Tadano needs multiple friends that he can interact with regularly, not just the one. Also maybe an apartment. That limo is nice, but I don’t believe it has a shower. Seriously, get over your commitment issues enough to at least get an apartment, Tadano, please.) I think at this stage it’s too early for them to be Just Friends, because they’re both pretty hurt by the breakup, but perhaps someday, once they’ve both moved on, they can get there. And then Retsuko can properly introduce Tadano to her friends, and perhaps they can become his friends, too.But in the meantime, what I leave you all with is this:Tadano is not a malicious, abusive person. However, I think that his social isolation and probable lack of relationship experience of all kinds has left him unequipped to deal with a romantic relationship in a healthy and balanced way at the moment. For all that Retsuko was jumping the gun with marriage, Tadano latched onto her arguably more quickly. Tadano was manipulative toward Retsuko near the end, though it again was not out of malice (and was more out of tunnel vision on his own ideals and desires, and willful ignorance toward Retsuko’s feelings), and that is not okay no matter the reason or intention, but I think that considering that he’s not a malicious person by nature, he could learn how to better handle relationships with more (platonic) experience, which would leave him better equipped to try romance again with someone else in the future should he so choose.TL;DR: Tadano is not a monster, but he’s not an angel, either. He’s flawed, like pretty much every other character in the series, and I hope for his sake that he masters at least some of the commitment issues soon, and gets some non-A.I. friends in his life, due to the fact that goddamn, he requires them.Read more: Why do i get really upset when plans change