Or maybe ‘wai-fufufufufufufu’.

Wai for waifus?

Having cleverly overshot the apex of my intentions, which was originally to follow the footsteps of Keima Katsuragi and his fantastically ridiculous (and automobile-themed) rants about the qualities of a certain visual novel archetype, I now find myself in the gravel trap of raving fandom, ending up with the ‘ridiculous’ but maybe not the ‘fantastic’, as somewhere between the 150m-to-corner sign that marked the beginning of the post, the 100m braking point of extremely personal, charged opinion, and the 50m ‘oh-shi-you-better-turn-now’ marker of really bad metaphors and analogies, I overshot my mark and found myself doing donuts in my own tl;dr piles of a strange form of narcissism.

Not because I love myself, but because I love these girls as though they were myself. (Thus my tendencies to stay away from lewd images of some of my higher-ups).

Already the split in my writing can be seen, between the fairly straightforward and heartfelt section and the ravingly, wildly insane section (much like certain twin pairs such as spoiler-and-spoiler, or spoiler-and-spoiler, or maybe even spoiler-and-spoiler), and I should probably devote my post to separating the two and picking one.

Or, perhaps, I could just end this three-post-series with all the flair of a horribly, horribly done harem anime and pick an entirely inconclusive ending, while spending all my excess time making fools out of those readers who made an attempt at guessing my top three waifu-alikes. (Don’t worry kevo and Nazari, I still love you both in the most non-otakusphere-shippable way possible.)

In any case, let’s move on to the back 9 in the golf-course of, which is to say the top 9 in the list of, which is to say the strongest (9) of the 18 waifu-alikes which I selected over the course of a few nights.

For those of you who remember where we were last time, we were busy pretending that the process of selecting a waifu can be done by narrowing down a list of qualities that reflect a different sort of taste than, say, pure moe, or pure character worship.

The LEXUS difference between a waifu, and a -waifu-.

We already have Liking, which indicates that there must be some level of familiarity beyond some sort of unnatural curiosity (stalkers never win, kids).
Emotion is the second letter and the second rule, in that, well… really, I think a person you want to spend your life with, should be one that at least can show some level of facial expression. This is mainly because of the next point…
X. ‘eXquisite’, because I think it’s more important to have a refined character than to have a smoking hot body and enough sexual tension to fill a high school of angsty teenagers.
Alternatively, X, the cross between two people that indicates a give-and-take relationship. The communication between a couple, the equal footing that both of them are on, their bond that lets them work together to achieve new heights.

A bit flowery, but sensible. More than any of the usual put-on-a-pedestal worshiping (hold on while I take the hypocritical oath).

(image: big wednesday)
Finally arriving after a lengthy journey at number 9, without even a thought of a Beatles or Touhou reference, we end up at Eriko Futami (#9), a curious case.

Eriko simultaneously breaks and upholds all the rules in the book, proving that the rulebook is something worthy of quantum physics. Maybe that is fitting for someone of Eriko’s intelligence.

Certainly one can imagine that Eriko has quite the head on her feet (as well as quite the hair, but then we delve into physical characteristics which are horrendously subjective and difficult to argue – not for lack of me trying), although the latter end of KimiKiss has proven that she definitely is no stranger to love, either.

It’s a good balance that makes her a strong character, and lends some credit to the mysterious intrigue that surrounds her for much of the early parts of the series. Certainly she is quite close to that ‘good’ definition of ’strange’, that unique kind of character which always leaves you intrigued and a bit confused … and, as Kazuki would have it, wanting more.

Perhaps I’m a bit soft for the mentally-playful type, not quite at the level where they’re just toying with you, but at the level where you know you can mess with them, and they’ll fight back, but it’s all just for fun. Eriko’s concept of ‘experiment’ as it is, is something that resonates. A sort of free spirit.

One may note that 1) I have two KimiKiss girls on my list and 2) Eriko is ranked higher than Yuumi, despite the fact that I probably expounded about 10000 less words for Eriko over the course of KimiKiss’s airing. One could say that was out of personal empathy with Yuumi’s cause. Curiously, one could almost say the choice of Eriko here is the more ‘rational’ decision, where Yuumi’s is the more ‘emotional’.

How fitting.

(image: izuno kenta)
I would have a number eight here in the list but I appear to have lost track of where she went … Isumi Saginomiya (#8) clocks in here, as a depressing reminder of just how young everyone in the Hayate no Gotoku cast is in proportion to their great merit (certainly it’s hard to pick a character from there I -dislike-).

Certainly Isumi acts more mature than any of us did at 14 – admittedly probably a low bar, but you have to respect how Isumi can occasionally be sane and serious and perfectly level-headed in the face of adversity.

This is usually because she has misrepresented or is ignoring the danger entirely while she goes to wander with her head in the clouds, but I digress.

Maybe I just have a bit of an affinity for those who dare to be as air-headed (the dojikko ‘air-headed’, not the brainless ‘air-headed) and clueless as I am – one could call this the U for Unison, not just in traits between both people, but in the ways in which the sort of ‘relationship teamwork’ has been defined above under ‘X’. This is why I find Isumi a strong character in many regards, and not altogether an entirely horrible choice when it comes to selection for this list.

However, in the end, if Isumi were ever to get hitched she’d probably end up getting lost between the front-door and the ride to the chapel, eventually turning up at some other wedding and becoming the property of some other completely arbitrary man (or woman, as you would have it).

And that will just cause unnecessary angst.

(image: genkai majika)
Speaking of unnecessary angst, Chihiro Shindou (#7) probably has more than her fair share, but one has to make necessary accolades for someone who has been through more than her share of tribulations. And I have a gut feeling, deep down somewhere, that Nagisa Furukawa (#6) can sympathize a lot with her as well.

One can imagine that these two, as shining beacons of the visual novel’s ability to create perfectly flawed yet still appealing characters, would get along quite well together. At least I could.

Well, I at least can draw parallels between the two, to the point where you can picture Chihiro as a bit of an amplified version of Nagisa. Both have their own physical problems, which perhaps are less comparable, but you can see that spark of inner strength inside both of them, beyond that adorably shy exterior, a will that is unbreakable, and that’s something that I definitely treasure.

The parallels begin to fade somewhere after the 13th hour, naturally; Chihiro’s strength seems something that is slowly forged due to many strong relationships in her life, while Nagisa never seems to falter even in the worst of times. Although you can’t fault Nagisa’s family either. Either girl here has the full package, people-wise.

In the end these girls both are fantastic examples of strong characters both on the outside (visually, and personality-wise, one could say), and the inside (in terms of how they deal with adversity, their relations with people and the world, etc), and it becomes very hard to beat that. Nagisa gets the nod mainly because I am an unexciting person and feel that life is a bit slower with her, picturing the contrasts between the almost slice-of-life-like Clannad and the dramatic ef.

Chihiro is a great girl, but all the work you’ll have to put into a relationship with her will nearly break you at times. Perhaps a merit in its own (ye old ‘going through thick and thin’ clause) … but not for me.

(Also, if you ever let her oversleep, you are -screwed-. Although some might like that sort of moe-like aspect, nurturing Chihiro in a very moe-like relationship position back to full health.)

If you genderswap me and palleteswap my hair to pink, you get a certain magical senpai.

(image: syokomo-taiman)
You also get Miyuki Takara (#5), which is why she’s number 5 on the list. Birds of a feather, one calls it.

(Granted, you’d have to add a touch of Hiyori in order to get a perfect copy, but really, when you get to that level, it goes beyond coincidentally awesome and into just peculiar.)

One may be amused at how the descriptions are becoming shorter and shorter the closer to number one we get; it may be because of the wildly variant amount of detail each character gets in each anime, which I have ignored blissfully in my spontaneous ranking.

Certainly I know there are at least ten of you in the crowd taking offense to how I just placed Miyuki, with like 5 minutes of exposition, ahead of Nagisa who had approximately 5 -hours- of exposition (probably more, actually).

And … well … what can I say? Rankings aren’t perfect. It doesn’t help that it’s easier to explain why I dislike a character (often on some more objective level), rather than why I really like one (when it comes down to more of an indescribable feeling, as I’m sure you all are familiar with).

Certainly it’s impossible to compare all these characters on a flat scale, as mentioned in Nagisa v. Chihiro. It depends on what one is looking for. An exciting, dramatic relationship? A sex romp? Something else? I personally tilt toward the calm and the low-key, myself. I know I’m not cut out to be starring in a visual novel anytime soon.

This reason precisely is why, despite the fact that I’ve probably spent more time writing this post than watching Aria, Akari Mizunashi (#4) is number four.

(image: hyper heiki)
Surely any of you that have been captured by the serene aura of Aria need no explaining why. Even I, who merely drifts along the outer currents, admiring the beautiful scenery and character design, feel a bit soothed by the relaxation waves of Aria and its girls.

As a result I’m finding it increasingly difficult to paint the cast of Aria (at least as I know them), in any way, in any sort of bad light whatsoever. Its power is incredible.

Carrying that sort of power day to day, as someone like Akari does, is something that I only wish I could be able to do. Perhaps I try. But it will take me many years before I can be as radiantly positive and easy-going as Akari, and that’s something I respect very much. Such is why I think being around someone with such a mindset, is such a good idea. I only would hope that I could contribute the same.

For those of you playing The Waifu Guessing Game along at home, as we have reached the top three on the list, you may now take your tickets out of your pocket … and promptly tear them up.

Ladies and gentlemen, number three, Hayate Ayasaki (#3).

Of course you probably would not put it past me to put something ridiculous on the list here, knowing how well Endless Eight has taught me to troll, but do recall that I never explicitly mentioned (well, I hope I didn’t) that waifu material has to be female.

And certainly I’ve made no effort to hide my respect for Hayate as a man, a woman, and everything in between in his adventures as a butler, frequently quipping that he’s probably “the second or third best girl in Hayate no Gotoku”.

It should be no contest that his profession lends him that aura of ‘manliness’, not that type of manliness like Cho-Marisa disturbingly-muscular manliness, but rather, the chivalry sort of manliness that makes women like me swoon.

Although certainly Hayate’s physical prowess appears to be quite unmatched.

What probably is the most fantastic, and the most sexuality-breaking, about Hayate, is how he functions well as a member of both genders, almost as if there was some sort of binary switch within him that could be activated with the addition or subtraction of nekomimi and meidofuku.

Not only can he be the most upstanding, moralistic, kind-hearted man around, he can also be a stomach-wrenchingly cute, moedorable girl. So take your pick, I guess.

Hayate is the ultimate handyman, able to fix anything, even his own gender. Respect him as a man, adore him as a girl, be gay for him as an aniblogger.

Moving on, you may recall Chekhov’s Word from earlier in the post, that of the LEXUS analogy. We’ve got the LEXU. What about the S? What do you think that stands for?

Well? Any guesses?

Actually, it’s not Shiori Misaka (#2).

It’s Strength, something that Shiori and many of the girls leading this list have. That inner strength that makes them more than cardboard props (with really pretty designs), easily blown over in the wind. That contributes to all the other letters in the LEXUS, that makes them someone who can work with people, fight through adversity, everything.

Incidentally, if you’re actually wondering why Shiori is ranked this high, I should probably refer you to this post from _ETERNAL which will refer you back to a post from me which will probably still refer back to a pile of at least 2 or 3 posts extolling why I’ve gone off the deep end for the shawl-wearing, vanilla-ice-cream, sad-girl-in-snowing wonder that is Shiori.

It’s probably one of the more exaggerated aspect of my anime fandom, but I do feel that there are certain things that I should stand by, and Shiori happens to be one of them, that mysterious magical mix of moe, mystery, and inner strength that’s captivated me for explicable and inexplicable reasons.

Certainly, “Shiori guy” is a more interesting title than “glasses girl guy” or “harem anime guy”. Or “senpai guy”.

But this leaves just one, doesn’t it…

If I were on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire (Moellionaire, more like), I couldn’t say this is my final answer. Nor could I measure on any scale whether this choice is significantly higher (or even much more than equal to) than the other 17 on the list (ok, maybe I can say the top 8 or so are definitely in a higher echelon).

And I’m still wondering, after 2500 words (in -this- post!) whether I’ve done much of a good job of explaining criteria that may be sensible for waifu material. Or whether I’ve just launched on a rant of either entertaining, epic, or encreidbly long (sp) length.

But I don’t wonder, why I like Chinami Ebihara (#1).

-CCY

A few months ago, Mio Akiyama of K-ON! fame was voted Most Desirable Wife (in terms of 2D) by readers / users of Recochoku, tailed by Hinagiku Katsura of Hayate no Gotoku!, Taiga Aisaka of Toradora!, and many other girls that hailed from big-name, recent (if not current) anime.

Aside from noting the fact that, clearly, exclamation marks make anime girls more appealing wives, sometimes, one has to think:

That kind of girl, isn’t the kind you would call a ‘wife’ at all!

Let me share my experience from the world of the visual novel, of the harem anime, of the obsessive. Let me teach you about,

The Passionate Pursuit of Perfection in a Waifu LEXUS

Of course, I’ve had many favorites over the years as well. I know my childhood, growing up with crushes on bimbos from shonen shows and empowered women from shoujo. One can forgive those sorts of mistakes of youth, sometimes even the ones that continue until adulthood. The fixations that one always finds slightly strange but can never pull away from, such as (#18) Hanyuu Furude –

Excuse me, I may have made a bit of a slip there.

(official art)
But indeed is it just that gut feeling that can drive one to waifu classification? That way you get stunned by certain girls in the manner that a character in a 2D fighter is stunned after having their shield broken.

Unfortunately, a crush – (#17) Hitagi Senjougahara would call it a fascination – does not a relationship make. Certainly, it’s a far too serious lesson that far too many otaku-alikes make in real life.

And that’s why the L stands for Liking!

Of course ‘liking’ is such a vague word; how does it differ from a crush or a fascination or an obsession? I like anime. I like cheese. Do I like (#16) Satsuki Yumizuka?

After a lot of soul-searching and game-playing I found out I only ever pretended to like Sacchin for her lack of a route and her Another Arc Drive versus Shiki in Melty Blood; indeed, it was the curiosity that led to the crush which led to the misinterpreted feelings.

Naturally, I talk about these feelings like they have even the slightest of meanings in real life, but of course this is just the difference between, say, punching someone every time they say ‘Isn’t it sad, Sacchin’, and laughing and ending with a heavy sigh.

It’s probably curiosity that is so often misinterpreted by anime fans as something resembling ‘liking’; this is almost natural. Things we don’t understand are exciting. Confusing. Scary. Intriguing. Maybe all at once.

Certainly this is something that occasionally you may want a wife to be but in the end you just can’t tell which part of your feelings are real, and which are fake, when your target someone who you know nothing about and only observe from behind telephone poles.

(art by Newhonpo)
Speaking of real and fake, that’s an argument in itself for humanoid acronym substance (#15) Yuki Nagato, the perennial favorite for Haruhi fans the world round and arguably one of the most successful silent-type characters ever (in terms of fanbase). Given that she’s the one intersection between my list and Recochoku’s, it can be seen that her popularity is enormous.

Of course, whether one wants to marry someone who is massively famous is up to personal taste; it has been proven time and time again that my tastes lean against things that are cool and popular, but this of course boils down to a pretentious slant of mine.

Nevertheless, the fall from grace, so to speak, of Nagato, is not due to that but due to the letter E: Emotion.

“But CCY, Nagato’s fantastic!” you say. “She’s cool-headed and she’s smart and she’s unbelivably hax and you named your blog partially after the glasses attraction that you gained to girls like her!”

Perhaps you may be right on at least one count there. Nagato is the world’s smoothest criminal (one must agree that Dissapearance Nagato is so moe-inducing it’s criminal), can probably beat Deep Blue in a game of chess and Tiger Woods in a game of golf, and just for kicks, is pretty good at altering the fabric of space and time. Always a plus in my book.

But when it comes to waifu material, Nagato and practically every other girl in the silent-girl archetype can be considered pretty close to first on the chopping block. You think that stoic demeanor is cool now, but when you’re having dinner, out shopping, or in bed (stifle your nosebleed, sirs) struggling to make the slightly semblance of conversation, wouldn’t you want someone who can string together more than two syllables at a time?

Naturally, the argument for silent girls is very similar to the tsundere archetype; if you hammer at them enough, eventually they will open up and the floodwaters of blushing and talking and moe and shiny rainbowy wonderfulness will rush out, and verily it will be glorious.

I call nonsense. If you’re getting into the waifu business with someone with the intent to change them into someone that they’re not already, you’re approaching it entirely the wrong way. Find someone that you like the way they are.

So, until I get a more solid stance on Dissapearance Nagato, let’s move on.

(art by Shaa)
One might imagine that the concept of ‘range’ also falls under this umbrella of the word ‘emotion’. As boring as it is to have someone who is stoic all the time, equally such, someone who is gushingly, gushingly sappy all the time, can be painful.

We’re all hopeless romantics here, and I know it’s hypocritical to say this in a waifu post, but … just a little realism is nice sometimes?

Haruka Nogizaka (#14) may have a word edgewise in here one way or the other; naturally, the big-breasted soft-spoken popular anime-loving rich girl is an archetype that you will find -very difficult- to match in real life. However, such flaws in her character are made up by admittedly subjective judgments on not just her character, but that of her match, Yuuto Ayase (unranked).

Really, the two of them are such an adorable fit that it’s hard to not be slightly envious of Yuuto and his noble yet undeniably realistic position as a man who has a chance at scoring a big-breasted soft-spoken etc etc etc, which is why Haruka trips the waifu meter here.

Still, Yuuto’s done a good job here. I’ll defer to him. I feel that’s fair.

But rather, perhaps the stronger case against Haruka, and especially, Yuumi Hoshino (#13) is a different kind of realism, perhaps, emotional realism.

I don’t question that Haruka and Yuumi have feelings for their respective men. And while Haruka just wanders around in that baneful land where shonen romances go to die – failure-to-confess purgatory (even if they are essentially a couple at that point) – Yuumi’s situation is even more dire, and far-fetched.

In a sense, Yuumi is so close, yet so far from the heart of a person like me.

Naturally, I sympathize with her shy personality and intensely strong (and adorable) crush on Kouichi; certainly it should be the case that many an anime fan be in exactly her situation. And so, it becomes easy to root for someone like her.

(art by kishida-shiki)
But here (and indeed in KimiKiss as well), I can’t help but rule against her. Her emotions are pure but her viewpoint is horribly, horribly stuck up in the clouds. The classical romantic fallacy of desiring a goal, but not knowing what to do after accomplishing it.

It’s a marriage-breaker. Focusing on only admiring the other person, putting them on a pedestal without bridging the gap between the two, is foolish.

You could say that “X” in LEXUS is not actually a letter, but a X, meant to be put between the names of two people who are destined to be together, showing their unison as one person. Not one worshiping the other, but two people, working together, bonding together.

Alternatively, I originally ruled it “eXquisite”, which is to say, just like with Reimu and her cups of tea, I prefer a more refined taste. Which is to say I’m a pretentious arse and don’t want to admit drooling over moeblobs.

Noe Isurugi (#12) is not a moeblob. Nor is she a case one would not file under ‘exquisite’. Certainly her tenuous grip on reality, in a way that if her name was prefaced by “The Melancholy Of” it would be totally believable, makes Noe a very complex and dynamic character.

Just like in True Tears, you could say she is out of place here, both in terms of writing structure and waifu list. Probably she is the first case of subjectivity in a list like this, where even though I lay out these guidelines, a “How to Be a Waifu for Dummies”, you can have someone who fails the ‘Liking’ test hard still rank all the way up here.

Noe is interesting. I can’t place the pin on her. She’s a different kind of interesting than Satsuki, that kind of person I feel that even if I knew for a million years I wouldn’t understand. And that’s why, as digiboy attested, it’s something not worth pursuing, myself.

(official art)
Moving back onto the topic slowly, Misaki Yamamoto (#11) is another girl who breaks all the rules in the list and yet still ends up one higher. It must be the lollipops.

I don’t know much about her other than her relatively level-headedness (something that is admired but something that shouldn’t sell the Brooklyn Bridge).

And certainly she is not an ‘exquisite’ taste in my sense, which believes that there’s a certain level of physical attraction that becomes too much for waifu material – the point where you may be focusing on the wrong assets, say, of this person’s character.

Still, in some senses, I am a man. And so Misaki is found to be a very intriguing personality. As are many of the Hatsukoi girls.

Otoha Kagura (#10) is yet again other opportunity for you to throw tomatoes at my head for being 1) inconsistent and 2) pretentious by naming random girls from random shows everyone thought sucked.

Certainly Otoha doesn’t seem like a 10 nor a number 10 when you look at her; she ends up somewhere on the list by sheer force of ‘genki girl’, a trait I feel would be exceptionally worthwhile in waifu material land. Certainly as you becoming an aging, lifeless husk of a salaryman, that never-ending smile and bright demeanor of a genki girl becomes exceptionally valuable, right?

It seems as such that smile will never change, anyway, and I must also admit that the seventh episode of H2O with her touching parting (amidst all the chaos) was what put her over the top of other girls of her caliber and ilk, especially her prototype Asa Shigure.

(art by Sayori)
Well, we’re halfway there and running up on 2,000 words fast, and what I’ve learned is that for some reason, raw emotional ranking of the girls is not matching the numerical ranking at all. For instance, I’ve expounded about 10,000 more words on KimiKiss than H2O, as far as I recall.

Perhaps that’s a tell to how rationally I -attempt- to approach such a thing as waifu selection; a reflection of my serious business roots? The mark of trying to pick a intelligent choice for such a ‘lasting’ thing as a waifu, rather than going by seat-of-the-pants gut-shot moe feeling? Time will tell.

Until then, stretch, get a cup of water, talk to your neighbors for a bit. We’ll reconvene this Waifu 101 class in a week or so.

-CCY

Heh. Waifus. Of course, the deliberate misspelling of the word only adds to the confusion, seen by ‘ordinary’ readers who come across a post like that.

Obviously it’s derogatory. An intentional corruption into pseudo-Japanese, to further enhance the obsessive nature of the anime fanboy who will shun the real world in favor of a two-dimensional girl with personality traits that happen to align with their own.

So what is it with the nature of the anime fanboy? The criticism that they place upon themselves, if only to shield themselves from someone else heaping onto them the same insult?

Of course, it can easily be imagined that there is an analogue in any fandom. For the sports fan, there is the superstar; the straight man, the supermodel; the stylish lady, the fashion star, the movie star, I could run the stereotypes all day and all night long but the point of the matter is -

It’s very rare that you will find someone who doesn’t have someone they look up to. Often, humans will have many someones; their mind equal – a best friend; their close superior – a role model; their ultimate dream – the untouchable.

(image by Kani Infuruenza)
The Uberman, I would say, if I wanted to delve into a deep philosophical discussion on why fanboys have ‘waifus’, in one form or the other. Someone to strive by – whether to become them, or to come upon someone like them, or to come in –

Wait, maybe that’s a different thought. But certainly the right tone!

Because in all seriousness while I intend to rant and philosophize and wax poetic, this time, it’s falling on the smoke and mirrors side – rather, the Taihen Serious side – of things. Or so I claimed! Eventually the pretense and the passion got mixed so deep that eventually I had to split them into two separate posts.

So take this as an intro, to a much lighter piece, coming shortly.

Perhaps it’s interesting to figure out why people in general seek out higher ground, a bar to set themselves by, rather than an achievement to work towards (or perhaps the two are inseparably linked?) … but today, I’m focusing on just how much love, passion, and devotion goes into the selection of a waifu.

I suppose you know the devotion. You’ve been to Sankaku Complex. You’ve seen the stories referenced with a facepalm worthy of Kyon himself. The posters plastered across the wall, the eight-times-redundant purchase of fan merchandise, something painfully banal in nature. The shrines.

The devotion is there. But is the passion?

(image by Kantoku)
Certainly everyone who is silly enough to have followed me for any length of time – or even the last 400 words – has fallen hopelessly, nonsensically for an anime girl. Every person’s shrine is different – some wax 2000 word paeans. Others cover their banners and signatures with the girl. Some go out and spend real money on real Nagato poste – whoops, a little slip there.

Do you call that love? Obsession? Escapism? Maybe your feelings are never that strong … but if you’ve come to anime to evaluate everything irrationally, without ever letting just one person stir your emotions … you’ve come for the wrong reasons.

What is it? Love is the best form of insanity? Something like that.

And I’ll show you that if you’re going to be insane, you might as well be insane with style.

Because the last thing I want is for the average ‘otaku’ to be as fickle as the wind – or perhaps, as fickle as husbands in Vegas – when it comes to their waifu. You know how it is. You’re a new anime fanboy, you watch Haruhi. She is God. Literally, figuratively, every sense of the word.

Then you pick up Clannad. Kyou is unparalleled. Haruhi is nobody, a drop in the bucket compared to her. And then you find Bakemonogatari …

It’s a vicious cycle. It’s a bad role model. If you’re going to find a ‘waifu’, why not find one that you can truly believe in? The derogatory part in ‘waifu’ shouldn’t be because of the incapability of a girl to be acceptable as ‘wife material’.

Usually, it’s the person that changes, right? More ‘meetings’, more maturing of emotions, and suddenly your little crush on Sailor Mercury is all but ridiculous.

Mistakes of youth, isn’t it?

(image by Niichi Doriimu)
So perhaps, what I plan to attempt in an epic, Keima-Katsuragi-style lesson in two-dimensional love, is to use my experience, to further develop this concept of a ‘waifu’. If there’s something I’ve learned about myself from my year of campaigning in ISML (to which I thank all of you who participated), it’s that I am crazy feel that if you believe in something, you should believe in it all the way.

I don’t mean to say that I want you to be deadly serious about this kind of thing. Of course, if you aren’t having some enjoyment, then you aren’t having anything at all.

But, without some sort of deeper meaning, there is no strength.

And this strength is the passion that drives the otakusphere – the passion that drives me ever closer to that cliff of insanity – the passion to talk about something that simultaneously means everything and nothing. The world … of a false world.

Although … is it really false, if we’ve internalized it? I’ve sworn many days by the mindset of girls like Akari. This is how, something that is so unreal, something that is so pointless … can be meaningful. To me. At least for a bit now, even if I come back in a year and -really- regret busting out 3000 words on ‘waifus’, that -moment- is important, isn’t it?

That’s why, I’m trying to make this moment not something that I do half-heartedly. And hopefully, after my exposition, you’ll be encouraged to do the same.

(image by Tachibana Sakuya)
Well, not that all of you should go out and find 18 anime girls you really like, and then sort them out in a soul-searching, word-limit-breaking fashion. I don’t even insist that you take the definition of a ‘waifu’ seriously (even if I am, just for a bit). I mean, come on. The spelling.

But … when you find something that you think you want to believe in … make it count, won’t you?

I guess this concludes the ’serious’ side of the Waifu Post. Some introspection into my discovery of myself, that will hopefully cause you to also introspect sometime and do the same. For these girls have gotten close to our hearts for a reason, right …?

And it’s up to you to find that reason.

Next time, I’ll show you my reason for this much passion and this many words:
All these waifus and you’re selecting it wrong. I’ll lead you under the banner of Keima Katsuragi to show you the true meaning of a waifu LEXUS.

-CCY

(fun reader exercises to do in the week it will take me to write the other half: speculate on the 18 girls)

It’s done, finished, over. I don’t care how many more Endless Eight episodes they do or don’t produce; KyoAni’s thrown a sure deal away, looked a gift horse in the mouth, exploited their fans beyond the breaking point, and I’m not having any of it anymore.

I think, if we want to show KyoAni and Kadokawa that we’re not standing for this, that we have to do something about it more than just complaining. After all, so many naive fools are still watching the series, no matter how much they moan about it.

And so for this bandwagon, this is where I jump off. I urge you to do the same before other companies think they can get away with such cheap tactics, that offend the very nature of anime itself.

Ugh. So glad I didn’t buy the actual DVDs or any actual merchandise. Kadokawa isn’t getting any of my hard-earned dollars anymore if they’re going to take advantage of us fans like this.

From now on, Haruhi is dead. Nietzsche would be proud.

-CCY

But, after skimming through the AnimeSuki thread I felt like I had to try to scream louder than the most enraged voices there, just to be heard. And so I decided to do something extreme, like fake-destroying my Haruhi DVDs and then hiding the link to my real post right at the end.

Well, I guess, this is ‘curiosity’. Pushing the boundaries to see what would happen, to see whether people will see the face of this post or the last one. Certainly, ‘curiosity’ is something not unknown to Kadokawa or KyoAni.

Maybe it’s not known as ‘curiosity’. ‘Guts’, maybe. ‘Trolling’, for those quicker to spout meme-words. Probably the closest is ‘insanity’.

Not insane like writhing-around, nonsense-talking insane, but the good kind of insane. You know that grin on Lelouch or Light’s face whenever they hatch some master plan? That’s the kind of grin the people behind Haruhi have got right now.

And it’s certainly an expression that’s not unknown to me, for following the rise – and possibly fall – of the second season of Haruhi Suzumiya has been one of the most interesting anime-watching experiences I’ve had in a while.

Probably if I were to chart the hype, Haruhi has been rather bipolar; the momentum it had leading up to the start of the second season was massive. Naturally, right? It had been years since the last episode, and at every new chance for a new episode (whether it be the “Haruhi Returns” issue of Newtype or whatever) the fans jumped.

Some jumped off the ship, disgusted with how the series was being handled. But still, others jumped for joy, waiting for that one moment God would return to them.

And then the series aired, and the world exploded! A stealthy airing, almost without notice, unheard of in the anime industry, and it was Haruhi Suzumiya, no less! It was incredible. Morale was at an all-time high.

But that motivation slipped. The first few episodes, while fairly classic Haruhi, weren’t able to stir up the same emotion. Maybe the hype for Haruhi had outstripped the show. But at least among the otakusphere, reaction to Haruhi slipped.

It went from being mythical, God-like, to being something that was merely ordinary. One of the mortals. It was a good show to watch but it wasn’t the second coming.

It’s the kind of hope-crushing that is very reminiscent of long-distance love. After a first shot from Cupid, one builds up all these fantastic expectations, their perfect image of the person in question. The Second Season of Haruhi was mythified, fantasized about, so on so forth.

And then it aired, and the viewers and their goddess were reunited, and it seemed … well, ordinary. Certainly nothing could live up to those expectations. It became less and less to talk about – it was not horrid but it was not spectacular. Married life, maybe.

But then came Endless Eight, and Endless Eight, and Endless Eight, and Endless Eight, and now staring down the maw of a fifth iteration (still nothing compared to Nagato’s tribulations) the fandom has roared to life again … with rage.

It’s an intriguingly similar situation. Fans are waiting for new content. KyoAni and Kadokawa tempt them, but ultimately yank the bait away, leaving fans high and dry. As a result, fans get enraged. They threaten to leave the bandwagon. Some of them do.

Familiar, isn’t it? It’s almost back to square one for the second season.

But it makes one wonder what is KyoAni and Kadokawa’s goal in this seemingly excessive iteration of Endless Eight. Is it a test of will? A good-natured challenge from God (so to speak) to weed out all but Her most devoted followers, whose loyalty shall be rewarded by the bounty of blushing Nagato? It seems a bit too unrealistic.

Maybe the worst-case scenario is true. KyoAni and Kadokawa are just money whores. They want nothing more than to wring dollars out of the fanbase by producing moe-a-minute anime such as K-ON or the Key series, and they know they have to put no effort in to make Haruhi a hit. Again, a bit apocalpytic and extremist.

To some disillusioned people, possible; I don’t have the magic equations that will allow me to solve for the amount of people who leave the Haruhi train each episode, versus the amount of dollars profited per rehashed episode off of more fanatic followers. I doubt it’s a working business model though, or else we’d be on our 20th season of [insert popular cash-in anime here, whichever one you hate - that isn't the point here] by now.

But two conclusions grows ever more and more apparent, as a grin spreads across my face as I know I’m in for something big. It’s that same expression that you can picture Diethard making; a little bit crazy, a little bit fanatic, completely lost in the moment. It’s that expression that I know I’ll die as a result of one day – metaphorically, I must say – that insanity that will burn you out but will give one hell of a ride.

That ‘insanity’ is something that I hope KyoAni’s captured in their telling of the second season of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Just maybe, KyoAni is really trying to break us. To push us right to our limit. I title the post ‘Haruhi Requiem’ entirely intentionally.

You may recall my gushing praise for the final Zero Requiem arc of Code Geass; before those final episodes, there was little but a mess of narrative and increasingly convulsing plot twists, but afterwards, those final few straws that Lelouch placed on the camel’s back, seemed to only work genius. It was beautifully simple in the end.

What do you do when you’ve accumulated too much hate, or too much hype, for your own good? You take it all in, instead of trying to push it away, you draw it into yourself, faster and faster. You become the hatred, the symbol of all that is bad.

And then you sink that hatred with yourself, take the fall and bring down the darkness with you. It’s closing the curtain on the chapter and raising a bright future as a result. Phoenix from the ashes.

And just maybe, that’s KyoAni’s plan to defeat the hype.

After all, KyoAni knew – everyone knew – that it was near impossible to match Haruhi’s hype. No matter how much quality, how much animation they brought out – and maybe they didn’t bring their A-game at the start anyway – it wouldn’t be enough for many people, to match that image of Haruhi that shone since 2006.

For me, I was one of them. The first two episodes did not click at all.

And so, KyoAni flooded the Haruhi ship. They opened the gates and started pumping water on with Endless Eight after Endless Eight. Some fans will bail, others will flounder, trapped by the pull of the series. The situation gets worse and worse as the people get more and more discontent, until …

There’s that inner tube on a rope that KyoAni throws you. The last hope to save you from death and despair.

The Dissapearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.

It’s an easy theory, one that I’ve seen work before my very eyes one too many times. When prefaced with rubbish, even ordinary material shines. Where a childhood friend would struggle to match up in any harem show, drop her in a gambling anime like Kaiji and suddenly she’s a bombshell.

It’s the same with Code Geass above. After the Thought Elevator and all that nonsense, such a simple, straightforward concept as Zero Requiem almost brings me to tears.

I can’t count how many anime I’ve started and thought were absolute trash, but warmed up to in a matter of episodes. Some of these would go on to become some of my all-time favorites.

H2O ~footprints in the sand~. One of the most painful starts that I’ve seen in a harem game, with gratuitous fanservice, little to no plot, and Yui. But the twisted, perhaps traditional visual-novel plot that unfolded after, solid on its own if not full of holes … sheer genius by comparison. And so I have a good taste in my mouth whenever I think of H2O.

It’s all about lowered expectations.

Perhaps the other thing that Haruhi’s Endless Eight might share with H2O is that it’s been shown that KyoAni is at least not afraid to push the envelope, directing-wise. Or rather, maybe they’re pushing the envelope while they still can.

H2O pulled off some tricks that I’ve not seen the likes of since, with an epically broken harem lead near the end, some serious pathos, and the most crack-inducing dream episode I’ve seen … which still ended sweetly.

Similarly, Haruhi is showing it has the guts, the lack of sanity, to pile the same episode on five, six, maybe more times, with only minor changes. The content is mediocre but the concept is incredible. And in a timeloop situation, it’s hard to even call it cheap, as every time through, there’s that search for the key, that one change, the way out.

Maybe the Endless Eight saga, just by itself, is not the greatest thing to watch, but to consider the nerve of KyoAni to pull this off while the fandom (and perhaps the sponsors) anguish in the background, EXPERIENCING the emotion of watching Haruhi live is simply incredible.

Remember School Days, how watching it was one thing, but watching it while seeing people alternatively defend Makoto and beckon for his blood was another? That’s what we’re doing again. Except the people on the stake are KyoAni and Kadokawa.

The difference here is that, one cannot help but picture the two of them sitting in a leather armchair somewhere, stroking their white cat named Mr. Kittens and chuckling to themselves. I feel like I’m getting played, but in reality I want nothing more than to go along for the ride, to finally observe the workings of a studio almost as insane as I am, noting what might be another piece in the legendary, reality-breaking history of Haruhi Suzumiya.

-CCY

Sometimes I wonder what kind of reputation I have around the otakusphere. The taste for harem shows that I developed early in my anime-viewing career, starting with Key’s crying shows and fluff-drama pieces like Shuffle and Da Capo, has become what appears to be my defining feature of sorts, as “that guy who likes to deconstruct harem shows”.

And that’s probably not too far off the truth, because although I pride myself on also being a GARmbler (see: Kaiji, Akagi, One Outs, Liar Game), as well as a far of pretentious crack (insert Shaft here) and random slice-of-romance shows, my basis remains grounded in the simple formula 5girls1guy + a lot of moe = a good time. And with the right show, a very wordy, passion-filled, tl;dr time.

Perhaps I am a bit more discerning now than in my youthful days of … a year ago, but, y’know, the harem genre swings back and forth between absolute genius and complete pandering rubbish, faster than a bossy Rie Kugimiya flat-chested character swings between tsuntsun and deredere.

The other trait that easily gets tacked on to me is that of an unnaturally strong appeal to glasses, and again, I’m entirely unsurprised. When you look at the title of a blog and see “Mega Megane Moe”, which I could translate as, “glasses have mega charm”, what else are you going to think?

Sometimes, as always, though, I am left to wonder if that is true.

For although I still can have a good time ransacking a glasses girl thread at a Touhou imageboard (incidentally, the damage count last time was about 40 images), those days are becoming increasingly sparse.

(”????? You should be working on your Toradora 16 post instead!”)

Perhaps the best way to describe it, is that the appeal of glasses to me is not an active appeal, but rather a passive one. If I wanted to cover myself in the most politically correct way I could say ‘it’s not developed to the point of a fetish’, which as far as I understand is a good thing.
A good analogy is probably that of any consumer with a casual brand preference. Let’s say I like drinking Coke. I don’t actively live and die on Coke – I don’t run around wearing Coke-branded shirts and baseball caps (if there are such things), and I can drink beverages that are not Coke.

In fact, I wouldn’t like all beverages that are Coke-branded, because my apathy towards lemon-flavored drinks overrules my preference towards coke. But if I’m in the mood for a standard carbonated soft drink, I am more likely to pick Coke over Pepsi or RC, unless of course there is another mitigating factor, such as there being a 2-for-1 sale on a rival brand.

(And all that soda reference without a mention of Akikan.)

In a similar way, I’m brought to the opening lines of this post, a mantra that now I feel I believe in:
Glasses on a girl are not always a plus.
But they are never a minus.

You can’t really decrease the appeal of a girl, at least in anime, by adding glasses. At the worst it just has a neutral effect, like most other physical but non-body-orientated traits of anime girls; for example, hairstyles or hair colors.

However, done right, with the right glasses on the right girl, works fantastically. And damn right those slim, slightly rounded frames on Chinami Ebihara enhance her character, and I’d fanboy an Eriko Futami with a pair of sleek no-nonsense specs, ten times more, hands down. (Why are there no examples of this, I wonder.)

To expand my point to a more general basis, and to tie it back to the soft drink analogy, I probably don’t fanboy the glasses so much as I fanboy an image.

Just as like how if I bought Coke, I guess, I would buy into the whole American Idol, cool and hip, smiling social lifestyle they advertise, my attraction to glasses is largely a result of an attraction to the personality that glasses girls tend to exude.

For percieved or not, glasses girls tend to draw from a very limited and highly attractive pool of personalities. Generally, they fall under one or more of the following.

• Smart: A la the Miyuki Takara or Mimi Usa archetype, nerdy guys the world round have given rise to the rather simple assumption that having glasses makes you inherently more intelligent. And thanks to being a nerdy guy, or perhaps thanks to a taste shifting away from the airheads of the anime world (barring Class-S Spacey People like Kotomi or Osaka), I rather like smart people. Go, natural selection. A special subset of these ladies, despite being rather bright, lack in street smarts: another trait which inherently needs no explanation.
• Clumsy: Perhaps bred from years of not being able to see where they were going, until their poor vision was corrected by spectacles, a large quantity of glasses girls are inherent complete klutzes. And while I am rather opposed to those with no mental coordination, those with no physical coordination I find quite cute. Perhaps this is because I am equally prone to walking into door frames. Examples in this field include again, Miyuki, or Chinami Ebihara.
• Cold / rational: Perhaps a bit of overlap here with the first trait, the majority of glasses-bearers seem to sport a rather no-nonsense personality, ranging anywhere from the null expression of Yuki Nagato, to Kairi Sanjou’s refined serious-business glare, to Eriol Hiiragizawa’s scheming glasses-shimmer. One may argue as to whether or not the ’strong but silent(-ish)’ or occasionally ‘logical / tactical mastermind’ exudes moe in itself, but even if one cannot appreciate this, another perspective is similar to that of the tsundere, in that ‘breaking’ that expressionless or lying face, to crack Kairi or Yuki’s shell, is all the reward you need.
• Shy: Perhaps less prevalent but still common enough to be listed, there is a social awkwardness inherent to a lot of glasses girls. Whether it’s the ostracization caused by being That Scary Genius, or a lack of common-sense  rationality, or a self-imposed isolation, glasses girls at times can tend toward the introvert side of the spectrum. This is a softer rule than the above three; certainly, there are many exceptions to the rule (Aoi Oribe, Sakura Sae, etc) that play the genki girl card instead. But it feels something apparent to me, in anime or real life, one way or the other.

And as far as I’m concerned, whether it’s from a ‘birds of a feather fl0ck together’ mentality, an ability to otherwise personalize the meganekko, or something else I can’t explain, any linear combo of these traits in a girl is enhanced by glasses, partially because one comes to expect it.

It’s a reversible statement: glasses girls have these traits, and girls with these traits have glasses.

Or they should.

(Pavlov’s inumimi-ko? Pavlov’s meganekko?)

Perhaps I’ve just been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog, to associate meganekko and certain characteristics. I find both moe because of what they imply to me. But, the difference is, I find it much stronger in the reverse direction – instead of hearing a bell (seeing glasses) and expecting food (character traits), I see food and expect to hear a bell.

A shy clumsy rational genius can be moe without glasses, but a glasses girl cannot be moe on her own. A shy clumsy rational genius girl with glasses, is probably a star in the making.

Maybe a pair of glasses is like a turbocharger. If you attach it to your lawnmower, you just feel sort of silly. If you slap that on your GT car though, already a fine machine in its own right, you’ll be tearing up the track in no time.

That’s the best analogy I can make, as to what I believe in the power of glasses.

-CCY

After all, with so many bloggers burning out, or at least engaging Emergency Measure #34 in order to prevent burning out, the lack of anime that sit upon my stack of 9s and 10s on the MAL does worry me.

I’ve a strange tradition after all of pretty much having no 10s, ever; it represents a symbol of perfection, something that trancends the space of just a mere work of fiction. It’s not just the anime, but the circumstances; therefore, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsukihime (the visual novel), Kanon 2006, my three gateways to the anime fandom, are the only ones to brandish such a number. It probably fits with coburn’s definition, that a 10 must not just be perfect, but also be resonant.

So in a sense, I end up on the same pedestal as coburn, with just 3 favorites, as opposed to Author’s 4 or Cameron’s 8, and I have to wonder. Even the nines, replacing what might be a conventional ten on the scale – although the standard scale is anything but – are becoming scare. Probably Higurashi is the only one to reach such a status in the last few months.

The seasonal outcry of how anime has gone to hell and we’re all going to die (shortly before being arrested by lawyers of Odex or your ‘favorite’ company of choice) becomes that much more worrysome; although I don’t really believe it, one has to wonder whether there is a slow build-up of tolerance to anime.

It’s somewhat like, fittingly, anime is my waifu; I watched the Kanons, the Kaijis, and I was smitten. I couldn’t stop thinking, and gushing, nonstop. I was absolutely head-over-heels, forcing my family with absolutely no anime experience to go through the same emotions that I did, watching Shiori at the fountain.

But, just like how marraiges cool off after a few years, I wonder, will I be stirred like that ever again? Certainly, I am still happy to wake up in the morning, next to a new Toradora or One Outs episode. I am definitely glad I’m here.

But I fought hard just to convince myself to give the brilliantly nonstandard Higurashi a 9. How will I retrieve the magic from the days when I was so incredibly soul-rocked by mere VN conversions as H2O and Kimikiss (which I haven’t found the ability to rewatch), I gave them the same star status?

That’s what I wonder, to bring it back from the realms explored off of an errant twit by lolikitsune, and to the posts in question. Can you force yourself to find a 10/10? Force yourself to find number 4? In a sense, force yourself to find love? I just don’t think it’s possible.

I’ve had cycles in the past, where I’ve had anime re-find me. Where I thought I was doomed to a list full of 6s and 7s, of generics like Akasaka, and a shining prince (or visual novel conversion) comes out of the rain and shelters me with an umbrella made of pure awesome. (as you will see in the upcoming 12 Moments of Anime 2008 special)

Perhaps the people on hiatus, are doing the right thing, by not looking, not pushing anymore?

Certainly, a bit of exploration won’t hurt; that’s exactly what I’m doing here by taking these posts and flying completely off-topic into my own personal tl;dr land. But, I don’t think you can intentionally find a 10/10 anime any more than you could intentionally find your soulmate.

-CCY
(And now for something completely irrelevant, I’ve gone on such a Patchy bender over the last few weeks that I wonder if I need to rename my blog. Mega Murasaki Moe? There are a lot of cute purple- or purple-tone hair girls in anime…)

What we haven’t heard as much from, though, is the fact that other, less pizza-induced shows still exist, and still ended around the same time frame.

Perhaps Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret) doesn’t have the benefit of being wildly popular or in-depth, and perhaps the ending did not leave us wondering whether Yuuto bit the dust or not, but still I can find there’s a lot for an anime fan to emote about, for I’ve gone through the aforementioned emotion spectrum with regard to Haruka’s Secret.

For those who dismissed Haruka’s Secret as a generic guys’ moe-moe-romance show, you’re … pretty much right. But there’s one part in where you are wrong – Haruka’s Secret is a heart-stealing guys’ moe-moe-romance show.

It’s torn through the community and left more than its share of anibloggers dazed, confused, and lovestruck, something that this crude genre often fails to achieve. It’s tough to describe the almost base level on which Haruka seems the same, yet so much different, as any other show, almost like it is to accurately identify the reason for one’s deep affection for any person, 2D or 3D.

At least, that’s what I really want to think about Haruka’s Secret. It’s cute, sweet, great for cuddling with at night, will never put a step wrong, and just has that little bit more … until that one fateful day where all of a sudden my rating of it plunged 700 points in 25 minutes.

Now what to believe?

(I reveal Haruka’s Secret within. Beware of spoilers.)

As you may have noticed, over the last few days I’ve been slowly drawn into the dark, mind-rending world of Higurashi. As such, it seems rather fitting that I open with the messy, stomach-churning conclusion of this show, as described above, before snapping back towards a more linear descent into hell.

Therefore, I will start with the better points – and what good points they are! – of Haruka’s Secret … but do note that it will end with me bashing my head against a knife while the anime laughs maniacally in the background.

Equally fitting, Haruka Nogizaka and the anime as a whole are hiding a secret – albeit not deep and dark – that makes them not quite what they seem. Haruka Nogizaka is, deep down, an anime otaku and moe powerhouse extrodinare, and Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret is actually quite the well-balanced lighthearted romance.

What perhaps endears Haruka’s Secret the most to my heart is that it’s got all the warm, fuzzy, and fluffy cotton-candy appeal of a simple romance story, with minimal guilt from pandering. Unlike most guys’ romance anime, Haruka’s Secret seems to give a nod either to women or to the second-lowest-denominator in, for the most part, not resorting to hacked, cheesy cliches, nor fanservice abuse.

This is evident most in our protagonist Yuuto, who seems to have learned a bit from his harem-style brethren of the past. True, he comes from the same roots, being a plain looking glasses guy who happens to stumble upon two and a half women…but somehow, his sanity and his conscience seems better placed. Maybe that’s why the collective female otakusphere (and by that I mean a sample population of two bloggers) seems so approving of him.

Especially when dealing with matters involving his beloved, Yuuto is remarkably strong and sound of mind, standing up for himself, and, admittedly, striving a bit too hard to be the knight in shining armor. But isn’t that preferably to the standard sack of flesh, too often driven by hormones or lost by indecision?

Accolades extend down to the rest of the cast too, in various degrees. Haruka, the female lead and moe girl extrodinaire, falls a bit on the pandering side, being essentially a Konata / Kotomi / Sayuri crossbreed, but somehow, it feels like it works here. Maybe because she doesn’t go out of her way to praise Otaku Reference Here, or because she has a few moments where she stands on her own as well – or maybe it’s just because her situation as an isolated idol feels natural, as she learns to take her own steps.

Haruka’s little sister Mika fills the token loli mode, replete with the dirtiest mind in the show, but it’s not too bad. She does have a redeeming episode which fills out her character a bit, so she’s not too dislikable. The dual maids of Hazuki and Nanami are mostly on the lighthearted side, but I can at least say that they’re lock candidates for SaiMoe next year (and for megane power rankings rev. II if I ever get to that). Yuuto’s annoying relatives are … annoying, and a bit amusing … but they know not to appear for more than 30 seconds an episode.

Shiina, however, is where the utopia starts falling apart.

It’s tough to say whether Haruka’s Secret had too much ambition or too little time, but the overloaded aspect of its story nature is pretty apparent through how the endgame played out … namely, with the near-entire lack of the third wheel in the love triangle.

After a few moments which hinted at her defeat in episode 10 – although never mentioned explicitly – Shiina, who enjoyed a pretty lofty status in the show, pretty much dissappears. Now, this is naturally preferred to creating false drama by having Shiina cling to Yuuto – in fact, she does almost the opposite, letting go of her own accord – and, if we were going to just focus on Haruka and Yuuto’s relationship in the last few episodes, it would be a great move.

However, this is all thrown out the window for a sharp flight away from reality and into bizarro world, where one-shot gaijin Romeos suddenly become credible competition for Haruka’s heart … without even laying a hand on her.

It’s clear to see that Haruka’s Secret shouldn’t be judged in any frame that is considered realistic; there’s a patent insanity to the show with all the chainsaw-wielding maids and yakuza mothers and all, but for most of the show there was at least a link to reality, the sense that an ordinary, confident boy and a shy, upper-class girl could fall for each other … that was almost Hollywood-like in nature.

But then we package the show up and ship it off to Haruka’s private island, with people lining up to give Haruka 500-carat diamond dresses and garages of Ferraris and more land than probably half the states in the U.S., and then where is our “realism” as defined? In what world does ignoring the main romantic contenderm to make way for a weaker one of the opposite gender, make for a more compelling finish?

Perhaps a sign of the unavoidable shonen roots of Haruka’s Secret is that it takes on more than it can handle, flipping from one storyline to another in a method that hardly resolves any of them, not even the one most vital to the show.

We start with the aforementioned shameful otaku secret of Haruka Nogizaka, whose concern about being discovered leads her to befriend Yuuto. After the first episode, it was possible this anime could evolve into a lighthearted Welcome to the NHK spin on otaku life, but after a few episodes, the otaku element is reduced to just something that makes Haruka happy without any repercussion.

Fine, maybe she accepted her otaku roots and maybe the entire school did, too. We still have the sweet story of the her and Yuuto falling in love. Only in this case, it’s like an old 2D platformer or something because they fall and fall and never hit the bottom of the pit.

There’s a finite level of enjoyment – albeit a very large finite level – one can derive from watching two people stumble over words and over each other at the slightest implication of a relationship. Yes, for the most part, down to the last minute, I was standing on my chair abusing JP’s quote of “F*** YES (SLIGHTLY ROMANTIC ACTION HERE)”.

When I lost faith in the last arc and its unnaturalness, I was still reaching out for one last shot at redemption. Maybe Yuuto, instead of falling to the cliche of getting hopelessly demoralized by a trash talker (to only gain faith through an otherwise irrelevant side character), would suddenly show his knightly side. Maybe Haruka would break through and declare that all the solid-gold Ferraris in the world were worthless compared to her Dojikko Aki-chan doll or Yuuto himself. Maybe it would all just come together, in one wonderful moment, that kiss hinted at in the OP, a confession, anything, something.

This was the kind of desperation you would feel if you were a pointy-nosed character in a Madhouse show, hoping for a miraculous draw to avoid losing your life.

And sure enough, it wouldn’t come.

One word, one action, nothing, as we get shot down by the combination of a fish-block and a Typical Shonen Romance Moment where all the eavesdroppers stumble in and ruin the moment. It’s nearly unforgivable.

I say nearly because there is, admittedly, another way to read this show. Sure, there was nothing ever shown or ever said between Haruka and Yuuto, but in reality, what sort of relationship is judged only by the explicit actions? Sometimes, it’s easier to fall in love without the official constraints of a relationship, and certainly Haruka and Yuuto were doing things as a couple already … any words at the end would just be the icing on the cake.

But for a more simple-minded viewer like me, who is sitting on the edge of his seat waiting for the final results to become official, who saw a kiss obscured in the OP for ELEVEN episodes, there’s just something … missing … like the animators wanted to leave content open for a second season. Certainly, if merchandise has been anything, Haruka’s Secret has been popular enough to have such an option.

I just get that feeling though, that Haruka’s Secret could have done better, not as a longer anime, nor as something extended to two seasons, but something that had focused better on a single point, on providing a fully encapsulated experience, something that is hard for an adaptation to do, especially one with potential for cash-cow abuse, or for one with a lot of content, which seven light novels might attest to.

Is Haruka’s Secret still a good show? For the most part, yes. It is above average, the first nine-odd episodes for sure. Either way it’s still good cotton candy, but you get the feeling it could have been more than that.

It had the characters, the songs, the potential to bring something memorable out of a weary genre.

I don’t understand!

It could’ve had class!

It could’ve been a contender.

It could have been somebody, instead of just another fluffy, sweet yet forgettable shonen romance…

…which is what it is, let’s face it.

-CCY

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been too busy fighting the war over at MAL, being one of the many front- (or second-) line reporters from the character battlefield that is SaiMoe.

Maybe I’ve been busy riding the anime rollercoaster, at times watching things that are horribly dull and not worth writing about, to watching things that are simply so mindblowing I can’t even put words together, and everywhere in between. This will be the 9th draft of a post in the last 3 weeks, and hopefully you’ll be able to read this sentence and shake your head, because that’ll mean I finally managed to get back on the writing track.

Or maybe, it’s that occasional thing called ‘real life’ that snuck up on me with a bat, a bat made of Nerf guns, video games, and sometimes homework, that beaned me over the head, straight in the ‘pretentious writing complex’.

But in any case, an absence, or at least a slowing in posting, can be a good thing. For one, you become much cooler when everyone thinks you’re gone, and then, out of the fire and flames, you carry on you powerwalk towards the camera in slow motion, rock music playing and your hair billowing as your … sorry, got a bit carried away there.

But at least, I know that I smile when I hear from someone that I haven’t seen around in a while, so here’s to hoping you can do the same.

But anyway … It’s that time again, where the democratic process shows its great merit once more as millions of airheads, loudmouths, conspiracy theorists, closed-minded fools, and occasionally an intelligent person go to vote on the one person to rule the world …

… It’s time for SaiMoe 2008.

Although perhaps it’s not quite of the same magnitude as the U.S. Election, there still are a lot of comparisons to be made, little be how fans tend to “change” characters to what “they can believe in”, or how there will be “100 more years” of Zero no Tsukaima (or any J.C. Staff show really), or how there tend to be the strangest running mates chosen (Miku Hatsune with Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei? Really?), or perhaps, more matter-of-factly, the fact that things just tend not to make sense.

And this has been apparent, probably to every fan, at least once, in the seemingly strange upsets that tell you, that perhaps, your moe triggers are a bit off from the norm.

Not that that’s bad or anything, but I’ve found myself becoming continually more decalibrated from my once logical sense of moe, in the early days when I loved the strong, shy, and silent, and ignored the rest.

Now I’ve found myself picking and choosing from a wider range of people, sometimes not from their own merit but sometimes for the lack of merit of everyone else on a show, so that my favorites list represents a relatively large if not scattered population.

But what really struck me was the difficulty that I had when trying to defend that list.

This is something I found while, naturally, searching the SaiMoe ballots, checking out the matchups and making a few tough decisions. Was it worthwhile to throw all my backing behind another KimiKiss character which would undoubtedly fall by the wayside, for example? Or what about later on, when undoubtedly huge clashes will occur, between the big names like Clannad, Hayate, Lucky Star, and many more? How do you decide the true superiority of a heroine?

And to myself, I found the strongest characters in my heart becoming blurred. It’s an interesting effect.

For the second tier, I had no problem. Miyuki’s a fine high-class smart, clumsy beauty. Ayumu’s got Sacchin power behind her back. Chinami’s bright, optomistic and occasionally shy attiude would put a smile on anyone’s face.

But the true legends, have become just that, more legend than truth.

You can start to make a case for Nagato. The glasses, the quiet, terse way of acting, that delight almost similar to prying open a tsundere, except for silent girls. The overwhelming power and the silent sense of duty. Sure, that’s something.

But how can you excuse the ’silent girl’ trap, the feeling that it’s just a bit too much? What about when you’re confronted with Ryoko, or Haruhi, or anyone else from the same show? What is it that puts Nagato above, to the point where she can’t be called the pedestrian ‘Yuki’, a commoners’ name?

I mean, I didn’t even like Shiori that much the first time around, compared to Mai.

Sometimes I wonder if this means that I’ve moved on. That it’s time for a new queen, or maybe time to get a girlfriend. Although I jest – sorry, ladies – I wonder if this failure to have a satisfactory justification for the characters I stand behind, means my failure as a fan of them.

But having watched Akagi a lot recently – as you’ll hear soon enough – I’m reminded that an overreliance on reason is the downfall of many a person in gambling, and what greater gamble than that of the heart?

Indeed, citing this ubiquitous “real life” as evidence, who’s to say that love makes any sense? Sometimes it’s more intangible than that, and that’s all right. You don’t have to know why it’s right – only that it is.

Of course, to say that I love any anime character would be too much of a stretch for me to explain away in any sense, having at least a large enough connection to reality to avoid becoming too much, but it does help me justify having enough of a endearment towards certain characters to dismember anyone (Shiki Tohno style) who tries to demean them with vulgar words or imagery.

I won’t say that it’s a good thing to be so defensive about a character – the big-name Shugo Chara bloggers can attest to why – but I wouldn’t suggest trying to logic yourself into a corner about any particular character.

If you like things, you’ll like them no matter what you try to do otherwise, simple as that; for example, it even applies to shows, like how the no-less-fluffy-than-a-majority-of-anime Haruka’s Secret has endeared itself to the otakusphere, or how I can drop all my bishoujo-fan, harem-loving, white-guy pretenses to enjoy the most over-the-top story of mahjong ever.

It doesn’t matter if you can’t explain or convey it (although if you can’t, I would suggest not trying to, especially if your Shift key is broken). You are who you are, and you like what you like. Don’t try to convince yourself otherwise – although the opposite holds true, to not hold on to antiquated beliefs for the sake of holding the status quo.

And yes, that does contradict what I said, very much in fact, and would imply that maybe I should stop inflating my Nagato imagefolder. But, to end this with the largest cop-out this side of School Rumble, you’ll know when it’s right. You can’t be told for matters of the heart like this.

-CCY

(And that’s why anime is awesome, because it can reach your heart so powerfully.)

Really, it’s not such a bad thing, personally, for me to be going quiet. Sure, having not much to say means that no anime has really struck me in an incredible way (or at least enough to make it out of my MAL mini-blog), but on the flip side I haven’t watched anything really bad of late either. It’s all rather ordinary and that’s welcome, kind of like how cars don’t routinely explode on my way to work or how my computer turns on every day without myself having to sacrifice a few virgins.

As such it’s kind of ironic that the thing that gets me back into the talking groove again is not something I’ve watched, but something I haven’t.

Where we last left off in regards to myself and Itazura na Kiss, I was standing on my chair screaming “F*** YES KOTOKO, YOU GO GIRL” in response to the 14th episode, much like another three-capital-letter blogger (OGT) whom I read frequently.

If you want to make your own imaginary graph and extrapolate how awesome I think ItaKiss is from my enjoyment of the first 14 episodes (and that is a lot of awesomeness), you would imagine it would be up there with the Tier 1 shows (KimiKiss, Kaiji, ef, etc) by now.

Instead, a rather peculiar thing happened, as you may have inferred, in that instead of being on a golden pedestal somewhere ItaKiss has found itself on the side of a milk carton with the caption “Have you seen my awesome?”

And while ItaKiss may be the blond-haired poster child for abandoned shoujo anime, Amber Alerts have been placed out for its brethren as well, those being Special A and Toshokan Sensou (Library War).

These are three anime I haven’t really been arsed to watch in the last two weeks, despite the fact that I’ve waxed at least moderate amounts of love for each of them on this blog before. The question is:

Why?

(Oh yes, and I do spoil ItaKiss and Special A through about episode 14 or 15, so play it safe as applicable.)

There are two major types of factors to examine in the so-called decline of the shoujo queens in my viewing list, internal and external, and for the purposes of keeping things mysterious and dramatic I’ll go with the seemingly more pertinent one first: what’s wrong with the anime themselves.

My problem with Itazura na Kiss is that it ended.

“Silly CCY, you must be a fool of monumental proportion,” you chuckle to yourself, “ItaKiss is only on it’s 18th episode of 25!”

And you would be correct, at least on the second statement. But listen to my rationale:

Itazura na Kiss opened with Kotoko daydreaming of being married to Naoki.
As of the end of episode 14, Kotoko is now married to Naoki in Canada, because if you get married in Canada, you get married in real life.

Show’s over, nothing to see here.

Now of course that’s a bit harsh, as most anime tend to have a recalibration of goals somewhere down the line, and I’ve always professed a bit of love for anime that don’t just stop dead once the main couple gets together.

But for some reason, ItaKiss already really feels like it has climaxed, like it has finished, like there’s not much else for it to accomplish.

Perhaps part of this is the fact that ItaKiss is, for me at least, exploring uncharted territory; I’ve never watched an anime where the main couple gets married more than five minutes before the end of the final episode, and so to see Kotoko and Naoki tie the knot barely halfway through is completely stunning (in the best of ways).

I’m hoping it’s just a perceived problem, but I’m beginning to see a bit of a “what now” dilemma when viewing the story. What can we have? Family problems? Relationship issues? Childbirth? Who knows – to be frank, for some reason, at least the 15th episode hasn’t grabbed me as much, perhaps because it falls back on Ye Old Standby of introducing some romantic rival who appears, takes a potshot at grabbing Naoki, and fades into the mist.

It’s not the worst of offenses, but the meager payoff of a short deredere Naoki moment all of a sudden is not cutting it, perhaps because since they are married, I expected the dynamic between the two of them to change more than a bit.

Maybe it has, and I’m not that observant, but in my mind, Kotoko has achieved victory, and so there’s not much else for me to be interested in from her side, unless something interesting happens.

And what else was there? The side characters in ItaKiss were always at the best passable and at the worst mood-killers. Kin-chan’s evolved a small amount, but still ranks on the ’stupid’ side. Especially so since the Engrish girl previously infatuated with Naoki is due to make a double switch with Kin-chan, previously fascinated with Kotoko, with the intentions of having a Happy Ending for Everyone moment, to which I respond 1) meh and 2) what about Kotoko’s cooler rival, Nadeshiko or whoever.

So, I get the feeling that ItaKiss is good enough concluded there as is, at least while there is other stuff to be watched.

What about Special A, then? The perennial underdog to ItaKiss, while S.A. was never a standout star in its own right, the exceptionally likable character of Hikari, combined with a lovesick hero and a decent sense of humor made it a worthwhile watch at most times.

Indeed, when I last left off S.A. at the end of episode 15, I was proclaiming that it might have a chance to overtake ItaKiss if it didn’t make the same mistake of falling into a predictable groove.

And perhaps the problem here too is that I haven’t given it the chance it deserves. I’m a bit suspicious of it after all – it’s a good fluff watch, but like a NASCAR race, I quickly get tired of watching things go around and around in circles with nothing happening.

Because, after all, it’s been, what, 15 episodes, and only the slightest of development between the main couple of Kei and Hikari? In an episode or two, all the side pairings are fleshing out nicely, keeping my overall opinion of the series positive, despite my lack of an urge to view it; but Kei and Hikari are moving forward at about the pace of a catatonic snail with the equivalent of two broken legs. And it bugs me.

Perhaps this is because I do like Kei and Hikari so much individually as personalities, but less so as characters. They are fun, enjoyable, cute, whatever – but are they deep? Do they grow? It’s tough for me to tell, and with every passing episode I worry that S.A. is going to fall into that aforementioned trap of “don’t pair up the main couple until the end” that is so buzz-killing.

So I’ve left S.A. on the backburner as well, if only to keep ItaKiss company. It’s true that I have delayed S.A. a bit only because I felt that of the two shoujo shows, I should watch the “better” one first, and since I haven’t felt in an ItaKiss mood in a while, S.A. has been stuck in place.

But really, perhaps the thing I am waiting on the most is an explosion on the frontlines, a declaration from one of the raw watchers that This Episode Is Awesome, to give me motivation to power through S.A. and reach the good stuff.

As for Toshokan Sensou…it’s really very rarely that I can say this, but I have no excuse.

Perhaps the one factor I can cite the easiest, that’s out of my control, is that my usual download place (since my computer’s torrent speed is horrid) only carries the 300+ MB version of Toshokan Sensou, and really, nothing will make me fork out twice the usual hard drive cost for an episode, given how much of a packrat I tend to be.

And that’s really it, in terms of the show’s problems. I can’t complain so much about the show – maybe it is a bit of Toshokan Sensou’s fault that it’s a jack of two genres, master of none, but I think the overarching theme in this whole problem is that I’m having a bit of pilgrimage of sort, that’s taking me away from the shoujo genre for once:

If you recall correctly, I have hinted or perhaps stated at one point in this blog that I am of the male gender.

Now of course, there are a million different differences that two people of the same gender can have, but I imagine that still, if you took a bunch of male anime fans and placed their genre preferences on a chart, you’d notice a serious trend.

And while I may try and try to shove myself into the relative minority (although not an absolute one) of guys who really do enjoy shoujo work, in the end, something as simple as a shonen romance-comedy can grab me better than anything else.

This was demonstrated to me when one of my friends (ironically, female) tossed me the Midori Days manga and said “Read this, it’s good.”

Naturally, I was skeptical, one, because she had recommended titles that weren’t the most appealing in the past, and two, because I’m horrible at manga. The forced pacing of anime works much better for me, preventing me from skimming past important material and adding extra nuance.

But right from the first page, Midori Days had me hooked, to the extent that I read 40 chapters in a single sitting. It really was, one of my first instances of being absolutely enraptured in a long time.

In a sense, it was one of those works that just clicked. The characters were excellent, the story didn’t fall into too many filler pits, the comedy was on its game, everything. I might almost say it was like being whisked back in time to my simpler days as a kid, reading D.N.Angel and other works in the library.

It was here that I discovered that I could never really escape my roots – not that I was trying to at all, but in the sense that even though I can enjoy such complex, deep, or maybe just feminine works today, something simple, a bit crude, and straightforward still can capture my heart.

And so, for a bit, the dramatic relationship tumblers and the complex relationship webs took a back seat in favor of a more uncomplicated pleasure, the simple entertainment of rooting on the underdog girl in love, being viscerally thrilled by fight scenes, or just laughing at a ridiculous situation.

In the end, does Midori Days have something ItaKiss, S.A., and Toshokan Sensou do not?

For all I know, no. As I was searching for the words to describe Midori Days, the more and more I realized it was almost like a shonen version of Special A. Maybe a different setup, but the same mechanics of confess-fail-repeat aren’t lost there. Nor the “fighting for the underdog” feel in ItaKiss.

Perhaps Midori just has a special spark. Or maybe the stylistic differences between characters and their portrayal in shoujo and shonen works are different.

But in the end, I think it’s all just phases. Right now it’s time for the revival of the uncomplicated shows, the ones where you can just enjoy without having to write a 2000-word dissertation. The Mission-Es, the Midori Days, the Nogizaka Harukas.

The other deserving – the S.A., the ItaKiss, the Toshokan Sensou – will get their time soon enough, being of no less worth.

-CCY

(Oh, and speaking of reading in the library, I found a volume of the Shugo Chara manga in my local public library the other day. I had a major fangirlboy moment, especially since I was blaring Black Diamond through my earphones when I spotted it.)