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beneaththetangles · 11 days

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First Impression: YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

A kid runs through the forest, taking his sick younger sibling on a piggyback ride as he flees from strange lights. Suddenly, he loses his footing and falls. A three-legged raven responds to their desperate plea for help and tells Yukiya that they will see each other again. We’re in the Kingdom of Yamauchi, where the Four Lords serve the kin’u, who reigns from his palace on the Mountain. And, since the new kin’u is young, they have sent their daughters. The future Queen will be chosen from their rank. From the North, we meet the brutally honest Lady Hamayu. From the South, the devious Masuho no Susuki. The West sends the beautiful yet icy Lady Shiratama. The black horse of the competition is the envoy of the East, Lady Asebi, less learned or prepared than the other three, as Lady Masuho soon brings to light. Her older sister, the firstborn, was supposed to be there in her place, but she fell ill. Day after day, the ladies wait, but the kin’u doesn’t appear. Back to Yukiya, he is now the mischievous second son of a nobleman, a teenager who knows how to exact revenge on those who underestimate him. One day, one of his schemes has the wild side effect of having him chosen as an attendant to the kin’u. Yukiya is not very happy about this arrangement, but his father makes it abundantly clear that it is either this or a monastery for him. But when he meets the kin’u, his voice sounds very familiar…

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beneaththetangles · 3 days

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A Tale of Two Alchemists, II: The Brotherhood of Everything

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. We put all our trust in alchemy, but in the end…what is it?” In the episode “Rain of Sorrows” in FMA:B, Edward Elric shows himself to be a very different man than his FMA incarnation. Lost in regret rather than horrified denial, he confesses his doubts about alchemy, the Potteresque science/magic at the center of his world. “Alchemy,” he says, “is the science of understanding the flow of matter and its laws. The process of comprehension, deconstruction, and reconstruction. The world flows too. It must also follow laws.”

Alchemy is reliable knowledge. Alchemy is science-based power. But deep down, Edward’s alchemy was actually a quest for the scientifically impossible. Under the rain, he confesses his immaturity, his foolishness, his contradictions. Ed, whose core ideology at this point is scientific humanism and rebellious atheism, is conflicted. He wants to put all his hopes in science-guided humanitarianism, but he loves his little brother and keeps going against the “flow of the world,” hoping for a miracle.

Last month, I explained how FMA’s alchemy is a perfect stand-in for the scientific revolution, highlighting the contradictions at its very foundations and how its deconstruction creates a point of contact between the franchise and Christianity. This paradox is the tragedy at the heart of FMA (2003), but I contend that it becomes a sign of hope in 2012’s FMA:B. What is the difference between the two versions, you ask? Wait for it: brotherhood!

Okay, okay, I’ll go deeper: spoilers ahead!

(Read More)

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beneaththetangles · 21 days

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First Impression: BARTENDER Glass of God

Miwa Kurushima is desperately searching all around the city with her enthusiastic coworker Higuchi for a bartender. So far, they have had no luck. Each and every candidate, no matter how promising he looks, is rejected by the chief of the division, Kawashima, who conducts impossibly strict tests under instructions from above. Cardinal Hotel is opening an “authentic counter-type bar,” and needs the best of the best. According to the President, no less than a consummate artist will do–someone capable of making the Glass of God. Now, what is the Glass of God? He won’t say. And so Miwa and Higushi keep searching and searching, while the rest of their colleagues advance on their assignments. Who will be the right person for the job? Surely not Ryu Sasakura, a man they find sleeping on a park bench, who doesn’t know how to pick up a call on his smartphone, and who accidentally leaves a library book behind. But when they find him again in Edenhall Bar, he looks like a different person. He’s composed, artful, and incredibly kind. To test him, Miwa asks him to serve her any drink he wants. And when he picks a highball, the choice dooms him in her eyes…

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beneaththetangles · 2 months

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A Tale of Two Alchemists, I: FMA (2003) and Existential Technology

Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, has the inscription “Don’t forget 3.Oct.11” carved inside his silver pocket watch, the symbol of his office. It is a memorial of the day a new life opened up before the maimed Elric brothers—one of alchemy, detective work and military service. And if we had silver pocket watches at BtT, mine might say: “Don’t forget FMA:B”.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was my doorway into anime, and I have walked side by side with the Elric brothers again and again ever since. I’ll do it once more in this article, exploring how they inspired (and still inspire) me, encouraging my love of God. Kind of odd, since Edward loudly proclaims his atheism and his devotion to alchemy, while I’m a convinced Catholic. Or is it?

FMA:B is arguably the anime of my generation. It was also the very first series I ever watched back at college when we decided that a nightly anime episode during exams was the perfect study break. I was a Ghibli fan (and had been a Pokemon kid), but nothing more. I was soon won over by FMA:B though. Episode after episode, I experienced an increasing sense of sense of awe. What a well-crafted, sincere, thoughtful fantasy adventure! And much of that awe had to do with… alchemy.

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beneaththetangles · 1 year

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First Impression, Team Edition: Oshi no Ko

Ok everyone, get comfortable—this is gonna be a wild ride! The most highly anticipated new series premiere finally dropped today not just with a single episode, nor even a double, but with a feature film-length special adapting the entire first volume of the manga. That’s right, 90 minutes of sparkly idol eyes, beaming smiles, and whiplash twists and turns that make it incredibly difficult even just to list the genre tags without spoiling. We’ll do our best though not to spoil you—though we are going to pamper you a little, as befits a series about babies and idols, and serve up a rare treat: that’s right, it’s time for a BtT Team Review!!!

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beneaththetangles · 4 months

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First Impression: Metallic Rouge

The roaring twenties are back in all their neon glory. Zeppelins fly around the art déco skyscrapers. On the surface, waiters in uniform serve the guests of an elegant club. Tonight, singer Sarah Fitzgerald performs on stage, while assassin Hell Giaion, who is half the Joker and half Vash the Stampede, steals a smuggled shipment on the street. But this is not the Earth: we’re on Mars, where the twin moons Deimos and Phobos shine through the pink mist. And the waiters and cleaners are Neans, humanoid androids who need a substance called Nectar to survive. But Nectar is also a powerful drug, and lowlifes can take advantage of the rules that stop Neans from defying humans to steal it from them. It is a dangerous world, which is why Miss Fitzgerald has taken under her wing a young, homeless girl whom she found sitting in the rain. But, after an armored robot called a Red Gladiator attacks her, Sarah and Giaion meet at a cathedral at midnight. As it turns out, they are not human, but part of the Immortal Nine, powerful Neans not bound by the usual rules. And the assassin who killed two of them already is coming for the rest.

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beneaththetangles · 4 months

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12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 12: War in the Pocket, Peace on Earth

Henry W. Longfellow, of The Song of Hiawatha fame, wrote Christmas Bells in 1863. The poem echoed the song of the angels on the very first Christmas: “Peace on Earth!” But it also reflected on the fact that the deadliest military conflict in American history, the Civil War, was at its peak. Longfellow’s poem was not the first or last work of art to portray this heartbreaking contrast between Christmas and war.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, an odd six-episode OVA member of the big Gundam family, belongs to that tradition. In 2023, this reality may be more present in our minds. Christmas at war: bombs and shootings juxtaposed with hymns and decorations. The warm anticipation of the presence of family and friends and the looming threat that they will be counted among the fallen. Those who could be friends or lovers fighting one another. How do we deal with such dissonance?

Both War in the Pocket and Christmas Bells approach this issue by starting with images of light and innocence, reinforced by the familiar Christmas imagery, and gradually letting darker concepts and themes emerge. As such, as we will see, they highlight some often overlooked themes of violence and death present in the Christmas story, as told in the Gospel.

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beneaththetangles · 6 months

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Mob Psycho 100: The Cunning of the Light

Overpowered protagonists, ugly character designs, excessive gags, anti-climatic narratives. As an anime viewer, you quickly learn to recognize such things as the bane of the genre: They sink so many potentially cool stories! But… what if those things were to work the other way around? To enhance, surprise, and make a tale great?

Can you imagine an ugly-looking gag show becoming beautiful and heart-wrenching in the blink of an eye? Watching one egregious situation after another, yet walking away feeling edified? Well, this is only the first paradox Mob Psycho 100 has in store for you.

Mob is truly great. It is a hilarious masterclass of subtle storytelling and a wise tale about our world. So wise, in fact, that it helps me approach the paradoxical nature of my own desires. What do I want things for? What is the endgame for me? Or, as Our Lord put it, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”

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beneaththetangles · 7 months

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First Impression: KAWAGOE BOYS SING -Now or Never-

As the episode begins, we are introduced to Tenshi Dei, whose first name means “angel” in Japanese, while his surname means “God” in Latin. Tenshi, though, doesn’t look as imposing as this name suggests. In fact, he’s just a timid boy who used to sing in a church choir when he was little, and in time he has grown so insecure that now he only sings in his insonorized cabin, where the soundproofing keeps his voice from escaping into the world. Thankfully, at school he can rely on the friendship of Ei-chan, the robust guy from the swimming club, and Shuji, the cool natural leader girls always confess to. Without their support, he wouldn’t survive the crazy antics of Haruo Hibiki, the disgraced conductor who lacks people skills and forcefully recruits them all into a choir without seeming to understand their objections. You see, he is the grandson of the director of the Academy, and grandmother is insisting that he create a magnificent choir from scratch. If he does, she will put in a good word for him and the world of Japanese orchestra music will be open to him again. But when the chips are down, will he be able to get Tenshi to sing?

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beneaththetangles · 7 months

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First Impression: Tearmoon Empire

Revolution has come to the Empire of Tearmoon and Mia, its First Princess, is experiencing her worst nightmare. Stripped of her rank, jailed in a dark cell, and force-fed rotten food, she is then left without any distraction, except for the diary she dutifully writes. Three years on, she finally sees daylight again, only to be taken to the guillotine. A multitude is watching and cheering. Her old classmates are there, stone-faced. Unexpectedly, though, her execution is followed by her waking up. She is twelve again, and her palace is still intact. It would be easy to disregard all that has happened as an illusion, and she tries to do so. But an incident with Anne, a clumsy red-haired servant, reminds Mia of the devotion she was shown and never got the chance to repay. Consequently, she returns to the fateful diary that lies on her bed, narrating the financial crisis that engulfed the Empire and led to famine, civil war, foreign intervention and, ultimately, her death. She decides she won’t allow it to happen again. And she has a plan.

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beneaththetangles · 7 months

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First Impression: Ragna Crimson

Destiny can be ironic. Or so feels Ragna, the all-powerful dragonslayer, as he turns reptiles into liquid silver on a land covered in ice. The lethal techniques he has honed throughout his life would have been helpful in the past, back in the year 480 of the Sun Age, when he was a teenager and there was someone he would have given anything to save. But Ragna was a weakling then, a so-called “parasite” who would just hang around the warrior prodigy he idolized, a child with a scar named Leo, helping her with practical chores. But she died in a dragon attack, just like Ragna’s parents, and the relatives who took him in, and the rich man who adopted him after that. They didn’t even have a chance. But what if Ragna could create a chance? What if he could contact his past self? And what if he could pass his abilities onto that past Ragna in time to save Leo? Perhaps it would be worth the try. Even if the price is giving the sinister Dragon leader her own opportunity to interfere with the past…

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beneaththetangles · 9 months

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The Gospel as the Great Passage, III: Words and Life

When The Great Passage is halfway through, life kicks in like a tsunami. Editorial machinations, illustrious yet sloppy collaborators, unexpressed feelings, family matters, time jumps. But in the middle of the storm, the dictionary project and the ideal it represents stay the course. But what ideal is that?

“Life.” “Love.” “Purpose.” “Enterprise.” “Death.” These are words, and only words, unless they come alive and shine before us, piercing us with their edges, filling us with their fire, making their weight felt on us. For each of our dictionary researchers, as life becomes words, words become life: that is the open, beating heart of this magnificent show.

So it is, too, with the Gospel and us, the disciples of Christ. The Word becomes Life i

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beneaththetangles · 1 year

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The Gospel as the Great Passage, I: On Talking Books

My great-grandfather was born to a peasant family in Spain. At a young age, he spent some time training to become a priest, and although he ultimately chose another path, he nevertheless retained a great love for language: Latin, Greek, and Spanish, then Sanskrit, Quechua, Turkish, Indostani. After long years of military service, research, and hard work, he became a member of the Royal Spanish Academy. For years, he directed a team devoted to writing and editing dictionaries.

Meanwhile, he married a girl from his old village. They had eleven children and lost three of them. And he fought to hand down to them his Christian faith, intact from his journey from the village to the capital, which eventually reached my grandfather, my mother, and me. I have one of his dictionaries at home.

Every dictionary is different, you see. The personalities, years of hard work, deliberate choices, and worldviews of its makers are imprinted on it, long after they are gone.

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beneaththetangles · 1 year

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12 Days of Christmas, Day 11: Illumine your hearts. (Non)Christmas at Tearmoon Empire

In the name of the Very holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

To-day, the 25th day of December, 1792, I, Louis XVI King of France, being for more than four months imprisoned with my family in the tower of the Temple at Paris, by those who were my subjects, and deprived of all communication whatsoever, even with my family, since the eleventh instant; moreover, involved in a trial the end of which it is impossible to foresee (…) and having no other witnesses, for my thoughts than God to whom I can address myself, I hereby declare, in His presence, my last wishes and feelings.

Louis XVI, King of France

Things change. After a Christmas of joy, there might be a Christmas of sorrow. The King of France, the great political and military power of the late XVIIIth Century, would die by the guillotine less than a month after writing these words. After going through hell, his wife, the young Marie Antoinette of Austria, would follow the same fate in October of that year. Their heir, Louis Charles, would survive for another year. Their tragedy, hers especially, has inspired songs, movies, books, anime, and… light novels, too.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoniette, as depicted in the shoujo classic “Rose of Versailles” (1972).

In Tearmoon Empire, Mia Luna Tearmoon is the daughter, rather than the wife, of the most powerful of Emperors, likewise condemned to the guillotine. Mia is “rather lazy and extremely frivolous; she is hard to teach,” as Mathieu-Jacques de Vermond, Marie Antoinette’s tutor, once said of his royal pupil. Like the French Queen, Mia’s name has also become hateful for her people, who accuse her of lavish excess and of being the root of all the evils of the country.

Unlike her historical inspiration though, when the heavy blade of iron falls, Mia is sent eight years back in time to before the crisis began and is given the opportunity to show a different aspect of herself. For, just as Mathieu-Jacques de Vermond came to realize about Marie Antoinette, Mia is actually “more intelligent than has been generally supposed”, and deep down, “her character, her heart, are excellent” (de Vermond’s words)—despite anything the narrator might say to the contrary. And now, she has a chance to show it.

Having experienced the endgame, Mia now sees everything differently. Going back to the anime-style royal Academy of Saint-Noel, “Holy Christmas”, she now knows that certain people who seemed attractive and desirable to her the first time around are actually dangerous. She also knows that certain ones who appeared insignificant to her are actually valuable and important. And little by little, she changes her ways.

Mia, in the trailer of “Tearmoon Empire” (2023).

The change doesn’t happen in an instant, but it’s aided by the same mysterious power that saved her life. She discovers that she is involved in a secret war between good and a horrifying, all-consuming evil that is hidden in plain sight. And as she begins to fight in this unseen battle, she finds friendship, duty, love, and the previously unmet potential of the reality in which she had otherwise been existing blindly. Her resulting transformation is oddly like the change in Scrooge or the Grinch when they encounter the light of Christmas.

In volume 5 of Tearmoon Empire, we learn that Saint-Noel’s biggest annual event is, very fittingly, the Holy Eve Festival. This is the non-exactly-Christmas of the not-exactly-Christian world where Mia lives, described thus: “Based on the story of the Holy Deity descending to the mortal realm and bestowing the light of hope upon man, the festival’s purpose was to express that year’s worth of gratitude for His Holiness.”

And what did this festival entail, exactly? “Held during the first week of the last month of each year, it consisted of a solemn candlelight mass followed by a lively celebration. During the mass, everyone gathered at the altar, each holding a wooden lamp. A traditional list of hymns was sung before Rafina gave a sermon. At the end of the service, everyone would go outside and throw their lamps onto a bonfire, causing it to grow from an ember to a great, blazing flame. The ritual represented the light of hope from God illuminating the earth.”

When the Mass ended, the party began, and the festivities would continue throughout the night with friends chatting, merchants coming and going, and an atmosphere of joy alongside the good food.

Mia, as depicted in the Light Novel.

This is, more or less, what my own Christmas looks like. Because, you see, the Catholic Nativity Mass is also a “Mass of Light” that celebrates the light of hope brought to us by God’s Incarnation and references this theme throughout all its liturgy. My family celebrates it together with our parish community on Christmas Eve, and afterward, we have the feast.

Advent is dark. Dark purple ornaments, dark purple clothes for the priest, no flowers on the altar, no “Gloria” prayer before the readings, one to four candles, personal penitence, and preparation. But Christmas is a light in the darkness, a day of fire, white and gold. And we sing or pray before the altar: “O God, who have made this most sacred night / radiant with the splendor of the true light, / grant, we pray, that we, who have known the mysteries of his light on earth…”

Marie Antoinette and Louis, too, had their royal banquet on Christmas Eve, but they attended three Masses, not one. These were the same ones that exist today. At night, the liturgy of the first mass follows the angels, marveling at the Word made flesh, born of the Virgin Mary. The second, Dawn Mass, follows the shepherds hurrying to the stable to adore the newborn King. And the third celebrates the Eternal Word made Flesh, using the Gospel of St. John.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoniette, “Rose of Versailles”.

But the liturgical peculiarities don’t end there. As with Easter, the next eight days are days of repetition: every Mass celebrates Christmas again, and says again and again: “Christ the Lord is born today; today the Savior has appeared….” Why? Well… “When a feast comes, the soul is amazed and not quite prepared to think profoundly upon its mystery; but on the following days the mind finds it easy to consider the mystery from all sides, sympathetically and deeply.”

Tearmoon Empire is a story of lessons sinking in. Mia was saved by a stunning miracle. At first, she reacted in disbelief, with rushed, comical actions born of her survival instinct. But living through event after event for the second time, she starts to truly internalize what happened.

She begins to discover that the source of the miracle is the Holy Deity, and that there is a mission for her to accomplish. She realizes that she has received new hope, and a way out of her deeply unsatisfying life, one that ended in tragedy and, tellingly enough, had seen her waste the Holy Eve festival waiting for a boy who had no interest in her. She begins, at last, to truly see.

Mia, in the Light Novel.

The Holy Eve ritual of St. Noel in Tearmoon Empire gives her the chance to do this. It is fundamentally a call to common offering and thanksgiving to God, that is, a call to rediscover and value the new life she has been given and the One who gave it to her, and to know that the people around her are included in this new life.

Liturgy, or the common prayer of a people, helps us to do the same. The loving dialogue between God and His Chosen People is now celebrated by Christ as the One Who offers Himself to His Father, including in His offering the whole Church. And it helps us to reflect profoundly on and dwell in the living mystery.

We are bodily beings, and speaking, listening, singing, taking part in or watching ritual actions such as lighting candles, kneeling, standing, seeing light, color, fire, oil, water—these motions help us to slow down and rest in the deep truths about who God is, living them in different ways, from different angles. So do, in a different way, our personal practices and celebrations, music, food, presents, decorations, and images. We use all the means in our power, with the assistance of God, to truly see.

Mia, in the trailer of “Tearmoon Empire” (2023).

To see what, though? Well, remember how both the Holy Eve Festival and the Mass on Christmas Eve are feasts of light? We come to see that, whatever the appearances, we too are like Mia. Saved from a grisly fate and fighting monstrous evil, we yet have hope because God has come: “Today you will know that the Lord will come, and he will save us, and in the morning you will see his glory.”

Like Mia, throughout our lives in faith, we learn to recognize that the seemingly attractive, essential things and people we were desperate to reach sometimes were dangerous, while insignificant, unsightly realities are revealed by the light of God to be valuable and important. Things change, empires rise and fall, and the mighty of this world fade and are replaced. But there is an eternal light shining from Bethlehem, one whose splendor reaches even beyond the Christian world. Christ is with us, and He will fight for us.

And thus, even when everything falls apart, our hearts will be able to see. And perhaps they will say, along with Louis XVI at his last Christmas,

I beseech those who have the kindness to join their prayers to mine, to obtain pardon from God for my sins. I pardon with all my heart those who made themselves my enemies… I pray God particularly to cast eyes of compassion upon my wife, my children, and my sister, who suffered with me for so long a time, to sustain them with His mercy if they shall lose me, and as long as they remain in his mortal world.

Louis and Marie Antoinette, “Rose of Versailles”.

I leave my soul to God, my creator; I pray Him to receive it in His mercy, not to judge it according to its merits but according to those of Our Lord Jesus Christ who has offered Himself as a sacrifice to God His Father for us other men, no matter how hardened, and for me first.

Most things change, but some do not. After a Christmas of joy, there might be a Christmas of sorrow. After a Christmas of light, there might be one of prison and pain. But it will still be Christmas, because Christ, the Light, has truly come to us, bringing the Love that never ends and never, ever changes.

Happy Christmas, everyone.

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There’s no Tearmoon Empire anime yet, but it’s coming in 2023. The light novels are published by J-Novel Club. Rose of Versailles (which is not entirely historic, but it’s certainly a landmark of anime) can be streamed at Plex.

#Anime #Christianity #Tearmoon Empire #Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari #The Rose of Versailles #Versailles no Bara #Christmas #Advent #Liturgy #12 Days of Christmas Anime #Articles #Author: Gaheret

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beneaththetangles · 2 years

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The Text x Context of Haruhi Suzumiya, Part II

Welcome back to Text x Context, the new BtT feature that examines multiple light novels at the same time! Previously on Text x Context, we began a discussion of the first four volumes of the popular Haruhi Suzumiya series. We had so much to talk about with this thought-provoking story that we needed two posts for it. Let’s get back to it!

Themes:

The Reading Experience • Anime Adaptation • Comparison with Evangelion & Monogatari

Questions:

Why does Haruhi choose Kyon? • Why is Haruhi rebelling? • Where is it all going? • What is the point? • Final Thoughts

Why does Haruhi choose Kyon?

Jeskai: I think Kyon starts out as a mirror for Haruhi. Both are self-centered, hypocritical, hypercritical know-it-alls who understand far less about the people around them than they realize. If Haruhi is a god, then Kyon is made in her image. Haruhi obviously considers herself the smartest person in the room, and though Kyon is more subtle about his sense of superiority, he frequently expounds on how he’s the straight man, the voice of reason, the only “normal” member of the group. That’s Kyon’s role in Haruhi’s world: he’s the one who is most like her, the one who is most truly her peer, friend, and fellow protagonist.

Twwk: I’ll have to chew on that explanation a bit. I’ll go with something more obvious, which is that even though Kyon finds Haruhi attractive, he doesn’t talk to her in order to try to date her. He’s genuine with her and keeps talking to her even when the whole world thinks she’s crazy. In other words, he accepts her as she is. That in itself makes him unique, and a character worth bringing into her vision of the world.

Gaheret: I think it’s the shared feeling of despair and the desire for adventure, hope, depth, and even heroism. Haruhi shares her experience of hopelessness as a child with Kyon because she correctly perceives that he is going through a similar crisis of hope, even if he denies it. The Haruhi in Disappearance had no SOS Brigade because Kyon is the reason for it. Here, she is trying to get him to live differently, to grow, and to take the initiative, regarding her and more generally because, from the first arc, his appreciation for the world inspires her to try to appreciate it too. Disappearance shows us just how lost Kyon is without that.

sleepminusminus: Haruhi represents the extraordinary, the transcendent, the supernatural, while Kyon represents the ordinary, the everyday, and the natural. Haruhi chooses Kyon because while she longs for more than this world, she also doesn’t want any less. She loves this world. That’s why she doesn’t recreate it in Melancholy. That’s why she spends so much time working on the cultural festival in Sigh (after all, cultural festivals happen every year—it’s not like a once-in-a-lifetime extraordinary event!) That’s why she signs up for a baseball tournament in Boredom. And that’s why her idea of the perfect Christmas in Disappearance is actually a somewhat tame hot pot party.

What do you think about Haruhi’s rebellion against her everyday life?

Gaheret: It really resonates with me. I’m trying to live a heroic life, in touch with wonder and what I believe to be the meaning of the Universe. While there are many dangers in the life of a Christian, mundanity, a thirst for worldly things, and an apathetic attitude are among the most dangerous. The melancholy of despair, the lies we tell ourselves, and the “rebellion of the wonder” are themes that really speak to my heart, and Haruhi’s fight, even if flawed, unites them with a great appreciation for daily things and ordinary people.

Jeskai: I mostly agree with everything you said, Gaheret, but I do think that like Kyon, Haruhi’s initial outlook is flawed and later shows signs of growth. I specifically take issue with Haruhi’s dismissal of “ordinary humans.” In context, it’s ironic and funny because she and everyone in the SOS Brigade are far from ordinary, but it also reminds me of a famous C. S. Lewis quotation:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

The Weight of Glory

I think Haruhi starts to acknowledge this as the story slowly hints that she cares more about her brigade members than she lets on. She comes to treasure Kyon and the others—perhaps even more than she herself realizes—despite how “ordinary” she believes them to be. So, with the caveat that everyday life can be more extraordinary than we (or Haruhi) realize, I do appreciate her pursuit of wonder and meaning.

What are your thoughts on the story’s worldbuilding?

And especially the way in which sci-fi/fantasy (or imagination) crosses over into the (seemingly) prosaic real-world setting?

Jeskai: To me, the obvious comparison here is the Rascal Does Not Dream series, which feels like it sometimes tries to skew closer to hard sci-fi, but ends up as pure fantasy, with the science taking a back seat. The “rules” of the paranormal phenomena are all over the place, giving the story more of a fantasy vibe even though it actually makes more explicit references to science. Yet, though the world-building of Haruhi Suzumiya doesn’t even pretend to be truly scientific, a couple of elements actually make it feel more “sci-fi” than I expected. First, we hear competing theories about Haruhi’s nature from Koizumi, Nagato, and Asahina. This shows us that the characters within the setting are trying to make sense of Haruhi rationally, thereby encouraging us as the readers to join them in looking for some underlying rationale to all the weirdness. Second, the story seems to make an effort to be internally consistent with some of its strange phenomena (e.g., treating the different instances of time travel according to the same set of rules). The result is a tale that feels more like sci-fi than fantasy.

Twwk: I agree that the series has a surprisingly strong sci-fi edge to it. I’ve struggled with the Rascal Does Not Dream series because while I fully enjoy the interactions between characters, I hate hate hate the “science” that it weaves into its world. I can’t buy it. It’s too silly. But Haruhi, which chooses to be six or seven different things (and I would say does all of them well), also throws in “science fiction” among the bunch, most emphatically when Koizumi, Asahina, or Nagato give long explanations related to who they are. It’s such a shift in tone as these otherwise comical and fairly representative characters show themselves to be experts in their fields. And it helps make the leaps in the series—both tonal and temporal—believable.

Gaheret: I think it’s brilliant. And I think we can trace the cheeky and character-driven use of sci-fi conventions that somehow manages to be consistent back to Evangelion. Haruhi has a lot of fun with its science, both in what it says and what it implies. For example, I think that the idea that the iterations of Kyon and Asahina from the third novel are sleeping in a nearby room when Kyon visits Nagato for the first time in Melancholy is just too funny. The daily world is pretty lively, with compelling characters and scenarios, and I really like the tone of Kyon’s normal school life.

sleepminusminus: I agree with Twwk and Jeskai that this series does sci-fi far better than Rascal does, though I would say that Kamoshida, the author of the Rascal Does Not Dream series, isn’t even writing science-fiction—science is just Rio’s language for the fantastic events going on, and one of many languages that Sakuta employs in trying to find his way around Adolescence Syndrome. In contrast, Tanigawa is explicitly writing science-fiction with the convoluted accounts of Haruhi and her origin, purpose, and destiny.

The reading experience:

Next year will be 20 years since the first novel was published, leading to widespread acclaim and excitement. If you read it for the first time years ago, how might your experience differ if you experienced it for the first time now, or if this is your first reading, how might your reception have been different two decades ago?

Jeskai: Hmm, back in 2003, I think my high school self’s initial reaction would have been…exactly the same as it was a few years ago when I first tried to pick up vol. 1. I would have found it completely unenjoyable and dropped it halfway through due to Haruhi’s abrasive personality and cruel behavior. Of course, I was barely aware of anime and completely ignorant of light novels back in 2003, so that would have been another barrier to appreciating it. And I was conservative as all get-out back then, so I suspect I would have found the story morally unacceptable in one way or another. This question is really making me aware of how much my attitudes and interests have changed.

Twwk: If I were to have read these novels now instead of when I first did, years ago, I don’t know if I could enjoy them as much. The crazy arcs, mystery elements, and jumps in time are elements that I think are still courageous to use and fairly unique to light novels, but the characters themselves are less so, now more than ever. Haruhi and Kyon, particularly, have been copied a thousand times over. Hachiman, at least for the first half to two-thirds of the Oregairu run, is a better Kyon, which might lead me to pull him off the pedestal I’ve placed him on—at least partially.

But you know what? At the same time, I only read the last several volumes of Haruhi in recent years. And I still find them as entertaining as virtually any light novels I’ve ever read.

Gaheret: I was nine in 2003, and I was reading the likes of Harry Potter and Around the World in Eighty Days. I don’t think I would have enjoyed Haruhi. Specifically, I suspect the fanservice would have led me to drop it instantly, too.

sleepminusminus: Along with the fanservice, the one thing I noticed is an oddity of the English localization; the translators make frequent use of the r-word, which made me cringe every single time I read it. The first time they used the word I had to do a double-take and check when the book was published. It’s wild to me that they were able to publish this book in the US without controversy just a little over ten years ago (though in fairness, maybe there was a backlash that I’m not aware of).

Taking into account these first volumes, where do you think this story could be going?

Gaheret: I think that Disappearance proves that everything that happens is meaningful foreshadowing. And while the center of the story is the struggle of Haruhi and Kyon to live a meaningful life, the secondary characters receive their fair share of attention and compelling twists. I hope to see an all-out confrontation with a hopeful resolution that has an impact on the lives of major and minor characters alike. And one that serves as a foundation for Haruhi and Kyon’s romance, too. Something like the ending of the first arc, only everyone sees it.

Jeskai: I agree. Disappearance shows that despite how choppy and episodic the story sometimes feels in the first three volumes, there IS an overall plot (complete with foreshadowing) that ties everything together. The author isn’t just writing a slice-of-life series. I imagine Haruhi’s continued story will be much the same as these volumes, with escalating high-stakes sci-fi adventure juxtaposed with comical absurdity and high school relationship drama. Ugh. I almost feel tempted to read more of the series now. LOL.

Twwk: I won’t answer this question since I’ve completed the run of light novels that are currently published, but I just wanted to chime in here and say YESSSSSS to Jeskai being tempted to continue with the series!

sleepminusminus: Seeing as we got more details about Yuki’s character in Disappearance, I’d expect more detail for the other two side characters, Asahina and Koizumi. I don’t see the series going much farther with the romance.

What is the Haruhi franchise trying to say?

Gaheret: I think it has a message of existential hope and the appreciation of life and love, both for the ordinary and the extraordinary.

Jeskai: I might be overthinking it, but I also kind of see the light novels (less so the anime) as a critique of the modern, rationalist, materialist tendency to deny or explain away the supernatural, to treat science as opposing faith, and to preen our feathers and look down our noses at those ignorant and superstitious people of the past who had such quaint misconceptions about the world. The first volume opens with Kyon’s smug monologue about how he was too smart to ever believe in Santa Claus. I hate Santa Claus myself, so I don’t really mind Kyon’s statement, but his initial attitude seems emblematic of a broader dismissal of the supernatural. The rest of the story proceeds to beat him over the head with the fact that although not all strange phenomena are paranormal, there is indeed more to reality than the physical world we perceive.

Twwk: I don’t think you’re overthinking it, Jeskai. There’s enough depth here to believe that the author really wanted to impress that thoughtful theme, as well as the philosophical ideas that Gaheret has discussed in his ongoing series of posts on the anime.

There’s also the idea that we matter. Haruhi is obsessed with how little she matters, though the series shows her to be rather the most important being of all. Kyon, in contrast, has nothing of what Haruhi is apparently looking for that would make him significant, but he’s more significant than anyone else to her. And yet, he’s normal. Is there meaning in being just a regular person? Yes, and this is expressed through Kyon’s centrality to the series. And so we, perhaps as sarcastic 16-year-olds reading this series, must matter too.

And I would add to all this something simpler as well, which harkens back to the Santa introduction: maybe believing in the unknown, the spiritual, and the fantastic isn’t something we should ever grow out of or abandon. Maybe being a chuunibyou isn’t so bad after all.

sleepminusminus: The chuunibyou parallels are definitely palpable: the love for both the ordinary and the extraordinary, the interplay between the dramatic and the everyday, and the search for meaning and identity somewhere outside this world.

To Jeskai’s point, I think the series expresses a critique of modernism even if doing so wasn’t the author’s conscious intent. Modern culture is both starved of and starving for the transcendent. We want magic to be real even if we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s not. And so there’s probably that theme at work implicitly here as well.

How do these novels compare to the well-known anime adaptation The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?

Jeskai: I think I like the anime slightly better overall. Like other anime adaptations of heavily comedic stories, the addition of visual and aural elements helps to convey the humor in a way that the written word can’t quite accomplish. Then again, the anime had the “Endless Eight” and the light novel thankfully didn’t, so that’s at least one point (eight points?) in favor of the books. There’s also the fact that Disappearance isn’t part of the anime. (I understand there’s a movie based on it, but it’s not as accessible as just watching anime on Crunchyroll, so I haven’t seen it.) This matters because I enjoyed the fourth volume quite a bit more than the first three; in other words, the anime is missing the best part of the story so far.

Twwk: If you like the anime a little more now, you’ll like it a whole lot better after the movie. It is an all-time great anime film (though I guess I would say Disappearance is an all-time great light novel volume—at least based on my reading). I have such a love for the series, and if we’re talking about only the first four novels, I would go with the anime + film. We’re not covering the rest of the Haruhi volumes here, but with how the story has expanded, I now enjoy the light novels more.

Adding “voice” to the characters is a huge win for the anime. Both English and Japanese versions were well-cast, but I think maybe the American version is better. Hearing Crispin Freeman reading Kyon’s thoughts in my head makes the novel oh so entertaining.

A positive for the light novel series though is that I think those long asides from Koizumi, Asahina, and Nagato are more palatable in book form. They’re expected when you read novels. But when 25% of an episode is a character talking about being a data interface unit, I tend to tune out.

Gaheret: KyoAni’s direction is brilliant. The music is spot on, the visuals are very cool, and the contrasts between the normal and the weird are clearer than in the novels. By now, I even like the Endless Eight. Kyon’s dialogue gets much less tiresome when he doesn’t need to narrate (and comment on) everything that is happening. Plus, the anime has small moments without him that are very clarifying, especially in the chapter Someday in the Rain. Tanigawa’s style has clearly improved over time too, so I found Melancholy underwhelming (not Disappearance though, which may have been the best LN I have read so far). I still like the anime slightly more, though.

The Remote Island arc, specifically, was elevated in the anime adaptation, with additional context, jokes and scenarios (like how Haruhi and Kyon fall into a cave when searching for the killer) and with some, ahem, questionable ideas removed. Why do Haruhi and Kyon need to get drunk? Things are already controversial enough as it is! I liked that Kyon had a mother and a father in the novels though, and that they are repeatedly mentioned as a part of his daily life.

sleepminusminus: I was wondering where that cave scene went! Makes a lot more sense now that I know that’s anime-original. As for me, I liked Kyon and Haruhi better in the anime, and it was Kyoto Animation, so it’s really a foregone conclusion.

What do you think about the parallels between Haruhi and other deconstructive shows like Evangelion or Monogatari?

Gaheret: Haruhi has some striking parallels with Evangelion, in terms of both characters and style (an established anime genre repurposed as an existential piece). Ayanami and Nagato are the names of ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Koizumi looks like Kaworu, and the influence of Asuka can definitively be felt in Haruhi. Even Taniguchi and Kunikida are similar to Shinji’s classmates. I think this can only be intentional. At some points, it works as a parody of NGE. At others, it’s a continuation of its themes. Monogatari is a different kind of deconstructive show, but Haruhi shares with it a strong focus on the central conflicts of the characters and the use of fantastical elements to explore them.

Twwk: This is an awesome question—I’ve never thought of comparing Haruhi to Evangelion, nor read of others making that comparison. But gosh, the similarities are indeed striking. Gaheret didn’t mention that Rei resembles Nagato (and I think far more than Haruhi does Asuka—wait, does that mean Mikuru is Misato? Or maybe…Pen-Pen?).

But now that the comparison is made, Haruhi seems like it could have been born in part out of a desire to make a happier, less depressing Evangelion. Though that was later done through manga adaptations of the “happy world” episode of NGE, and then somewhat through the Rebuild series years later, Haruhi is far better crafted than the NGE episode, and more thoroughly optimistic than Rebuild.

Final Thoughts

Jeskai: Well, I just realized that, given the seasonal timing and the alternate reality premise, Disappearance is slightly reminiscent of It’s a Wonderful Life, and that’s hilarious. It could also be seen as a nod to Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, with a seasonally-timed supernatural experience that changes someone’s perspective. Another sudden realization: that black shape in the background of each of the novel covers is a giant H for Haruhi.

Finally, a moment I think worth highlighting: I thought it was super funny when Asakura came up and stabbed Kyon in vol. 4. Like, dude, you know you just need to shoot Nagato with the injection gun to fix the space-time continuum…so you stand there monologuing for ten minutes like a cliché, giving the opposition time to fight back. As he rambled on, I found myself thinking “Something will definitely go wrong,” and then a couple of pages later, behold, it came to pass! Pretty sure the protagonist getting stabbed isn’t normally supposed to be so entertaining, but Kyon pulled it off.

And that levity-filled moment concludes our first Text x Context post! If you made it this far, thanks for reading! And please let us know whether you like this sort of content! As for next time… we have a little surprise for you from another world! Normally we otaku associate the “isekai” premise—the idea of being transported to another world—with Japanese media, but it’s not a uniquely Japanese concept. So next time, we’re going to tackle a combination of old-school American “isekai” alongside some prominent Japanese examples of the genre. Tune in to see what mindblowing, earth-shattering discoveries we make!

#Light Novels #Haruhi Suzumiya #Suzumiya Haruhi #Text x Context #Rascal Does Not Dream #Seishun Buta Yarou #Evangelion #Monogatari #Articles #Author: Jeskai Angel #Author: TWWK #Author: sleepminusminus #Author: Gaheret

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beneaththetangles · 2 years

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The Text x Context of Haruhi Suzumiya, Part I

Welcome to Text x Context, a new Beneath the Tangles feature that explores light novels on a multi-volume scale!

With the old Light Novel Club, each post dealt with only one volume at a time and there were often long gaps between posts on the same series, meaning it could take a very long time indeed to get through a series, leading to disjointed volume-by-volume analysis and discussion. The goal of Text x Context is to tackle multiple volumes at once, be they from the same series or from across several different series that share some key attribute. This way, we will be able to detect themes, arcs, and other contextual facets that span multiple works and that might otherwise be hard to spot when reading a single volume.

Without any further ado, let’s get started! And what better way to kick off this new project than with the first four novels of the famed Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series, especially since today is Haruhi’s birthday! I do believe she would approve (even if none of us are aliens, time travelers, or espers).

Check out our initial discussion below. We’ll conclude this first Text x Context a week from today!

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Genre • Characters: Haruhi Suzumiya • Kyon • Mikuru Asahina, Itsuki Koizumi, & Nagato Yuki • Who is the protagonist?

Just what genre is this story exactly?

Jeskai: I’d call this a “high school paranormal mystery-comedy.” Start with the setting and characters of a high school romcom. Drop the romance and replace it with The X-Files. Genderswap the lead roles so the “true believer” is the girl and the skeptic is the guy. Done. (Okey-day, I know it’s not quite that simple, but I think my point stands.) It’s actually a pretty interesting concept.

Twwk: Okay, as someone who used “Mulder” in his usernames all through high school, I’m [NOT? the next sentence reads like a concession, which means this first sentence should be a critique.] feeling the whole comparison to The X-Files. Haruhi Suzumiya definitely feels like a paranormal mystery romcom.

Gaheret: I once called it “a romantic comedy of the Evangelion era”. I agree with the above, and I also think that, at its core, Haruhi is a romantic comedy with existential themes, and some science-fiction, mystery, fantasy and parody thrown in for good measure—whatever the concept it’s exploring happens to need. That’s more or less what Neon Genesis Evangelion did with its mecha lore.

sleepminusminus: Although it’s not slice-of-life in the traditional sense, I still want to call Haruhi that, because the backdrop for all the extraordinary occurrences is an ordinary school setting, and some of the arcs can tend toward slice-of-life. I’m thinking specifically about the short stories in book three (The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya), where the focus is less on plot development and more on vignettes of Haruhi-adjacent shenanigans.

Or maybe it’s just because at the time of this discussion we’re in the thick of the Summer of SoL series at BtT? Slice-of-life is just on the brain, I guess. Anyways, I’d probably say Haruhi is a slice-of-life science-fiction comedy. I hesitate to call it a romcom, because the romance features in Melancholy and then sits on the back burner for the rest of the volumes. It’s like with Hyouka. Chitanda and Oreki definitely have a thing going, but the show is more interested in everyday mysteries and character analysis than their budding romance. Similarly, the Haruhi series, in my view, is more interested in its science-fiction setting and Haruhi’s shenanigans than Haruhi x Kyon.

What are your thoughts on the exceedingly quirky characters?

Haruhi Suzumiya

Jeskai: I think Haruhi is an acquired taste. I once tried to read vol. 1 of this series, but quickly dropped it when the title character turned out to be such a jerk. I later powered through the anime and found her somewhat more palatable. She was even more likable in the spinoff that seems to have been inspired by the altered universe of Disappearance. And finally, I read these four volumes and she continued to grow on me. When she’s not being a horrible person, she’s an entertaining mix of silliness, wit, and childlike curiosity. She’s also got some subtle tsundere vibes, where she’s actually a bit more caring than her usual cavalier bombast would lead you to think. Sometimes she’s a bully who could be the mean girl antagonist in a lot of more conventional high school romantic comedies. However, her desire for something wondrous, something beyond the mundanity of the world as we know it, makes her deeply relatable. By the end, I found that Haruhi reminded me a little of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s mischievous, godlike entity known as Q.

Twwk: First of all, it makes me so very happy that Haruhi has grown on you! She’s an all-time favorite character for me. I think tastes have changed over time, but when I first watched the anime (I didn’t read the light novels until much later), I found Haruhi to be a perfect blend: she’s high energy and rude, but rarely to the point of being obnoxious, and has a tenderness to her that is stronger than other famous tsunderes like Asuka. She’s a bit more mysterious to me in the light novels, a character more frequently talked about, giving her that goddess aura that the novelist is going for.

Gaheret: Ever since the first arc of the anime, Haruhi became a special character to me, and she remains so in the novels. I like how terrible she is at the beginning, absolutely disregarding everything but her own ideas and her own enjoyment, and her slow-burn redemption arc conveyed to us through small changes. Through romantic love and an unlikely hope, she gradually becomes capable of making greater and greater sacrifices for those around her. I like her initiative, her relapses when she’s jealous, and how her hope and her despair are portrayed. And her attempts to change herself and the world really speak to me.

sleepminusminus: I definitely agree with Jeskai; I sympathize with Haruhi’s desire for wonder and for the transcendent. I loved that scene with Haruhi and Kyon by the train tracks, where she tells the story about the baseball game and feeling insignificant in the crowd. That’s where she felt most real to me: like a teenage girl genuinely struggling with finding herself in a world that feels so suffocatingly mundane and meaningless.

That’s probably the only thing I like about Haruhi, though. I think she’s obnoxious, and even after reading these four volumes, I don’t see the tenderness that Twwk is talking about (unless it’s the scene I described above), though I can see small moments of growth, like her asking for people’s plans before forcing everyone to come to the Christmas party. Not to mention her uncomfortable interactions with Asahina, which almost made me stop reading at times.

Interestingly enough, I liked her better in the anime than I did here, if only because she definitely had a softer edge in the Disappearance movie, with her alternate-reality self and her care for Kyon.

Jeskai: I think Haruhi’s tsundere tenderness was most apparent in how she camped out in Kyon’s hospital room when he was injured, only to bombastically insist it wasn’t because she was worried about him or anything.

Twwk: I have an anime figure of Haruhi—it’s of her from Disappearance, complete with sleeping bag to pose near Kyon’s bedside. It is apparently a game-changing scene for many of us.

Kyon

Jeskai: Kyon brings to mind other droll, cynical high school boy narrators like those in Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki and Oregairu, except less fun. He’s downright aggressively passive throughout most of the first three volumes, repeatedly going out of his way to insist that he’s helpless and has no choice in whatever is going on. Much like the ancient Israelites, Kyon is constantly murmuring and complaining, and it gets pretty tiresome. Haruhi is pretty unlikeable at first, but as I kept reading I found myself deciding Kyon is actually even more obnoxious (though the fourth volume did go a long way toward redeeming him). The Kyon of the first three volumes reminded of American president / imperialist / adventurer Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech (1910), and not in a good way. It’s a long speech, but a famous part of it includes the following:

The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities—all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority, but of weakness.

That’s exactly who Kyon is. I said before that he reminded me of other high school boy narrators, but the big difference is that for most of the first three volumes, he isn’t witty, but rather just a kid trying unsuccessfully to be cool and clever and coming across as a whiny loser instead. Haruhi, for all her faults, is at least seeking something, trying to accomplish something, aspiring rather than just giving up and going with the flow like Kyon does. She is much closer to Roosevelt’s “man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive…” This difference is why, after three volumes, I liked the unlikeable Haruhi more than I did Kyon.

But then I read that fourth volume! Kyon finally acknowledges that he has agency. He admits to himself that he is Haruhi’s willing accomplice. He admits that he’s having fun and stops grumbling as much, or at least limits it to genuinely distressing situations. He gets quite literally bloody down in the arena. I still can’t quite say I like Kyon as a character after the fourth volume, but Disappearance did convince me that he has more potential to be interesting than the first three volumes let on. I wonder if he retains this character growth in subsequent volumes of the series.

Twwk: I love Kyon. I like all the main characters of the series very much, but Kyon is among my all-time favorites. His sass is just unbelievable, and I find it really, really funny, particularly because Kyon knows that he’s a loser but talks and thinks quite high and mighty until he’s pushed back down, usually by Haruhi. So he gives these grandiose asides that I often find quite witty, then realizes or is forced to realize that yeah, he’s just a normal dude.

I don’t know enough about light novels to really trace the impact of Haruhi Suzumiya on future light novels, but I can’t remember many featuring a “Kyon type” before this series, while we see so many nowadays. And though I’m partial to Oregairu’s Hikigaya, I still find Kyon to be the most entertaining of this type. He carries the narrative with his personality and humor—I would read a regular romcom with him as the lead—and is, I think, the perfect character to be the “normal” one experiencing all these unusual people and phenomena: he’s dry enough to add humorous reactions to all that’s happening, “weak” enough to let Haruhi trample all over him, and at heart, kind enough to try to protect Haruhi and his world, even when his only real power is the power of sass.

Gaheret: I also like Kyon a lot. I think he’s comedy gold, and I would say that he’s more like Shinji than Hikigaya. He reminds me of self-satisfied noir protagonists like the narrator of Out of the Past. All in all, Kyon is very similar to Haruhi, only he is trapped by his own passive, complicit attitude. Like her, he’s pretty awful at first. The things he does and the things he allows are beyond the pale, and he is incredibly dishonest with himself (and us), but he manages to be at the same time a believable, normal person. And yet, beneath the endless stream of small talk, comparisons he’s proud of, cynical reactions, and ridiculously erudite references, there is a hero in the making, and much like with the rest of the characters, Disappearance shows us a truth that was always there.

sleepminusminus: JeskaiAngel hit the nail on the head (also, I loved that comparison to the Israelites). Kyon’s great with his snark and grandiose speeches and dry humor, but he’s also continually cynical and downright lecherous at times, which really put me off. But I’d say that the visible change comes two volumes earlier, in The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, where he gets annoyed at his friends for talking down on Haruhi’s efforts to make a success of the cultural festival. That’s one of the first times that he supports Haruhi on his own terms, rather than convincing himself that he’s just being dragged along.

Overall, Kyon’s a difficult character. He longs for the extraordinary but resigns himself to the ordinary, dreams up lofty ideals but lacks the courage to believe in them, recognizes his hypocrisy but lingers in apathy, and spends his time navel-gazing rather than opening his heart to the world and the people around him. He calls himself powerless to change his circumstances when he’s clearly capable of doing so. In many ways, he manifests the sin of acedia: the sin of willingly refusing to engage actively with the world, instead preferring idleness and despair.

And I find myself relating to that. It’s easy to see the brokenness of the world and close yourself off, convincing yourself that you don’t have the power to change things because you’re tired of the struggle. It’s easy to make peace with your idleness, even at the same time as you hate idleness in other people, because it’s just hard to put up a fight. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your inward gaze when engaging with the world runs the serious risk of pain or loss or disappointment. So while I don’t like Kyon’s character, I can see where he’s coming from.

Also, I’ll just throw out there that Kyon is much more fun in the anime. The boke-tsukkomi routine he does with himself is just funnier when spoken than when read.

Mikuru Asahina, Itsuki Koizumi, Nagato Yuki

Jeskai: I’m going to deal with all three of these at once because I think they share a major trait: Kyon doesn’t describe them fairly. I felt like I never really had a solid grasp on their motives, goals, or personalities, except for little hints. I don’t trust Kyon’s narration because of how one-dimensionally he tends to describe all characters besides Haruhi. Koizumi is always smiling. Asahina is always cute. Nagato is always emotionless. It’s not that the characters themselves are actually one-dimensional, but Kyon’s depictions of them are mostly flat, even when the characters’ actions and words imply they have more depth than he is acknowledging. The most obvious example of this is of course Nagato in vol. 4, where Kyon finally recognizes that she’s more than just a robot devoid of personality. I got the sense that there was also more to Koizumi and Asahina than Kyon’s stock descriptions would have us believe. In the end, I’m inclined to say these three characters are the biggest mysteries of the story. What really makes them tick? What are they really thinking and feeling, beyond the outward, superficial qualities that Kyon emphasizes?

Twwk: And that’s part of the charm of the novels—we know there’s more to the characters than what first meets the eye or what Kyon sees in them, but how much more? At the point we’ve left off, Asahina and Koizumi could potentially be antagonists for Kyon. This all feels a little like a silly Steins;gate: who do these characters become in the future? I don’t quite remember what I felt when first reading about Nagato’s self-sacrificial fight against Asakura, but it seems that by this point, she’s the character we know most about. Her motivations seem clearest and she is perhaps most supportive, though all three are proving to be good friends to Kyon (probably).

Mikuru, though, is my favorite—and probably because we get two in one. The “adorable” (as Kyon describes her) high school Mikuru is fun, but taken together with the wise, strong adult she becomes, her character has an added dimension that makes her more interesting. I think I may be the only Haruhi fan, though, that would pull for Mikuru ahead of Nagato when it comes to having Kyon’s affections.

Gaheret: Like Haruhi, those three are some of my favorite anime/LN characters ever. Tanigawa does many things well with them, but the thing I’m more impressed about is his foreshadowing. By Disappearance, we know that Yuki Nagato and Itsuki Koizumi have secrets that are hidden in plain sight, and each of them is quite compelling on its own. The three of them have very intriguing backgrounds and stories that we literally cannot imagine. How cool is that?

Koizumi’s jealousy towards Kyon and the fact that he likes Haruhi, put a spin on everything he has felt and done since he received his powers three years ago. I love how, as Jeskai mentions, we come to perceive that our narrator is being unfair to him. Even if Koizumi has a sometimes flawed way of thinking, he is a hero that sacrifices his chances at a normal life on a daily basis to save the world without any reward. Which is exactly what Kyon mentioned that he wanted to be himself in the first chapter. So maybe these two are just jealous of each other.

Although I don’t think that Kyon and Nagato fit together, she is my favorite character in the franchise. What we learn about the evolution of her feelings shows us the care with which all her small progressions have been depicted up to that point. Her becoming slightly angry, humorous, bored, friendly or lovestruck; her being surprised by these responses and reacting in small ways with the emotional resources that she has—all these things are a joy to watch and read about. Meanwhile, Kyon’s ignorance concerning her main motivation in Disappearance makes this story subtly tragic.

Lastly, I would say that Asahina’s dilemma is shown to us in the first Tanabata story. Only there, do we really learn how useless she feels, how confusing it is to receive instructions she doesn’t understand and is afraid to fail in carrying out, and how it all works out from the perspective of the older Asahina. I fully agree with Twwk that this comparison elevates her from a good character to a great one. Details like her being surprised that the ocean is salty, or the specific things she has (and hasn’t) told Tsuruya, are just so intriguing!

sleepminusminus: Kyon’s unreliable narration simultaneously fascinates and frustrates me. I agree with Jeskai: he’s stubbornly unfair to the other characters, which does add intrigue, but at the expense of getting me to actually care about them. As Gaheret said, I literally can’t imagine their backstories—but that’s more confusing than enticing to me.

But at the same time, it reminds me of that article Jeskai wrote a while ago about Tearmoon Empire‘s unreliable narration and what it says about Mia herself as the one whom the narrator fixates on. Why does Kyon speak so harshly about the others? What does he really think about them? What would they look like narrated from a more sympathetic perspective? So I can definitely see the appeal there.

Not too much to say about Asahina or Koizumi, though I appreciate Twwk and Gaheret’s perspective on the dynamics between Asahina’s teenage and adult selves—it’s something that I didn’t notice but that really deepens her character in my mind. And like Gaheret, my favorite is Yuki; I wish we had gone one volume further this time around so we could read the light-novel version of the Endless Eight.

Who is the protagonist of this story?

Jeskai: I thought I knew the answer to this question, but then Disappearance threw me off. I’d argue that for the first three volumes, Haruhi is the protagonist. In those volumes, I think you could replace Kyon with a snarky third-person narrator (a la Tearmoon Empire) without changing the story. He comments on what happens, but he doesn’t drive the plot. He’s the Watson to Haruhi’s Sherlock Holmes (or Hastings to Haruhi’s Hercule Poirot, if you prefer), narrating the tale without being the central character of it. In fact, considering how no one criticizes, opposes, or goes against the will of Haruhi as much as Kyon does, I think there’s a case for calling him the *antagonist* of the first three volumes.

But then I read the fourth volume. With Haruhi’s “disappearance,” Kyon becomes a real protagonist! Being the only one who understands that reality has been altered forces Kyon to really step up his game. For once, he must act on his own and can’t just go with the flow and be dragged around by the other four main characters. He is forced to make a real, meaningful choice about what he wants. Kyon previously dropped hints of protagonist-ism (like when he figured out Koizumi’s murder mystery scheme), but he displays greater character growth in the fourth volume, admitting that he had been too passive and unfairly critical of others. And in taking responsibility, he becomes a true protagonist in his own right, standing beside Haruhi as her peer, if not her equal, in the protagonist role.

Twwk: I agree that Kyon is the protagonist of the fourth volume and that Haruhi would be of the first three. But overall? I think it’s too early to tell. Is it Kyon that’s going to grow and learn and possibly save the universe? Or will Haruhi be the one who grows most considerably and ultimately makes a good decision for the universe? I would still tend toward Kyon, with perhaps his saving of Haruhi (and the world) in volume one a precursor of a larger future event. But we shall see…or we maybe won’t. I don’t think this series, unfortunately, will ever receive a proper ending.

Gaheret: For my part, I think it’s Kyon. Haruhi is a co-protagonist, but it’s his desires and worries that really move the plot forward. This story is completely different from Haruhi’s perspective because she is unaware of the supernatural plot. She can only try to instill hope blindly, but he is the one that may understand the situation and make the big decisions.

sleepminusminus: 4/4 for Kyon. What sells it for me in the first three books is a quirk of the storytelling. Kyon will often say things in the narration that the other characters respond to! Maybe it’s just a quirk of the English localization, but there are no quotation marks a lot of the time, and the other characters are still responding to his mental dialogue. Kyon’s telling the story, so Kyon’s the center of the conversation, even when he doesn’t explicitly say anything. Also, the previous discussion about Kyon’s unreliable narration supports this point. Decenter Kyon and the story would be significantly different. A lot more straightforward—and probably a lot duller.

=====

We’ll finish off the discussion next week when we ask meaty questions like, Why is Haruhi rebelling, and dig into the fun stuff too, like comparing the franchise to Evangelion! See you then!

#Light Novels #Haruhi Suzumiya #Suzumiya Haruhi #Text x Context #Articles #Author: Jeskai Angel #Author: TWWK #Author: Gaheret #Author: sleepminusminus

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