“That’s why I have no friends.”
If Saori Chiba seems overly dramatic, she’s certainly not getting any help from director Ei Aoki, who very often shows her off-center in an empty frame, seemingly apart from the rest of the human interaction going on — especially in the Saori-focused episode 5.
Why do people seem to like her, when she shares so much with (for instance) Tokyo Magnitude 8.0‘s Mirai, the girl I had to defend for being basically normal?
Both characters are despondent, almost miserable kids wrestling with the difficulty of their own feelings; Mirai blames her family for her growing pains and Saori blames Nitorin. In essence, they’re pretty similar characters, even if one manifests more with drama than obnoxiousness.
In the early episodes of TM8.0, when the hate was rampant, Mirai was portrayed with much less sympathy. Perhaps it was to emphasize her character growth over the course of the series’ tragic events, perhaps it was just to make her a more believable wretched teenager.
Sa-chan, on the other hand, is painted lovingly with a very lonely brush. TM8.0 was very much about Mirai’s growth and maturation, but even at the halfway point it’s still slightly unclear just what Hourou Musuko is about (that is, for someone who hasn’t read the manga). But if all we’re meant to do is bask in Saori’s sadly beautiful and quietly understated pain, it makes for a decent watch.
I’m behind on Hourou Musuko, but if I had to guess, the anime will probably not reach any “conclusions.” The manga is a very floaty sort of affair just following life (I mean, they were able to adapt it from a starting point in like volume 5 after all). We might see Saori grow in the span of the series, but not to the extent we’ll see her grow by the time the manga ends, I’d assume.
I don’t think we need to see “conclusions.” Like I always say, “slice of life” is not a genre but an attribute of a story, and it’s very much one of them here, but if I had to characterize the plot elements here it’d be a coming-of-age story more than anything. That’s of course Nitori’s story, but the other characters are really well done and have enough depth to stand on their own, so I think they act as even better foils for him than if they were just one-dimensional, single-attribute cardboard cutouts.
Lovely observations.
It’s really great how you put it, how Saorin is lovingly painted with a lonely brush. I love it that a character like her exists. She seems so extreme without overwhelming anyone watching (or maybe just me).
I don’t really know how much more will be done “unto” her, as much as I think she IS lovingly painted, the wonder of her drama is how things don’t revolve around her (and yet she’s no mere device, nor a character for the story to dump on).
I’m loving this show a lot.
What’s great about Saori throughout the manga is that the general “woe is me” outlook of her mindset remains a constant throughout the years, even though she knows better. Well, that and her looking most of the time like she’s about 3 seconds away from slapping the stuffing out of someone.
Honestly, I’ve known people like that, and meds often help…
The Saori and Mirai comparisons are apt, but I believe people are more sympathetic to Saori because she’s a tragic figure of sorts, the loser in the romantic ballot. She hits that balance between antagonistic and self-pitying, doing a little of both but not enough of either to be hateful or annoying.
I’m a big sucker for this kind of slice of life show, so Wandering Son hits the sweet spot for me.
I’ll let you off the hook for using the “slice” word, because I think you’re totally right about this
It’s much more awesome to identify with her on a deeper level than how we “identify” with the standard anime protagonist who has no luck with the ladies. It’s a more emotional connection than a “yeah, bro… ” one.
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