The moe of Haruhi Suzumiya
Apr. 16th, 2007 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia(Or, I continue to lag four seasons behind in my anime-watching. Soon we may start Honey and Clover! orz)
T and I watched ten episodes of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu last night. Afterward I summarized it as, "The story of how the protagonist and other characters constantly strive to appease the whims of a wilful and capricious god, whose displeasure risks unmaking the universe they inhabit. In other words, an extended metaphor for life with a tsunderekko girlfriend."
I proceed to write way more about this. XD
A character essay on Suzumiya Haruhi as tsundere.
The above is very articulate and addresses something that I think is poorly understood in "fangirl meta" circles, i.e. how these characters are perceived by their target audience and where the 'moe'-value actually lies. For instance (I may be arguing against a straw man but not an unreasonable one, I think), the opposite stereotype of the "Rei Ayanami clone" - Nagato Yuki, in SHnY's homage - isn't desirable because she's an emotionless, obedient doll the fanboy can pose like a figurine. These characters are often cyborgs, clones, dolls, aliens etc. but all that is only the plot-wise explanation for why they're so aloof, rational and undemonstrative. Back in college anime club I asked the male members what the attraction was, and was told in all honesty that they identified with Rei: they were introverts with geeky interests who had plenty of experience at being the quiet, socially sidelined one in the cast dynamic. At the same time these girls are presented as intelligent and capable, and the fact that they don't put everything of themselves out there at once is seen as self-sufficiency, which to an introvert reads as inner strength, as well as attractive mystery. All this excites honest admiration. At the same time geeky introverts are keenly aware of how lonely this kind of self-sufficiency can be, so they believe - and in a moe show are allowed to see - that these girls are vulnerable inside but will only show it to a Special Person. As with shoujo it's really about the reversal for the sake of the Special Person. XD
The tsundere character also excites admiration, because she's seen as vibrant, strong-willed, and confident - everything the male placeholder is often not. He complains of what she puts him through but at heart her attention is flattering. If she has a high opinion of herself - well, why would one be inclined to bow to the will of someone who has a low opinion of herself? XD As with the ojousama it's a case of akogare, looking up not down. Of course, the tsunderekko is also vulnerable before her Special Person, because she's a total emotional dork who doesn't know how to deal with love other than lashing out. It's a form of hurt/comfort internalized in the relationship (another example would be the shoujo "he loves me, he loves me not, oh joy he loves me after all" contrived misunderstanding).
Both these types can be cute - the prim seriousness, the flailing - but their primary purpose isn't to be cute. It's much less condescending than the big-breasted loli thing, to be honest.
I didn't really have to write all this out, because there are perfectly good for-girls equivalents. Men go for Ayanami Rei for the same reason women go for Mr. Spock. The shoujo counterpart to the tsunderekko is the male "romantic" interest who acts completely unimpressed with the heroine, frequently picks on and denigrates her, but cares deep down inside and will jump in to protect her if anything happens, etc. (Note that both forms of "tsun" abuse cast same-gender, not opposite-: wailing on victim with magical mallet = male, physical violence, sarcasm and put-downs = female, verbal violence.) In both cases, whether the behaviour is charismatic or irritating depends not so much on how the character is written per se, as on the reader/viewer's disposition and the other half of the putative pairing. If the guy the tsunderekko pushes around is a spineless good-for-nothing, then she looks abusive and unreasonable and one can't tell why either of them would be into the other. Same thing if the shoujo heroine is a useless wet blanket. Rukia out of Bleach is classically tsundere in a lot of ways but the guys go toe-to-toe with her and barely treat her as a girl, so I don't think the majority of the fandom reads her as such. In fact the normal complaint about Rukia is that she shows too much dere and not enough tsun. XD
Actually, IMHO the romantic comedy works best if you pit the two "strong" types against each other - the hyper/forthright/combative girl versus the aloof/unimpressed/sarcastic guy. The purest example I can think of is... the beginning of Kodomo no Omocha. XD;; Watanuki and Doumeki are also astonishingly classic, which is probably why people read them as MFEO ahaha. ...Well, needless to say you can have a male tsunderekko in a m/m pairing, ref. Wolfram out of Kyou Kara Maou, but it's hard to make the reversal in an m/f pairing because a guy bullying a girl or whacking her with a mallet is seen differently altogether. (Note that people who dislike tsunderekko often do so because they don't see a difference, i.e. they parse the girl as abusive, period.)
Asahina Mikuru is a much more MOR sexual fantasy - the otaku moyen sensuel choice, as it were. Actually, I call her a sexual fantasy but the infantilized character traits of naivete, bashfulness, clumsiness, etc. as well as physical infantilization (loli) are designed to excite non-sexual protectiveness as well. The superiority of the viewer is reinforced in a way that's as near to parental as masculine. Steadfast devotees of the Way of Loli Moe claim it's not about sexual desire at all: when one says baby animals are cute and collects plush specimens thereof it hardly means one wants to have sex with them. Common fandom practice with characters like Asahina lies somewhere in between the two poles, baby-fied cute but with luscious adult bodies. In this sense it's interesting that Asahina comes in two ages, teenaged and adult, and there's wacky speculation she's actually Kyon's lolita imouto-chan grown up. ^^;
One of the things I find really charming about SHnY is that Asahina is treated as a real person and not a blow-up doll for the delectation of the viewer, even though she herself is indistinguishable from your usual blow-up doll for the delectation of the viewer (how many moe shows featuring combat robot maids from the future did Haruhi watch, one wonders?). She is really useless, in a way that's believably a handicap. Her "moe value" is textually, satirically criticized as exploitative: we go meta and watch the camera act as a pillaging male eye, watch her being shoehorned into costumes and told to act sexy, etc. Kyon assumes she has such a thing as emotional trauma. XD (Actually, because Kyon assumes, the audience assumes, so the computer society blackmail scene bumps the edge of not-funny, in a dark teen comedy way. There's also yuri subtext because Mikuru's main exploiter is Haruhi, who isn't male at all.)
As for Itsuki's nikoyaka-kei (I don't know what else to call it), I get the feeling I did the essay work back in PoT fandom with Fuji. XD The real question is why this type crops up in harem shows. Is Suzumiya Haruhi just paying homage to Evangelion? From 2007's vantage point it seems like Evangelion made all of the above up from scratch but surely this can't be true. Why does it work, anyway? ...I'm reminded of the genderswitch ficlet I wrote about Nagisa Kaworu, where I semi-consciously went for that moe show effect. If the Itsuki/Kaworu type were a girl (and probably in a lot of harem shows is a girl) she would be the free spirited one, not coyly sultry or aggressive but confident of her own physicality and desires: she doesn't mind if you look, and if she'd like to touch she'll let you know. The fact that this type turns up sometimes as an ever-smiling, all-knowing male equivalent may be a reification of how intimidating this can be. Or I may be wrong. I don't think fanboy theorists like to consider this one either. XD;
In further support of my argument: Suzumiya Haruhi no Ultra Relax. Anime would be improved if all ending sequences consisted of the cast doing a novelty dance. Twelve Kingdoms? Death Note? Monster? BRING THE PARA PARA.
T and I watched ten episodes of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu last night. Afterward I summarized it as, "The story of how the protagonist and other characters constantly strive to appease the whims of a wilful and capricious god, whose displeasure risks unmaking the universe they inhabit. In other words, an extended metaphor for life with a tsunderekko girlfriend."
I proceed to write way more about this. XD
A character essay on Suzumiya Haruhi as tsundere.
The above is very articulate and addresses something that I think is poorly understood in "fangirl meta" circles, i.e. how these characters are perceived by their target audience and where the 'moe'-value actually lies. For instance (I may be arguing against a straw man but not an unreasonable one, I think), the opposite stereotype of the "Rei Ayanami clone" - Nagato Yuki, in SHnY's homage - isn't desirable because she's an emotionless, obedient doll the fanboy can pose like a figurine. These characters are often cyborgs, clones, dolls, aliens etc. but all that is only the plot-wise explanation for why they're so aloof, rational and undemonstrative. Back in college anime club I asked the male members what the attraction was, and was told in all honesty that they identified with Rei: they were introverts with geeky interests who had plenty of experience at being the quiet, socially sidelined one in the cast dynamic. At the same time these girls are presented as intelligent and capable, and the fact that they don't put everything of themselves out there at once is seen as self-sufficiency, which to an introvert reads as inner strength, as well as attractive mystery. All this excites honest admiration. At the same time geeky introverts are keenly aware of how lonely this kind of self-sufficiency can be, so they believe - and in a moe show are allowed to see - that these girls are vulnerable inside but will only show it to a Special Person. As with shoujo it's really about the reversal for the sake of the Special Person. XD
The tsundere character also excites admiration, because she's seen as vibrant, strong-willed, and confident - everything the male placeholder is often not. He complains of what she puts him through but at heart her attention is flattering. If she has a high opinion of herself - well, why would one be inclined to bow to the will of someone who has a low opinion of herself? XD As with the ojousama it's a case of akogare, looking up not down. Of course, the tsunderekko is also vulnerable before her Special Person, because she's a total emotional dork who doesn't know how to deal with love other than lashing out. It's a form of hurt/comfort internalized in the relationship (another example would be the shoujo "he loves me, he loves me not, oh joy he loves me after all" contrived misunderstanding).
Both these types can be cute - the prim seriousness, the flailing - but their primary purpose isn't to be cute. It's much less condescending than the big-breasted loli thing, to be honest.
I didn't really have to write all this out, because there are perfectly good for-girls equivalents. Men go for Ayanami Rei for the same reason women go for Mr. Spock. The shoujo counterpart to the tsunderekko is the male "romantic" interest who acts completely unimpressed with the heroine, frequently picks on and denigrates her, but cares deep down inside and will jump in to protect her if anything happens, etc. (Note that both forms of "tsun" abuse cast same-gender, not opposite-: wailing on victim with magical mallet = male, physical violence, sarcasm and put-downs = female, verbal violence.) In both cases, whether the behaviour is charismatic or irritating depends not so much on how the character is written per se, as on the reader/viewer's disposition and the other half of the putative pairing. If the guy the tsunderekko pushes around is a spineless good-for-nothing, then she looks abusive and unreasonable and one can't tell why either of them would be into the other. Same thing if the shoujo heroine is a useless wet blanket. Rukia out of Bleach is classically tsundere in a lot of ways but the guys go toe-to-toe with her and barely treat her as a girl, so I don't think the majority of the fandom reads her as such. In fact the normal complaint about Rukia is that she shows too much dere and not enough tsun. XD
Actually, IMHO the romantic comedy works best if you pit the two "strong" types against each other - the hyper/forthright/combative girl versus the aloof/unimpressed/sarcastic guy. The purest example I can think of is... the beginning of Kodomo no Omocha. XD;; Watanuki and Doumeki are also astonishingly classic, which is probably why people read them as MFEO ahaha. ...Well, needless to say you can have a male tsunderekko in a m/m pairing, ref. Wolfram out of Kyou Kara Maou, but it's hard to make the reversal in an m/f pairing because a guy bullying a girl or whacking her with a mallet is seen differently altogether. (Note that people who dislike tsunderekko often do so because they don't see a difference, i.e. they parse the girl as abusive, period.)
Asahina Mikuru is a much more MOR sexual fantasy - the otaku moyen sensuel choice, as it were. Actually, I call her a sexual fantasy but the infantilized character traits of naivete, bashfulness, clumsiness, etc. as well as physical infantilization (loli) are designed to excite non-sexual protectiveness as well. The superiority of the viewer is reinforced in a way that's as near to parental as masculine. Steadfast devotees of the Way of Loli Moe claim it's not about sexual desire at all: when one says baby animals are cute and collects plush specimens thereof it hardly means one wants to have sex with them. Common fandom practice with characters like Asahina lies somewhere in between the two poles, baby-fied cute but with luscious adult bodies. In this sense it's interesting that Asahina comes in two ages, teenaged and adult, and there's wacky speculation she's actually Kyon's lolita imouto-chan grown up. ^^;
One of the things I find really charming about SHnY is that Asahina is treated as a real person and not a blow-up doll for the delectation of the viewer, even though she herself is indistinguishable from your usual blow-up doll for the delectation of the viewer (how many moe shows featuring combat robot maids from the future did Haruhi watch, one wonders?). She is really useless, in a way that's believably a handicap. Her "moe value" is textually, satirically criticized as exploitative: we go meta and watch the camera act as a pillaging male eye, watch her being shoehorned into costumes and told to act sexy, etc. Kyon assumes she has such a thing as emotional trauma. XD (Actually, because Kyon assumes, the audience assumes, so the computer society blackmail scene bumps the edge of not-funny, in a dark teen comedy way. There's also yuri subtext because Mikuru's main exploiter is Haruhi, who isn't male at all.)
As for Itsuki's nikoyaka-kei (I don't know what else to call it), I get the feeling I did the essay work back in PoT fandom with Fuji. XD The real question is why this type crops up in harem shows. Is Suzumiya Haruhi just paying homage to Evangelion? From 2007's vantage point it seems like Evangelion made all of the above up from scratch but surely this can't be true. Why does it work, anyway? ...I'm reminded of the genderswitch ficlet I wrote about Nagisa Kaworu, where I semi-consciously went for that moe show effect. If the Itsuki/Kaworu type were a girl (and probably in a lot of harem shows is a girl) she would be the free spirited one, not coyly sultry or aggressive but confident of her own physicality and desires: she doesn't mind if you look, and if she'd like to touch she'll let you know. The fact that this type turns up sometimes as an ever-smiling, all-knowing male equivalent may be a reification of how intimidating this can be. Or I may be wrong. I don't think fanboy theorists like to consider this one either. XD;
In further support of my argument: Suzumiya Haruhi no Ultra Relax. Anime would be improved if all ending sequences consisted of the cast doing a novelty dance. Twelve Kingdoms? Death Note? Monster? BRING THE PARA PARA.
