Hey guys. So I apologize for the previous unclear text on the last few tier lists. I hope that this one is clearer. But anyways, here's the ranking for my opinion of the Gaku portrayals. So Gaku is a character that I enjoy a lot. I have some mixed feelings about him that I need to work through after one particularly nasty interaction lol. But, even now, I have a soft spot for him. Whenever the writers take good care to write him, he's a great character. He has a lot of room for growth. His past makes him interesting and sympathetic. He's somehow eccentric and a straight man at the same time. He's very human. It just sucks that some of the writers tend to exaggerate his perversion since he has the potential to be one of the best written characters. Oh and he has the best sprites and his class armour design has to be my favourite. I rlly hope the DLC does my boy justice because he doesn't deserve this

* CoA is Gaku at his best. I love how he decides to join the infiltration group for Nozomi's sake despite his fear and later stand by Takumi. Meanwhile, Route 0 is the reason why he was initially one of my favourite characters. His persuasion mini-game is my favourite since you have to let him vent out his feelings in the final part to convince him. And all his moments there are great. I liked how he was still a jerk that fundamentally cares about others. I wish the rest of the routes kept him this way. 
* And then we have Slasher. The killer branch has him accepting the responsibility of the chainsaw / suit and later sacrificing his life to attempt to stop the killer which was cool. As for the zombie branch, I do still cringe at his portrayal there but I do understand his perspective there better. He was regretting starting the zombie apocalypse and had a crush on Tsubasa since she defended him. Then he lashed out at Takumi over Tsubasa's death before letting himself get killed by the zombies. This parallels the potential choice that Takumi makes earlier where he lets zombie Nozomi kill him and Kyoshika as well
* The next routes are portrayals that I still like but aren't my favourite. Second Scenario is still great but I was blindsighted by the Eva thing. Plus Gaku's final lines are the most heartbreaking imo. His BoC branch was rlly fun and I enjoyed his bromance with Takumi there a lot. There's a reason why I like the Takugaku ship lol. Altho the rest of the route he's just okay. I also liked their one-on-one bond time in the Casual route but that sadly is just a hallucination. Finally, the SB one is just there because his interaction with Kako there is funny
* The V'ehxness route portrayal was in-character but I rlly wish we could've seen Tsubasa interacting with other students. It would've made it feel more like Tsubasa being ostracized rather than Gaku being a jerk. At least in the Eva route, it wasn't just Gaku that turned against Takumi when he and the others caught him trying to set Eva free. And Rebellion is, well, Rebellion. At least his line about wanting to be a school chef at Nozomi's school was nice
* My Retsnom portrayal ranking might be a bit controversial, but I will die on this hill lol. So I understand being annoyed at Gaku (and Ima for that matter) for getting mad at Takumi for his actions. But I think that they had every right to react the way they did. Takumi did prove to them that he's willing to use the future to lie about Nozomi's friends alive even tho he knew that at least one of them would be dead. The result was that all of the 2LDA students were dead. So by itself, you'd have to expect that at least some of the LDA students would be angry at Takumi for this. But also, Gaku is terrified of dying and is pretty clear about this. And Ima is overprotective of Kako. Who's to say that Takumi wouldn't do the same thing to Gaku and Kako? Even if their reasons are arguably selfish and they do cause tension in the group, it doesn't make them any less valid. I'd even go as far as to say that it's a similar case to Tsubasa in the V'ehxness route or Takemaru in the KG route. Takumi made some choices that led to disastrous consequences and now ppl are gonna be upset with him. In this case, it happens to be Nozomi, Gaku, and Ima. It helps that Gaku's Retsnom portrayal is not the worst one
* The next tier are portrayals that I don't like. However, it's less of a dislike towards Gaku and more of a critique at his writing. I do get that the Gaku gets punished the blackmail stuff in the Comedy route, but it doesn't make it any better lol. SF makes him an outright Teruteru. The BoB one pisses me off so much because it had set up a genuinely good arc for him, only to throw it all away for the sake of hArEm. And finally, the CoT one is mostly a joke one since he gets robbed of his reward time with Takumi lmao
* And as for the KG placement, I understand that Gaku's death had to happen to set up for this route and the SF / Mystery stuff. But it's still a damn shame that he ended up getting killed. Based on the Twitter short stories, Oyama can write Gaku well. So we could've seen some peak Gaku writing here. Welp, I rlly hope that he writes him in the DLC

(Spoilers for all Routes) Gaku Route Ranking