Harada Shouhei
Harada-kun is a classmate of Tatsuya, Minami and Kazuya. He's big and tall and burly. He looks a lot older than everyone else because of his size. When I first saw Harada I thought he was a weird teacher wearing those Japanese sandals just to be different.
Harada is Tatsuya's friend and sort of mentor, encouraging him to be what he was before instead of being a slacker all the time and to stop being so "wishy washy" towards Kazuya. He wants Tatsuya to just "Hit back". Harada doesn't want his reluctant friend to be in the shadows of love ^^ (no wonder he tells Tatsuya that he doesn't like girls). He even knew how to test Tatsuya's fighting ability when he was pursued by some punks. When Minami, Kazuya, and Tatsuya were finally in high school, Minami and Kazuya both told Tatsuya that he should also join the baseball team. That he'll be great. When Tatsuya decided to join however he found out that Minami was going to join the baseball team as a manager. Although he was quite shocked to hear that and a little saddened too, he decided to change his mind about being in the baseball club because he wanted to leave Minami and Kazuya alone. When he was contemplating about all of this, Harada comes to Tatsuya and tells him to sign his notebook. Tatsuya signed it without even reading it. And the next thing he knew he was on the boxing club with Harada.
Harada helped train Tatsuya for boxing and was there for him most of the time he needed a friend to give him advice even if he wasn't expecting it. I really like this part of Harada. Like Tatsuya, he has this ability to play off a persona that seems scary and nonchalant but he does care about his friends. It seems like he's the narrator of sorts. He wants everything to work out for Tatsuya... knowing full well that though Tatsuya may not want to fight Kazuya for anything... Harada knew that was not so. Harada knew Tatsuya's abilities, Harada sees Tatsuya's passion. That's what I call that a great friend.
Tatsuya: Seeing Kazuya look good will
make me feel bad...
Harada: That's not it...
Harada:What you don't want to see rooting
for your kid brother... is Asakura right?
Tatsuya: What's that supposed to mean?
In
Miss Lonely Yesterday when he returned to Japan after five years of going around the world, he met up with Tatsuya again. He asked Tatsuya about why he quit baseball and Tatsuya said that it was nothing. But what Harada said to him next was what everyone knew and what Tatsuya was trying to keep hidden.
If you play baseball, they will talk about Kazuya... and then he asked him...
Why don't you find a baseball that's not related to Kazuya?. In the end, Tatsuya did just that. He just had to realize it first.
Harada is sort of that wise older brother sort of friend. He sees what's going on before anyone. And he gives advice in a sort of way that makes you realize it for yourself. Minami told Tatsuya once that Harada's appearance doesn't match his personality because although he is the burly, scary looking type, he cares a lot about his friend and understands him very well.
