Shameful Otaku Secret!

Part of the 12 Moments in Anime 2009, which would be a ripoff at any bakery.

This is a short one, because honestly I don’t feel much like writing about Honey & Clover right now. I already did it, (warning: same pancake) and though I feel like there’s more to say, I’m not sure how to say it because H&C kind of flew by in my brain.

Why?

Because it’s the first thing I “marathoned” in a really long time. The marathon is the catnip of the anime fan, and the bane of the ones with real lives and jobs. It’s what happens when you are so sucked into a series that you’re preoccupied by its characters during work or school. You’re distant in conversation with real human beings because you don’t care what happens to them, you care what happens to HAGU DAMMIT. And you have to bear witness to the constant fight between your unstoppable desire to keep going and your sad knowledge that you’re bringing the end on sooner.

In this case, bring it on because it was worth getting to the end again (as evidenced by how many re-watches a mere mention could trigger). So the moment in this case…? It’s realizing that I was in the thick of a marathon and I wasn’t going to stop until it was over.

Part of the 12 Anime Moments of 2009, and the horse it rode in on.

2009 was a big year for anime for one solid reason: Haruhi returned. Long baited, teased, and ridiculed, fans of the 2000s’ biggest series were finally rewarded for their patience. Turns out, they weren’t rewarded all that well, but at least we got the wonderfully entertaining Haruhi-chan and Nyoron Churuya-san.

Of the things that made the return noteworthy — drops in animation quality, the near-punching of the titular (anti-)heroine, or the introduction of the book series’ central time-travel themes — one stands above: Endless Eight. Is it another troll on the fans? They certainly have reason to think that way after their treatment by Vengeful God Kadokawa. Is it a failed attempt to be clever? Who knows. It’s almost avant-garde when you think about it. No one’s ever done anything like it. But in the end, I think it was brilliant. Not just the fact that it was done, but in its execution.

See, by the close of Endless Eight (which did, in fact have an end, and that’s what makes it a ripoff), viewers were micro-focused on changes in outfits, slight variations on the dialog, and Kyon’s minute advances. So when the brain-snapping end finally came, the force of your fist in the air was enough to raise you out of your seat.

Was it, in combination with the “Sighs of Haruhi Suzumiya” story, enough to gain back the goodwill lost during the most experimental anime arc of the century? Doesn’t seem that way. Maybe the movie version of Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, one of the most well-liked stories, will fix that. Hard to say. But love Endless Eight or hate it, at least it gave us this moment.

Part of the 12 Moments in Anime 2009, which will be my downfall.

It was written in stone before the series started. It was spelled out a thousand times. It was visible in the faces of all the characters.

Ryuuji and Taiga, your One True Pairing for the year.

So why did the English-speaking anihedron not get it at the time that Toradora aired? Blame shipping culture in general if you want, but that’s facile — besides, shipping’s not going anywhere. There are two more important factors here:

1. Toradora! twisted genre cliches and tropes to create a smarter version of the anime love polygon (it was more a rhombus or maybe a pentagon than a triangle). I suppose that, given the unexpectedness with which it delivered some of its plot points, viewers were led to expect that anything was possible.
2. We’re not used to such wonderful secondary characters. Part of the problem with the polygon or harem is the underdevelopment of the less-true girls — and I don’t mean in the chest. But the overly-cheerful Minori and the overly-crusty Ami didn’t fool anyone into thinking they were the simple characters that they pretended to be. And as a result, they won more fans than the average collection of fetishes that fill out the remainder of a harem.

But in the end, Ryuuji and Taiga made good on their celestially promised destiny. And boy was it wonderful. One of my big beefs with romantically focused anime is the lack of decent payoff for the 20-some episode wait. I want to feel it. If you didn’t feel this one, hang up your hat and give up on the genre.