Ami Kawashima

Ami Kawashima As long as there is at least one person who understands me, I'll be okay. Gender: Female Type: Sympathetic Narcissist Age: 16-17 Species: Human Portrayed by: Eri Kitamura (Japanese) Erika Harlacher (English) Status: Alive Media of origin: Toradora!

Ami Kawashima is one of the main characters from the Toradora! anime and light novels. Ami is Yusaku's childhood friend who transfers into his class midway through their second year of high school. She is very beautiful and even works as a model, though after she transfers school, she temporarily stops modeling. However, she continues to go to the gym readily and maintains a slim figure.

She is always kind and generous towards others, though this is merely a deception. In truth, she is arrogant and will not hesitate to use others for her benefit.

Good Qualities

1. Ami is is one of the most memorable and well-written character in Toradora.
2. Ami is an attractive teenage girl who is blessed with natural beauty with straight waist-length blue hair that has bangs split into both sides, wide violet eyes and she maintains a slim figure with a relatively large bust, which she likes to show off, and rivaling others to exude her confidence, even when she is seen as a "dude magnet".
   • Her character design is also gorgeous with her blue hair and appearance.
3. Ami is usually seen wearing Ohashi High School normal uniforms. Otherwise, she wears costumes, which corresponds to her maintaining her model image. Sometimes she is seen wearing less revealing clothing and sunglasses, to try and hide her identity from strangers and avoid attracting attention.
4. Her backstory was explained as having a stalker, who ruined her life and she transferred into Ohashi High School to get away from him, but he follows her anyway. After seeing Taiga standing up to and not being afraid of the stalker, Ami gains enough confidence and she puts the stalker in his place.
5. She gets along with Yusaku, Ryuuji, Maya and Nanako and has a friendly rival with Taiga and Minori.
6. Despite being a bit self-centered, spoiled, and vain, she's a good person who cares for her friends, and wants them to confront the truth of things. She eventually gives up on trying to pick on Taiga.
7. Ami sometimes hides between two vending machines inside the school corridor by herself. This becomes a recurring setting for important conversations between the main characters.
8. Ami is also seen as very wise indeed as she has seen through the romantic attraction of Taiga, Ryuuji and Minori to each other. Ami is shown dropping hints and tips on them, trying to indirectly tell them about their situation, without hurting them.
9. She makes good valid points considering how clumsy and careless everyone is with their desires:
   • When Yusaku goes rogue, she assumes the very same disposition as Sumire does towards him and is altogether not very supportive of him during this time. She was right to say she didn't approve of him dying his hair blonde and tells him that he's just doing it to show off, as she argues that he did it very flimsily.
   • She gets annoyed with Ryuuji for not paying attention to either Taiga or Minori, as she is to the fact that he just doesn't listen or pay attention to her advice, even questioning herself why she bothers if he's never gonna listen to her.
   • She gets confrontational with Minori because of her beating around the bush when it comes to Ryuuji.
   • She tries it several times with Taiga, but it never works for her due to Taiga's issues feeding her insecurities and making her problems far more insurmountable than anyone Ami's encountered in the past.
10. Eri Kitamura and Erika Harlacher both did an amazing job voicing her.
11. The reason why Ami falls for Ryuuji, she was trying to manipulate him as she did with everyone else, but later fell for him for real when he discovers her true self. She does give up on pursuing Ryuuji so he can be happy with Taiga and vice versa.
12. Despite their full-on confrontation, Ami and Minori worked together to get Taiga and Ryuji to realize their mutual feelings to each other. They also seek comfort in each other after all the trouble they go through and after Ryuuji and Taiga's decision to elope together. Minori ends up crying with Ami by her side after seeing both of them off.
13. After Taiga's departure near the end of the story, Ami admits to Ryuuji that she had been envious of how it seemed like Taiga was able to be herself and still be loved. She knows that this wasn't really the case and that Taiga had actually not wanted to show her true face, and she realizes that she was the same way.
14. She confessed to Ryuuji that she stayed because she'd finally found someone who understood and liked her for who she really is, even if he doesn't love her.
15. Same with Taiga, Toradora would likely not be the same without her.
16. Character development: She goes from an arrogant and manipulative girl to a sympathetic jerk, who may be snarky, vain, and very blunt, but a good person who cares about her friends and is ready to do anything she can to help them. She picks on her friends because she wants them to be sincere with their own feelings, though her approach is markedly confrontational and leads them to assume either too much or too little of what she means by her statements. This earns her the trust of the main group in the end.

Bad Qualities

1. Although she's one of the main characters, she isn't introduced until episode 5.
2. She can be very unlikable in the beginning, but she undergoes thorough character development.
3. After the Christmas party, Ami starts antagonizing Ryuuji, because she is annoyed at the fact that he's too dense to realize that she likes him, even when she's spent a considerable amount of time throwing hints at him and the fact that he doesn't take or notice the hints.
4. Ami gets into a fight with Minori during the ski trip because she keeps beating around the bush when it comes to Ryuuji and tries to force the truth out of her to the point where Minori snaps and loses it, causing them to fight physical. This caused a rift between them and neither Ami nor Minori apologized for their actions. When she tries to talk to her at school saying she knows what she wants, Ami completely brushes her off.

Trivia

• The name Ami means "second, Asia" (a) and "beautiful" (mi).
• Ami's surname Kawashima means "river, stream, brook" (kawa) and "island" (shima).
• Ami bears a strong resemblances to Ryoko Asakura from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
• Ami, Taiga and Minori make cameo appearances in Ookami-san and Her Seven Companions.

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