Kei Takishima from Special A is quite a unique character. To be completely honest, he is one of my favorite male protagonists from all the anime series that I’ve seen recently. He’s claimed that spot on the list because of three main reasons: he’s very cold and not very outspoken to the world (except when it comes to Haruki Hanazono, the female protangonist); He can be considered a “lonely prince” (if you’ve seen Ouran High School Host Club, you’ll understand); and he’s just naturally a good person overall.

While Kei is very cold to the world (including his brother and childhood best friends), one girl, (Haruki) stands as the sole exception. Haruki is as the only person in the world who can make him more relaxed and smile freely. And this is simply because he has been in love with her since childhood.I find it amazing the amount of devotion he has for her even though she is constantly challenging him for his title of first place. Just the fact that he allows it because “he loves to see her smile” shows how much she means to him.

Haruki is basically the only person he shows emotion to freely. An example of this would be when he got jealous of after the Class President ruins food she made him. Of course the food wasn’t very good because Haruki is more the ‘studying and pro-wrestling’ type than the ‘feminine sewing and cooking type’, but he ate it anyway because she was the one who made it. This to me, is pure devotion.

The next reason I mentioned is because he’s a lonely prince. A lonely prince is normally defined as a wealthy person who’s very social and active, but mentally he thinks he’s completely alone and no one can understand him… [I got this definition from the fourth episode of Ouran High School Host Club, and it pretty much describes what would Kei is perfectly.] He thinks he is misunderstood, and that no one knows what he’s going through. That’s actually not true at all though, as the show progresses, he slowly begins to trust and open up to his classmates more and more.

The last reason (him being a naturally good person) stands because even though he’s cold to almost everyone, Kei is a really good person. In one episode, he saved a lion from falling down a cliff, he also lets Haruki (as previously mentioned) constantly challenge him (and lose) and he doesn’t rub it in her face (too much!). He also goes after anyone who does something to Haruki that he doesn’t particularly like (which is really nice because it shows that he sticks up for the ones he loves), and he even offers to tutor her little brother after Haruki has such a problem tutoring him.

Kei is definitely a unique character. His personality is very different from the other characters in this anime and other anime I’ve watched. But definitely worthy of being in my list of favorite male protagonists.