At 13, anime convinced me to take Tai Kwon Do. At 18, it is convincing me to smoke.

Maybe I’m just easily influenced. I was hugely into action shows in my early days, so it’s no surprise that I took up Tae Kwon Do with my family, and it’s no surprise that we didn’t do it that long. These days, I take a lot of time when making decisions; I don’t make a commitment unless I’ve had a year to think about it. I’ve figured out that if I were to get a tattoo, I would get it on my back, and likely the phrase ‘Momento Mori’ after years of consideration. I’ve decided that I do want to take up martial arts again. And no matter how much I’ve tried over the years to convince myself not to, I want to smoke. Badly.

Some people think smoking doesn’t make you look cool. Those people are liars, or straight-laced kids who convinced themselves that everyone who smokes is automatically a dumbass. I am incapable of lying to myself like that. If I see someone smoking, especially if they are doing it in a cool pose (I’ve seen plenty of them, yes in real life) then I immediately wish I could be doing it. Ghostlightning, a 32 year-old seasoned smoker, did a post about the anime characters he’d like to have a smoke with. I cannot fathom how awesome it would be to bum off one of Yasu’s badass cigs and chill with him.

Of course, though, the anime character who makes me want to smoke the most is my darling Itou Nobue. For quite a while I’ve been more attracted to anime girls who smoke, but if I think about it, Nobue may have actually caused that obsession without my even noticing it (the motorcycle fascination would be a combo of her and Kino, probably.) Indeed, I have a great fantasy of dating a smoker and being able to chill and have a smoke with them, perhaps observing sunset on a lake… before driving home through the cool night on a motorcycle – getting ahead of myself.

My desire only got stronger when there was a chapter of Ichigo Mashimaro actually explaining how Nobue started smoking (since in the manga she is only 16 and the other characters generally frown on the activity.) She explains that when she was 10 years-old, she saw a man smoking in the park and thought it looked really cool. The man accidentally left his cigarettes behind, and she took them. When she first tried to smoke, she couldn’t do it, but she actually spent years training herself to smoke, because she wanted to that badly. Such dedication!

No matter how much I think about it, I want to smoke. So why haven’t I gone out and started? After all, I’m 18, so it’s not like I can’t buy them myself. To put it simply – I have no money, and I can’t afford to get addicted to them until I have a steady income. In the US, cigarettes are criminally expensive, and I have an addictive personality – I know I wouldn’t be able to stick out with a ‘once in a while’ schedule for long.

Health risk? Who cares. Everything is a health risk. This 2/3 lb. Monster Thickburger I just ate is a health risk. The secondhand smoke from my dad’s cigarettes when I go into the garage is a health risk. Sitting in a chair 12 hours a day is a health risk – I don’t really care about that shit. I’d much rather get that good feeling from a smoke, and perhaps look really badass while doing it. Besides, I’ve always got something in my mouth as it is.

The Coodere Files 1: Itou Nobue

Name: Itou, Nobue (伊藤 伸恵)
Aliases: Onee-chan, Nobu-nee
Definitive Coolness Attributes: Smokes, Rides a motorcycle, Drinks excessively, Likes American music and cinema, Dresses fashionably

Information:
Depending on if you read the Ichigo Mashimaro manga or watch the anime, Itou Nobue is a 16 year-old high school student or a 20 year-old college freshman respectively. The age difference does not change much about her personality – Nobue is a very laid back girl with a cigarette always between her lips and a stack of empty beer cans always on her desk. She seems to spend most of her time hanging out with her twelve year-old sister and said sister’s group of young friends. Nobue can sort of be seen as a ring leader of their group, playing a big sister role to all of the friends and not just her own sister. She likes to play pranks and poke fun of the girls, and especially likes to see them doing cute things, or getting involved in cute situations.

Nobue’s extremely relaxed nature is almost zen-like. She can be annoyed by the antics of her young friends or even go into a fit of rage, especially when deprived of cigarettes, but her overall outlook on life is very calm, and she seems to enjoy just taking in the energy of her younger cohorts and enjoying what she has before her.

Coodere Level:
Nobue has the coolness factor to near-maximum levels. Being ultra laid-back, fun to be around, always smoking, and having such impeccably stylish fashion and taste is enough to elevate her to high-grade cool alone, and then throw in her addiction to cute girls, her mode of transportation, and her big-sister attitude, and you’ve got a walking definition of cool. On the dere side, it is not actually clear what Nobue would be like in a relationship at all. It is very evident that she appreciates the moe aesthetic and likes to look at cute girls, but this isn’t necessarily grounds to consider her a lesbian. If it turns out that she really is lesbian or bisexual with a soft dere spot for adorable girls, then her cool and dere points will both max through the roof, but as it stands, without knowing how she would actually handle a relationship, it is impossible to gauge her true dere level.

May as well take out my favorite Nobue moment from the get-go.

I’ve used this image many times before as a reference point for my Nobue obsession, having previously referred to it as ‘the hottest manga page of all time.’ You may have noticed that I used it in the header of this blog, and also used it in a header for my other blog.

It might seem shallow to use this page. It just seems like I’m saying ‘Nobue likes the same movies as me, therefor I love her!’ but that’s not really what makes the image special. It’s more that, I was already in love with Nobue, but there is an extent to which, in knowing about her, I will have to fill in blanks with assumptions. For instance, I already know that Nobue is a cool girl. As a cool girl, I want to believe that she listens to cool music and watches cool movies, but I can’t be sure of those things. When I found out that Nobue was a fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it gave me some perspective. If I think about her personality, and then think about the sound of the Chili Peppers, then I can sort of draw a line to what else Nobue would like.

It’s not simply ‘she likes my music.’ After all, liking the Chili Peppers can mean different things – for me, I associate the fact that I like the Peppers with the fact that I like The Mars Volta, because I like them for similar reasons. However, I can’t necessarily see Nobue getting into The Mars Volta (not that she’d outright dislike them.) More likely, I think she’d enjoy something along the lines of Gorillaz, just from what I understand of her personality in combination with liking the Peppers. I still can’t say these things for sure, but it’s a sense I get.

The page above is a very excellent pool of movie choices in terms of telling us what Nobue likes. Her choices are all movies that perfectly balance comedy, violence, and brilliant writing to create top-class black comedy as well as riveting drama. With a pool like that, it’s very easy to see what other movies she’d enjoy (I’m guessing she’d like Takashi Miike flicks and certainly anything by Robert Rodriguez.)

So, sure, it’s partly the fact that I have a similar taste in movies to Nobue (among many, many other things) that makes me love her, but this manga page isn’t just special for showcasing those movies, but laying a groundwork for assumptions on what else she would enjoy.