Taiga Nagatoro

"Say~ what's your relationship with Hayase-chan?"

- Taiga Nagatoro

Taiga Nagatoro (長瀞 大河) is a minor character of the Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro manga series. He is Hayase Nagatoro's older brother and Misaki Nagatoro's younger brother, his family's second child, and Gamo-chan's love interest. Despite coming off like a, Taiga is an easygoing, friendly, and relaxed guy who shares a very close relationship with his younger sister and is quite protective toward her, although he also sometimes teases her like their older sister, and Taiga is also largely responsible for teaching Nagatoro many of her martial arts skills.

In the original webcomic, his given name is instead Ichirō (一郎).

Appearance
Taiga is a handsome, physically fit, muscular, and athletic young man with spiky brown hair (in the webcomic) which he later let grew long, straight, shaved on the sides, dyed platinum blonde, and usually kept in a short ponytail. In spite of his sisters' minute stature, Taiga is quite tall and broad-shouldered, so much that his clothes result as quite baggy on Senpai's skinny frame. In Issue 2, he was at least a foot taller than Nagatoro, had a lighter complexion, her same amber-maroon eye color, and a hint of a goatee. In the manga, except for having a different hairstyle and being clean-shaved, he maintained all of said features. Taiga is short-sighted and always wears contact lenses, as well as a double piercing on his left ear.

He typically wears practical or sports clothes, large t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. Also, he seems to be fond of Hawaiian-style t-shirts.

Personality
Although his sister described him as very "rough" and somewhat "pushy", but also "manly", he came off as a very relaxed, calm, polite, and easy-going young man. He has a passion for videogames, especially, as well as fighting sports, as he taught his youngest sister how to fight. The Nagatoro siblings enjoy fighting greatly and have sparring sessions very often. He and Hayase are very close to one another as they frequently have shopping sessions together, she often cuts his hair, and had helped him get used to putting on contact lenses; while he often borrows her stuff, wakes her up in the morning, and is very protective toward her, to the point of immediately inquiring Senpai about his relationship with her after meeting him for the first time.

Despite his usually very calm manner, Taiga can emanate his sisters' same intimidating aura. He is also quite inquisitive and understands at first sight that Senpai and Hayase have feelings for one another. Also, he has a natural charm for people and is seemingly very good at giving advice.

Taiga is very athletic and quite a superior fighter than both Nagatoro and Gamo-chan, also, Orihara herself described him as way stronger than her.

Early life
Taiga was born in, , The second child and only son of the Nagatoro family, he has a close relationship with both his older sister Misaki and - especially - his younger sister Hayase, while his parents are middle class that often work late. He grew up in a house in the suburbs right in front of a park, under a ; as a kid he went every year to the summer festival with his family, enjoying the fireworks contest at the beach. Taiga was among the first who taught Hayase how to fight and defend herself; also, when his little sister started to attend GAMOU Fighting Gym, he became a regular too, thus getting acquainted with the owner's oldest daughter, Maki Gamou.

When he was younger he used to wear glasses, however, growing up he switched to contact lenses.

First date arc
One day, he asked his younger sister to help him choose some clothes to buy after school, however they are seen by Senpai, who, despite being intimidated and believing he was Nagatoro's ex-boyfriend, decided to approach them, being happily greeted. Before Hayase could introduce him to Senpai, Taiga stopped her and began to inquire him about his relationship with her. Senpai, not knowing how to describe it, stated that the girl was his junior at school, prompting Taiga to further ask him how much he knew about her, implying that he is aware of her sleeping posture and saw it several times, which lead Senpai to convince himself that the boy was her ex. Angered and embarrassed, Hayase attacked the boy, who demonstrated to be a superior fighter, and told her not to forget that he taught her how to fight. Shocked at the development, Senpai jumped in between them, ordering him not to put Nagatoro in any more danger as, despite not knowing much about her, he knew what made her happy or sad. Pleased, Taiga complimented Senpai and then left the scene, stating that it would have been gross to see his little sister "acting all flirty".

Field Trip arc
During the school trip in, it was revealed that he and Gamo-chan share a very close relationship, regularly spar together, and the girl has an obvious crush on him.

Training camp arc
Sometime later, he and his older sister had a training session at GAMOU Fighting Gym, and Hayase - alongside Gamo-chan - come to them asking both her siblings to be the coach of her judo club's training camp. After accepting the offer, both Taiga and Misaki were introduced to the girls during the first day of the training camp and started to scare them off only to later admit they were just kidding and would have to teach all of them at their own pace. Then, as Senpai and the art club came in as well, the two greet him happily despite the latter still being a little scared of them; due to realizing it, he and Misaki teased the boy during the whole trip to the, where they began the training camp with Taiga making them all run for 10km as a warm up.

Webcomic
In the original webcomic, he is the only character to physically appear beside the two protagonists and is called "Ichirō-kun" by his little sister. He goes to pick her up at school and she takes advantage of the situation to play a cruel prank on Hachioji, making him believe that Ichirō was her boyfriend. After arriving, he politely asked if they were in the middle of something, thus his sister suggested for them to walk away despite Ichirō being worried about seeing the boy reduced to tears. A few seconds after having walked away, Nagatoro went back to her senpai and explained the prank, properly introducing the two. Ichirō told the protagonist that his sister talked a lot about him, apologized for how she acted sometimes and asked the boy to take good care of her in spite of it, then he scolded the girl for having used him for her "strange games", saying she shouldn't contact him if she didn't need to be taken home.

Webcomic

 * Issue 2

Anime

 * Episode 3
 * Episode 5

Trivia

 * His name is revealed in Chapter 118 to be Taiga, and it's likely a pun on his role as Hayase's older brother and his high energy, as in Japanese could be translated as "tai" (大) meaning large, big and "ga" (河) meaning river. It could also be a pun on "tiger", which can be used to refer to someone fierce, determined, or ambitious.
 * His name in the webcomic could refer to him being his family's eldest son, as Ichirō (一郎) literally could be translated as "first son". This may have been changed since he is no longer the "first child" in the manga.
 * He is the second child in his family, as he and Nagatoro's sister were referred to as "ane" (姉) and "otōto" (弟), meaning older sister and younger brother. Despite this, he was mentioned before Nagatoro's sister appeared, and for a time it was unclear which of them was the eldest child. In Nagatoro's character profile in the "family members" paragraph, they are listed as "older brother" and "older sister" in that order.
 * Since he is not in high school anymore from the start of the story, Taiga is likely to be a university student like his older sister. Thus he is at least 18 when he is first mentioned, and at least 19 when he first appears in person, as this is after the new academic year starts in Chapter 82.
 * Although in the webcomic she once calls him by his first name, in the manga his little sister Hayase always refers to him as "Aniki" (兄貴), the Japanese term for "big brother".
 * Before making his official manga debut in Chapter 93, he was an unseen character for a long time, being mentioned several times in Chapter 16, 18, 73 and the Official Fanbook.
 * Oddly enough, in Chapter 94, Taiga hides his real identity from Senpai in order to fuel the misunderstanding of the latter, who believed him to be Hayase's ex-boyfriend, and test his feelings for his sister, while in the second issue of the original webcomic it was his sister who hid his identity in order to pull a cruel prank on Senpai.
 * He seems to be a whole foot taller than Nagatoro (150 cm) and a few inches taller than Senpai (176 cm) thus his height could be estimated as approximately 180 cm, which is huge for a Japanese man.