Pervasive wrongness in the Haruhisphere
I was going to write an entire post on all the reasons why Haruhi haters are in the wrong, or at least why so many aren’t using their brains. But for the most part, my arguments were boring and I want people to actually read my blog on occasion. So I’m limiting it to one particular issue — and it should work because it can be applied just as easily to the mindless fanboys on the opposite side of the fence.
Allow me to work my way towards my point step-by-step:
What is a parody?
There are a lot of anime adaptations of light novel series. Like manga, they seem tailor-made for it narrative-wise. Unlike manga, they leave a lot more room for interpretation. A great adaptation, whether it’s TV, theater, animation, or cinema, is like a great cover song in the musical world: It stays true to the intent or spirit of the original, but it adds something that makes the adaptation viable as an original work.
Tatsuya Ishihara and Kyoto Animation added plenty of well-realized visuals and clever directing, but more than that, the anime crew gave us the idea of Haruhi Suzumiya as a smart, tongue-in-cheek meta-anime — a commentary on the medium and a very sly parody of some of its tropes. The last time I can remember something similar so masterfully executed was the king of the meta-anime-parody Martian Successor Nadesico. And the parallels are there, to be sure: like her counterpart and equivalent Ruri, Yuki Nagato became more than just a thinly-disguised spoof of anime’s light-blue-haired monotone heroines.
Since I came at Haruhi from the anime angle first, and Tanigawa’s books later, the crafty little parody aspects of the show hit me harder than some of the story or character elements. Think of episode zero for a minute. How often do you groan and hear Kyon’s voiceover in your head when you see an anime pan up to the sky?
What is moe?
ANN defines moe as:
A Japanese term used in connection with manga or anime to describe something precious, usually (but not always) the ideal of youthful and innocent femininity. Written with the kanji for “to bud or sprout” (萌), the concept covers a range of ideal behaviour for youthful female characters in manga or anime. To be moe, a character can be eager or perky, not overly independent, and call forth a desire in the viewer to protect them and nurture them.
I would have also accepted “the cancer that’s killing anime.”
The issue of moe-ness is in itself contentious enough, since people seem to get their moe on for everything from lolis to Valkyries, but far worse is the accusation of “moe pandering.”
That term is generally used by mouth-breathers who learned the definition of “pandering” yesterday to try to invalidate the target at which it’s aimed, e.g.:
“There’s really no merit in [K-ON/Saki/Ranka/Kanon/Strike Witches/Mazinger Z], because it’s moe pandering.”
There’s no doubt that moe sells DVDs (and oppai mousepads and castoff figures and doujins and maid cafes and…), so the Uguu Menace finds its way into even the most unlikely anime these days. But the anihedron has become a dangerously thoughtless place because we see a couple characteristics of female characters and instantly accuse a show of “moe pandering.”
It can be a really harmful charge to level at an otherwise competently put together series, but more importantly it’s a reactionary judgment that arrives at the expense of real critical thinking. And while you’re having your knee-jerk, something else might be going on.
In Haruhi’s case, that something else is a walking piss-take on moe. Its name is Mikuru Asahina.
What is Mikuru?
It wasn’t always obvious what Mikuru was. I suppose I first noticed when, I dunno, I was told fairly blatantly. Haruhi’s original molestation of Mikuru included an announcement of just how moe she was, and while I guess some people see the interaction as “pandering” (an accusation that continued to get lobbed at Lucky Star’s self-referential humor), it sounded to me like the fourth wall breaking down. They even put her in a maid costume for no fucking reason. Come on.
To me, the more blobby and cowering she gets, the funnier it is. To me, the creators’ smirks are as obvious as Koizumi’s. To me, it’s a great way to make your detractors look more idiotic, even as — here’s the rub — on one level, they might be right. For the parody to work really well, it has to be effective on its own level, and to a certain viewer class I suppose it is. But Mikuru’s a long way removed from Makoto, Misuzu, or the perpetually sickly Nagisa.
I suppose there’s always ghostlightning’s old argument that intent is irrelevant because the only thing that matters to a final product is whatever inference the viewer/reader puts into a work. That angle would say that it’s a parody because I see it that way, while it’s pandering because someone else sees it that way.
As he knows, I don’t really buy that to any large extent — in fact, I’m willing to just say that you’re wrong and you’ve missed the point entirely. It seems as clear as the furrows on Kyon’s brow. It’s like listening to Weird Al’s “Eat It” in the 80s and saying to yourself, “I don’t get why that guy is trying so hard to cash in on Michael Jackson’s stardom by covering one of his songs.”
But. My primary point renders the argument of “Am I right about parody?” irrelevant.
What is my point?
I think when Owen S. calls people “memeparrots,” he’s referring to certain parties on either side. That means easy bandwagoning or mindless echoing of popular bloggers’ forced memes. It also means tossing unsupported accusations like “moe pandering” out there. As I like to say, absolutes are always wrong. 
While Haruhi is quite clever, it can do wrong. Lone Island Syndrome? Kinda lame, and I hope they don’t animate its ski-trip counterpart. On the flipside, pandering does exist, but I doubt it’s the basis of everything Kyoto Animation does. I’ll give haters this: Fumoffu?! seriously pandered to my machine gun teddy-bear moe.
Dig? All coins have two sides, including Haruhi, who is at turns both God and the Devil.
This isn’t just about Mikuru, and it isn’t just about “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody,” or Haruhi Suzumiya. It’s about seeing things as a little more than their topmost dimension. It’s also about thinking, viewing, judging and most of all enjoying or disliking for yourself rather than sheeping your way to one side or another of an internet argument.
The type of knee-jerk reactions that you mention are the ones that make me want to knee the people that say them in the face.
I get especially upset at people who criticise my favorite anime on valid grounds.
I loved K-On when it started, as really first-rate moe. I railed against the nay-sayers. But now even I see recent episodes as moe pandering: larding on the moe until even I get a bit (just a bit) sick of it. Not that I really want to condemn a studio that has made such a successful anime. I don’t feel right blaming a commercial enterprise for wanting to make money.
Maybe Eden and Phantom have raised my standards, lol.
Mikuru was always a bit of a self-parody, super-premium moe as she was. The self-reflexive humor of SHnY was always part of its excellence.
Yes. Enjoy your fricking show on your own damn terms. Stop trying to be cool yo. Make your love legit. 7 Eurekas, 6 Million Dollars, 5 stars, 4 Beatles, 3 Mazingers (Z, Great, Mazinkaiser), 2 thumbs up, and a giant wheel of smoked cheese.
Yo. Is that final Haruhi screenshot actually Otou-san in disguise?
“Man is the measure of all things.” Everyone has their opinion, as you quoted ghostlightning as saying, and at the same time it is very natural for you yourself to believe your opinion is more than subjective, but that you’re right and others are not seeing it right (if you didn’t feel that way, why stick to it, right?).
I tend to be ok with Mikuru’s moe because it’s balanced out by the many other elements. The parody aspect is important too, but these days there’s a lot of pretend-parody that ends up being just another form of the original parodied thing and not a parody at all (caveat emptor).
My take on the issues of hashi: i agree that K-On! is descending into pure moe-pandering and throwing story and quirkiness out the window..Funny thing is, to me Eden of the East is from the beginning the biggest panderer of them all, I’d call it a story-panderer..
I can think of so many shows where an article like this would do wonders, but Haruhi? This is like one of the most universally praised franchises out there, almost to the point of absurdity or as you point out, “the idea that it can do no wrong”, and you seem to be implying that people are being unfair to it? I have yet to even see a single person attack this franchise with a mindless vigour and zeal like such other shows as Gundam 00 for example, but maybe that’s just relative to my perspective.
What exactly is it you are reacting to anyway? Where is this big hate on for Haruhi like that for Code Geass, because all I am seeing is praise praise praise. Don’t really get the inspiration for this article, but I do appreciate how you have levelled the argument to both sides of the fanboy/hater dichotomy…..even if the latter is invisible to me.
I do also appreciate the counterpoint on the whole overeaction to moe as a “cancer that is killing anime”. Moe is what it is, and it’s not a universal application to modern anime, it’s just very popular.
“It’s not so much hate for Haruhi as it is for the Haruhitards” is what I’ve been told on numerous occasions. I don’t really know if there are any complaints about the show outside of *grumble grumble* too moe *grumble*.
Hating Haruhi because of moe is a smokescreen.
Isn’t trying to make an argument against the people who hate what you love about as effective as hardcore liberals conversing with hardcore conservatives?
If people don’t get/like Haruhi, fuck ‘em. They either have to either see what other’s like about the show on their own, or move along. Like what you like, and get off of Haruhi’s case!
The only really good point to this post is the whole adaptation bit in the beginning. I like meme, memeparrots, and wise guys thinking they’re somehow above the rest, so I don’t really care about if people group R dislike O and people group F can give a rat’s ass about L. Nothing against L, but please do not cosplay him. I know someone who looks like him after doing 3 all-nighters in a row.
But on the point of parody, the book itself is parody enough; what the anime did well was to take that idea and extend it beyond the pages. It doesn’t really add creatively in a substantive way but in how it was executed.
And Nadesico is still way, way better at the whole self-reference parody thing by a mile. Too bad the higher reaches of it is not nearly as accessible.
@TheBigN
I never expected so much anger and violence from you
@hashi
I’m not sure why you would get upset for valid criticism. Is it because they “got you?” There’s nothing that says you have to find an anime particularly valid in any way in order to like it. Despite what I’m saying here, it’s all just animated entertainment and you can watch what you like even if it’s for the “wrong” reasons.
@ghostlightning
sounds like the 12 days of xmas nyoron~
@The Sojourner
you will never know.
@kritik
story-pandering? sounds dangerous. pretty soon we’ll have character-pandering, animation-pandering, and fans-of-good-stuff-baiting!
@Kaioshin
I have seen plenty of criticism both founded and unfair leveled at it. To read your opinions is to come away with the impression that Gundam 00 and Geass are the only maligned series in recent anime history. In fact, I found the reaction to Geass to be overall pretty positive, except for the (in my mind, accurate) assessment that R2 was inferior to the first (bar what I thought was a successful ending). Perhaps you’re seeing what you want to see? Perhaps I am too.
@Omisyth
That’s the point, though. [insert show]-tards exist for everything, even if they’re less vocal. Narutards, Haruhitards, K-ONtards, Fist-of-the-North-tards, /m/en, they’re all there. No, we can’t live in a vacuum, but we should be at least giving a fighting chance to shows on their own merits, not those of their fans. Even the popular ones with vocal fans.
@jpmeyer
I suppose that’s another way to say it. If you’re gonna hate, your opinion is perfectly valid, just stop being an idiot. Something like that.
@YotaruVegeta
I would like to think that we’re a little more civilized than pundits on a 24-hour news network. Discussion’s more healthy than backbiting.
@omo
I will accept your backhanded compliment at face value, but I fail to see how “extending it beyond the pages” isn’t adding some value creatively. Are you saying that parody elements were already in place enough that what the series did wasn’t necessary? I guess I didn’t get that. But considering the sources it lampooned were animated to begin with, maybe it just becomes more obvious. I dunno. I just got a different vibe from the two.
As for Nadesico, it’s just unfair to ask anything to stand up next to it. I’m only trying to provide a reference, not a qualitative comparison of Haruhi (clever) vs. Nadesico (brilliant).
I am saying Kyoani is adding creatively in how it’s executed but not in a way that I think changes the nature of the work. It’s not like, for example, in Kimikiss where they did something REALLY creative and gave the whole theme/story concept a new spin, and it worked out really well. Kyoani’s adaptations are very methodical, frequently word-for-word, to the source material. In the instances where they have to give in and change “substance” to the story, IMO, it generally failed (KANON 2006, CLANNAD, lol). However when it comes to FMP Fumoffu or Haruhi they can play it by the book (LITERALLY) and add in the whole “turning words and imagination into pictures on the screen” thing. That’s where their creative talents lie.
I guess what I felt when I read the Haruhi novel was that whatever happened in the book was exactly how I imagine the anime to be? Like, they just transposed somebody’s imagination onto the screen and call it a day. It’s a major feat, sure, but I’m not sure what they’re adding to the adaptation process that’s what you would describe.
I would have also accepted “the cancer that’s killing anime.”
That made me laugh so hard
I have to say I’m not a fan of moe upon moe upon moe. I can handle Mikuru because she’s such a piss take.
But I’ll never get back the hours I spent watching the abomination that is Maburaho. My main reason for staying away from anything that looks like it might be moeish.
I kept watching in the hopes that it would get better, alas no, by the end I still felt my time would have been better spent stabbing myself in the head with an ice pick.
But that’s my preference, I do like a little bit of light romance/comedy. But for the most part I tend to like dark mysteries or big bad robots, so I guess its just that moe isn’t my thing.
I guess it will really be a problem with the moe lovers themselves are saying, “too MOE!”
I consider myself in neither camp. I certainly don’t hate Haruhi, but I also don’t see what makes it so great. As far as I can tell, it’s an anime without a resolution.