[PREV - SO_FAR]    [TOP]

MELANCOLY

                                             November  9, 2010
                                       Add:  December 25, 2010

"The Melancholy of
Haruhi Suzumiya" (2006)

First impressions...
                                                    Later conclusions:
The first question: "Melancholy?"
Is that right?  Haruhi seems more                       KYONISM
hyper than melancholy...

The Japanese title is: "Suzumiya
Haruhi no yûutsu", and the                      I would not assume that
on-line dictionaries tell us the                this (lightly) mangled
word there is "gloom,                           English is entirely
depression, melancholy".                        unintentional, by the way...

In the context of the story,                       SUNDAY_CAMP
I think it's more like
"boredom", or more precisely
"dissatisfaction".

Haruhi is unhappy with the mundane world,
and determined to find something more
interesting, something like the fantastic
worlds of manga and anime.
                                          SHOJOS_DESCENT
This is a very late-period anime, very
self-aware of anime's obsessions, it
regards them with humor, and yet even so,      It is all too common for
it remains enthusiastic about them...          things like this to
                                               degenerate into "spoof".
                         Self-reference to
                         otaku culture: the       AWARE_BUT_THERE
                         characters often
                         cosplay within the          Such as the "Excel Saga"
                         story.  So somone who       which is horrible, full
                         wants to cosplay one        of shrill humor and
                         of the characters can       meaningless "parody".
                         pick one of the             For me, this was
                         standard looks the          completely unwatchable.
                         characters have used,
                         e.g. playboy bunny.         (I think it gets more
                         Instant, off-the-peg        respect than it deserves
                         costume.                    because of it's
                                                     well-regarded director,
   My suspicion is the                               Watanabe of Beebop fame.)
   original writers of
   "The Melancoly of                           This sort of parody often
   Haruhi Suzimiya"                            annoys me: why act as though
   started with the                            you're above the material when
   initial opening in                          it clearly rules your head?
   episode 1 (not episode
   0), and then just                                     NULL_HINGED
   started jamming.
                                           But then again, there's the "Ouran
   Episode 1 begins with the               High School Host Club", which is a
   narrator ("Kyon") going on              jokey, "satiric" treatment of it's
   about how he once was into the          subject matter, and yet it actually
   idea of "aliens, future men and         works.
   espers" but put that stuff
   aside by the time he got to             You believe in the characters,
   high school.  Then on the first         and perhaps more importantly,
   day of school, while his new            you're not expected to reject
   home room is doing student              the obsessions it makes fun of.
   introductions, the girl sitting
   behind him stands up, and                                     HOST
   announces she's not interested
   in ordinary humans, but if
   anyone is an "alien, future man      A "future man" is
   or esper", come see her.             what we would call
                                        "a time traveler
     To seek out members of             from the future".
     this trinity, Haruhi and
     Kyon form a school club               NOUNIFICATION
     (Haruhi names this "the
     SOS Brigade", somewhat
     randomly).  The club
     gradually acquires three
     new members... and each
     one of them reveals
     themselves to be an alien,
     a future man, and an         They reveal themselves to
     esper.                       Kyon, that is.  To Haruhi,
                                  who is actively seeking
Now here, we have a slight        them, they say nothing.
plausibility problem: what
brought these three weird                       (And our alien Miss Nagato
characters together right                       actually does double-duty as
under Haruhi's nose?                            a cosmic "cyber-punk"/hacker:
                                                she has the the ability to
The answer the writers contrive is              reprogram reality.)
perhaps the only workable answer:
the female lead ("Haruhi Suzimiya",
or vice-versa if you're Japanese)
has some magical characteristics
she's unaware of, and she created
this situation without realizing it.

In fact, (as of Disk 2 or so, which is what
I'm up to, more or less), it appears that the
world is *entirely* a manifestation of
Haruhi's desires, and the super-trio faction
of the Brigade are nervously dancing around
the problem that Haruhi is unhappy with this
world as it is.  They all treat her as a
spoiled princess-god whose whims have to be
satisfied or deflected or the world may end.

      As plot devices go, this is an
      exceedingly nasty cheat, and
      it's remarkable they get this      This is the sort of thing that
      to work as well as it does.        weakens if not ruins the later
                                         works of Heinlein, and greatly
Of course, it could be that there        diminishes the Cerebus Saga.
are some plot twists ahead...
the various characters have a                When anything can happen
remarkably sketchy understanding             then everything is meaningless.
of what's actually happening, and
it might turn out that they're
wrong in key points.

                            KYONISM

--------
[NEXT - KYONISM]