14938


In the Toradora series, only Kihara seems to address Kitamura as "Maruo". Why
is this? Why is she the only one who calls him Maruo? Is "Maruo" the real
nickname of Kitamura? Do they have a special relationship or something? Are
they childhood friends?


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2014-11-07T01:18:18.360
14906
2020-06-30T15:20:06.973
2014-11-08T05:38:37.300
1908
9040
question
toradora
Why is Kitamura called "Maruo" by Kihara?


Well, it isn't just Kihara who calls him "Maruo" - many of the girls at school
call him that. In the light novel, it's pointed out early in volume 1 that
various girls call him "Maruo" to be cutesy. In the anime, we see someone (I
can't tell who) calling him "Maruo" in episode 14 near 4:40; and later, around
15:15, NANAKO Kashii refers to him as "Maruo" during a conversation with
Kawashima and Kihara

Anyway: the reason he's nicknamed "Maruo" is that he bears a striking(?)
resemblance (as Kihara notes in episode 2, around 5:00) to the character MARUO
Sueo from the 90s-era show [_Chibi Maruko-
chan_](http://myanimelist.net/anime/951/Chibi_Maruko-chan):

![Maruo Sueo](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aWuh9.gif) ![Kitamura
Yuusaku](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QdkQd.jpg)

The resemblance apparently extends beyond the visual - I haven't read/watched
_Chibi Maruko-chan_ , but [Japanese
Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%A1%E3%81%B3%E3%81%BE%E3%82%8B%E5%AD%90%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%82%93%E3%81%AE%E7%99%BB%E5%A0%B4%E4%BA%BA%E7%89%A9
"whose articles about anime are always a perfect target for wikigroaning")
states that Maruo, like Kitamura, is one of those do-gooder class-president
types.

There's no explicit mention of this in the light novel (unsurprising, given
how weird Japanese media is about referencing other media - whence cometh
MgRonald's), but some scouring of the Japanese internet suggests that the
reference is fairly obvious to those who grew up while _Chibi Maruko-chan_ was
a popular thing.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-08T06:07:19.870
14938
2014-11-08T06:07:19.870
1908
14906
answer