WT! Pale Cocoon - After the Waste Land

(Originally written for r/anime)

“The archives that we call ‘history’ ceased to exist at some point.  Before we knew it, humans were living in this world.”

History has been interrupted.  People are still living but there is no more story; no more past and no more future that connect to this place at which we have arrived.  All that is left is the eternal monochrome present, a stairwell extending to infinity in both directions.  Which is the same as saying it extends nowhere; when a step up is the same as a step down because it brings you no closer, distance and direction lose meaning.  To even talk about them is absurd, really… and yet to feel we are going lower is saddening nonetheless.

—

 ペイル・コクーン

I encountered Pale Cocoon on accident, searching the internet archives for… something… and finding it in an old AMV.  A single image hinted at a hard sci-fi setting, a genre I love but which is woefully underrepresented in anime.  And Pale Cocoon is sci-fi… of a sort.  Set in time future, it follows Ura as he dedicates himself to the unaccountable task of sifting through time past in an attempt to understand time present.  It can be thought of as belonging to that genre of “setting-mystery” where the audience doesn’t know what kind of world they’re in and are steadily enlightened as reality unfolds before them.

Though this is perhaps not a proper description, for I will say without further explanation that things are not as they appear.  Pale Cocoon is not just a story; it is a meditation by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, an interdigitated metaphor of environmental degradation, social degeneration, and personal alienation.  Not only is the audience seeking answers, the main character is as well.  How did we end up here?  And where is “here”?

—

Should You Watch It 

Pale Cocoon is an arthouse-style film and relies heavily on the viewer being intrigued enough for multiple watches.  Like a poem, one read through is not enough.  Furthermore, it is full of Yoshiura’s characteristic camera work that delights in switching to the first person or emphasizing a point by dramatic motion, an approach some find appealing and others nauseating.  The color palette is also not one that is common nowadays; dark colors and bright light sources are everywhere, all covered by a rust-colored filter derived from its CG construction.  Topped off with a brooding atmosphere and setting that is there to be felt rather than explained, one could never mistake Pale Cocoon for anything other than a product of the early 2000s.

Whether this is appealing, then, is the key.  To compare it to its kindred, it is less overtly abstract than Serial Experiments Lain, but being a short story does not have the time to invest in characterization the way Haibane Renmei or Gunslinger Girl do.  Other suggestions I’ve seen are, naturally, Time of Eve, although I think Pale Cocoon is Yoshiura’s superior work, and Texhnolyze, that suffocating reflection on modern meaninglessness.  Voices of a Distant Star also shares some similarity in its short minimalism, focusing on two characters and what their circumstances imply about the world; my reluctance in this comparison is that whereas that OVA has one clear idea, Pale Cocoon has multiple.  If any of these anime intrigued you, then Pale Cocoon should as well.

Which at the close, I want to leave people with one last thought.  The first time I watched Pale Cocoon I didn’t get it.  I thought I got it, but I was wrong.  We have a bad habit of not reflecting on things we think we understand, and the Pale Cocoon doesn’t stop making sense until you ponder it long enough.  That’s when you get it.  For Pale Cocoon is more than a mystery or metaphor, it is a koan, and the solution to koans is not a more clever answer but a reevaluation of what answers are.  To this end, explaining it does little good (although I have tried at great length), and I leave it to a poet to express it best:

The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree   
Are of equal duration. A people without history   
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern   
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails   
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel   
History is now and England.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Episodes 4-5

This is part of a series of reddit posts I made for the 2021 r/anime rewatch.  The index for these can be found on the Other Essays page.

Episode 4 - “There is a limit to ridiculousness.”

After Nagato enchanted the baseball bat and all the members of the team hit home runs, Kyon notes that there is a limit to ridiculousness.

I could say this for almost every episode but… I love this episode.  First, it just makes me laugh.  I’ve been so dour these last few posts, and it really is a worry of mine that I’m giving a wrong impression by being one-sided.  The comedy is central, and while this episode is once again critical of our predictability and slowness on the uptake, it does so through amusing pokes rather than lectures, synthesizing two lines of action into a single commentary: Haruhi tricking us by not tricking us, and then it’s reaction to our failure to notice.

First, the “not-trick.”  Last episode left us on a cliffhanger as to whether Nagato is an alien.  She has been acting really weird and we know Adventures told us she was an alien so maybe this is the truth disguised as a joke… but we’re still thinking this is something like a SoL comedy, and we don’t want to be dupes by falling for the ridiculous.  So with the utmost predictability we’ll hedge, suspending our judgement until we’re given the answer in a “safe” form, thinking that’s the best way to prevent ourselves from being tricked.  Which, of course, is exactly how Haruhi gets us.

Having primed us to expect an explanation at the end of last episode, the series jumps to an unrelated event and we feel like we’ve been pranked.  Random is as random does, we guess.  However, we soon notice that this future-Kyon is giving us subtle indications that something is unusual about his fellow brigade members.  And by subtle I mean extremely obvious.  Haruhi knows what’s on our mind and it practically waves these “clues” in front of our nose… leaving us to think we’re sleuthing them out.  We’re not suspicious at all that the information we wanted is showing up right on cue.  So Haruhi leads us on, first giving small “hints” (this gag sequence never gets old to me), bigger ones, even bigger ones (we trust flashbacks, seeing is believing), and then finally delivers the coup de grâce with Nagato hitting a home run.  Then, just at the moment we’re adjusting our expectations, Haruhi smugly taps us on the shoulder: “There’s a limit to ridiculousness.”  It knew.  It steadily ratcheted up the unbelievability and knew the exact level at which we’d change our mind.  We were played.

Yet here’s the question: we treated this episode as an “interruption”, but if we had just gone immediately to Melancholy III would we have believed what Nagato told us?  No.  As we’ll see next episode, Kyon didn’t trust her with only words.  Haruhi toyed with us, but at no point was it untruthful; if anything, we really had it proven the series was right.  That’s the genius of this series: saying humans are easy to mislead due to their expectations is trite, demonstrating it in real time is a whole ‘nother ball game.  We can really gain from the experience if we pay attention.  Of course, that’s also the joke: the audience typically doesn’t realize it, and this is where the second part comes in.

This entire episode is a running commentary.  The point of what Suzumiya is trying to do and the point of what Haruhi is trying to do is one and the same: push people, perhaps a bit uncomfortably, so they pay attention and engage.  And both sides miss the point.  Figuring out Nagato is an alien isn’t the mystery, it’s figuring out Suzumiya as the central puzzle and by proxy noticing that we’re repeatedly being caught in our own assumptions.  Which in this case is to again take the easy evidence that Suzumiya’s a sore loser, when instead her upset is entirely directed at her team’s apathy.  Notice that the new space doesn’t open gradually as they lose, but flares up at a specific point: when Kyon tells her to just steal home herself.  He’s giving up, he doesn’t care, and worst of all, he’s telling her to go it alone when what she really wants is everybody else to join her.  It is exactly the problem we will see again in Episode 14.

Unfortunately, I just ran out of time today so this is going to end fairly abruptly with few notes, which makes me sad because this episode really is brilliant in many of its details.  Maybe I'll get to chat with people later about them, but for now off to a meeting...

Favorite Details: 

• Right, people who only hear what they want to hear are idiots.

• One of my favorite comment-gags in the entire show is the sequence about only pitching straight.  We’re being mocked so relentlessly.  Doing the same thing over and over again makes you predictable; we can see that in Suzumiya, and fail to notice it in ourselves.  And of course, even a child can catch on at that point.

• Of course we weren’t expecting anything from Taniguchi, he’s a side character.

• We’re given a straight transitions shot from flashback Nagato to present Nagato.  Yet another little joke: how long will it take people to notice her glasses are missing?

Episode 5 - “She won’t take the data you feed her seriously.”

Kyon asks Nagato why she isn’t worried that he’ll tell Suzumiya and she’ll end the universe.  She replies that Suzumiya would not believe Kyon even though he would be telling the truth.

Now we return to our regularly-scheduled timeline.  I don’t have much to say about Melancholy III itself, but I do want to examine its place in the series and hence the overall structure. 

Melancholy III is the closing episode of the first “act” of the series, the whole of which has consistently demonstrated one thing: everything is exactly as it appears, we just don’t realize it.  We were given an introduction, followed by the assembly of the cast, an exposition of the main character, and finally the setting.  Similarly, while we feel like the series is being random and obnoxious, it has actually given us exactly what we wanted: Melancholy II primed us to want an answer about Nagato, Boredom gave us that answer then raised (or rather cemented, since we’re now confident that we’ve cracked the code from Adventures) questions concerning Koizumi and Asahina, and without delay Melancholy III has had both of them explain themselves.  The jump was “confusing” but it was actually a barely-concealed continuation just like any other show would have, and, as I made the case yesterday, this unorthodox approach was better than the regular one to prove the point.  In other words, there is a compelling logic to this thing if we just pay attention instead of judge it for being difficult to comprehend.

Just like Suzumiya.

I am perhaps being a bit repetitious here, but it’s kind of the nature of it that when you feel like the work you’re writing on far surpasses your skills to communicate it you keep wanting to try and capture what is so amazing about it.  This show is holographic.  Its message, its structure, and its main character all reflect each other, and even the smallest piece somehow seems to contain the superstructure.  I mean, just take yesterday’s episode (which rather appropriately I frustrated myself trying to capture).  On the surface it’s a SoL/sports baseball episode… and it is actually that.  You can just watch Boredom and enjoy it for its own sake; Kyon’s witticisms, the goofy antics, the gags with Nagato in particular, and the hella cute look Suzumiya gives us at the end (who is it again that is convinced by easy-on-the-eyes females?  Not me!) don’t require anything more to justify them.  

But then you add in that it’s guessing what we’re thinking; it knows that we’re really pondering this show’s nature, and Nagato in particular, so rather than giving us what we want it gives us what we need; it doesn’t tell us it’s supernatural, it convinces us it is.  But predictably, we complain for being given something genuinely good in an unexpected way, and the episode comments on that too, with Suzumiya having brought her team out to try and enjoy life and they just dick around instead, acting like it’s a burden to be there.  Which to tie it all off, it makes an utterly delightful mockery of.  It is what it is, knows what we think it is, knows it is better than what we think it is, mocks us for not knowing it is better than we think it is, and mocks us mocking it for thinking it knows better than what we think it is.  All this, and it manages to tie it into Suzumiya, where if you grasp the show’s “attitude” you understand exactly how she feels as well.  Haruhi S1 is truly in a league all its own in this genre… whichever one that is… and that is of course the joke.

Melancholy III puts the cap on convincing us that this isn’t a SoL comedy anymore, it’s a supernatural… something.  We’re not quite sure what, because it convinced us it was supernatural during a SoL/sports comedy episode, and that just makes our brain go on the fritz a little.  Nonetheless, here we are after all this now thinking we’ve discovered what this is really all about... demonstrating our own logic of going wrong with confidence, and to prove the point we’re going to be properly introduced to Nagato now.

Between the expectation of a Rei Ayanami clone and Nagato’s general awkwardness, Haruhi has let us build up an understanding that something is deficient with her emotionally - either she doesn’t have them or they’re repressed.  This episode seems to be confirming this; we now know what to expect from a humanoid robot-alien who talks at a million miles a minute and seems incapable of expressing herself in a human way.  But just stop and look at her face - she’s more than a little irritated.  She knows Kyon doesn’t believe her and she knows why; she just explained herself as best she could (which given her vastly greater context, she did a pretty good job) and he tossed it out as, “Well, I don’t get it so it must be wack” (this should recall a certain other female character).  Then Melancholy III goes on to emphasize that she likes novel games that might challenge her, a call forward to Sagittarius, and is a genuine book nerd.  In other words, at just the moment Haruhi has convinced us/let us convince ourselves Nagato is a robot, it turns around and flaunts that she actually has quite an inner life with some rather endearing personality traits.  Ends up, she is a super-smart nerd girl.

And all this just keeps playing into the whole show.  We were already told once: it’s not the setting that matters, it’s the message, and the commentary continues here as well.  Think of what is going on as an animation.  Perhaps this world is being viewed by some higher being.  Identifying these characters’ powers seems like a big reveal, and man do we get excited about it... but it actually really doesn’t matter while also proving the point that our assumptions blinds us to much of who Nagato is as a “person.”  It’s the same trick that camouflages Suzumiya, where we fixate on the trappings of genre rather than examine her first-hand.  Which the joke continues: now that we know the “true” genre we’ll keep our eyes peeled for Suzumiya’s powers, and ignore her, in future episodes…

Favorite Details:

• 
  A holdover from yesterday: I mentioned, “The show in miniature” above, and about how Haruhi has a multi-level reflection.  The introduction to Boredom is pure brilliance on this count.  It begins with a pan over the baseball field, the whole real world, and ends with the toy baseball field, the miniature that is the episode; this will be a small demonstration of the bigger point, set up as a toy for our enjoyment.
  

• The total atmosphere and music shift from Nagato talking to Kyon finally responding is not a subtle thing, but nonetheless I think masterfully breaks the spell and pulls us down to earth to make us feel his dismissiveness.  

• “She won’t take the data you feed her seriously.” / “You have a point.”  This is one of my favorite exchanges of the series and the moment I fell in love with Haruhi.  I’m just going to quote the essay I wrote previously because I can’t say it better:  “I had to pause the video and laugh until my jaw hurt.  I know it’s quixotic to hope to convey comedy, but this was truly one of the most hilarious moments I have ever experienced in anime.  In anything.  Like all the gags in this show, it’s worth at least a chuckle on its own, a small denigration of Suzumiya’s nature that we can smugly agree with.  But that’s the lesser portion.  It’s the moment when this entire build up reflects back on itself holographically.  A character, who is being told the truth but doesn’t accept it, is disparaging another who would do the same, while functioning as our stand-in, the audience who was skeptical about what Haruhi was telling us, in both cases because we “knew” what world we were in, caught in the act of confidently agreeing with his/our assessment of the foolishness of people who don’t listen to what they’re told.  It is in that sudden snag, that snap of dissociation that proves not only that Kyon is an unreliable narrator, but that we are as well, that the waveform collapses in a moment of perfect comedic timing.”

• Nagato is called “glasses girl” by Suzumiya and has her glasses very prominently taken off and returned to emphasize them as part of her design.  Taking bets how many people notice they’re gone again next episode.

• A great piece of commentary: Kyon has completely failed to help Asahina these last couple of episodes, and of course kept taking the pictures, but when Koizumi walks in and looks appalled at what Suzumiya is doing, Kyon responds to this peer pressure and finally intervenes.  Then to top it off, he acts morally superior about it.

• Dutch Angle again as Suzumiya broadcasts her manifesto.  It’s a great little inverse use of the technique - now we’re trusting the visuals after Nagato, and all Haruhi has to do is make Suzumiya look a little off as she explains herself with total clarity for us to overlook it.

• Kyon muses to himself that paying for lunch is a small price for getting to go on a date with Asahina, at which point Suzumiya tells him it’s not a date.  A more obvious fourth-wall break than the last, it’s more fun for its later omission: she doesn’t say the same when he draws Nagato’s toothpick.  Nagato’s not the "rival."
  

←Episodes 2 and 3

Episodes 6-8→

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Episodes 2-3

This is part of a series of reddit posts I made for the 2021 r/anime rewatch.  The index for these can be found on the Other Essays page.

Episode 2 - What is she doing?

Suzumiya standing on the roof of the school angrily throws a tennis ball at the astronomy dome.

I find the above scene one of the most poignant in the entire series, but to explain why takes some verbiage.

This episode is all about one thing: how much Suzumiya is misunderstood as a person, and Haruhi will demonstrate why by showing us we have the wrong idea about her.  The first step is to let us be confused about the genre.  Last episode, which was the real introduction, we were uncertain, but now this episode looks like it’s the start of a self-aware SoL comedy, so that’s what it is.  Obviously.  And since every school comedy has its cast of wacky characters to make it funny, all we have to do is figure out which category Suzumiya belongs to and we’ll know exactly why does what she does.

The conclusion we come to is that she’s the socially-oblivious crazy girl trope.  How do we know this?  Because every SoL comedy needs somebody to initiate the zany adventures, and since Suzumiya is flouting the normal social rules and engaging in generally bizarre behaviors we know she’ll be the one.  No more explanation of her eccentricity is required; random is as random does.  Besides, Taniguchi agrees with us.  We know who to trust.

And this is, once again, how Haruhi gets us.  We can be prompted again, and again, and again that the key question in all this is what is motivating Suzumiya… and we won’t listen.  Instead, we will ascribe our own denseness to her) (repeatedly) and carry on with galling self-satisfied mediocrity in our dumb conformity.

So if we take off the genre glasses, what do we actually see?  We see a girl who is physically and mentally capable, who has an insatiable need for variety and is actively seeking a way to make life better.  And she is very, very unhappy because not a single person (including the audience) understands.  This loneliness and frustration makes everything else fall into place.  Why will she go out with anybody?  Because she’s desperate to find a fellow soul who appreciates her.  Why does she disrobe in front of the guys?  Because they’ve all romantically disappointed her and she’s scorning them (much more on this later).  Why does she keep joining clubs and quitting them?  Because she’s looking for a place to feel like she is engaged and belongs.  The mere thought that she can create her own club, and possibly escape her melancholy, fills her with such joy that she forgets the rest of the class is there (she’s not in the least bit dense).

Which brings us to her conversation with Kyon about the hair ribbons.  She was playing with them, making patterns, as a sheer byproduct of her energy, all the while also sending signals in hopes somebody will pay attention.  And Kyon did.  When they first start talking she’s bored in her responses (although, just like with all her endeavors, she demonstrates planning and thought in her hair ribbons; Suzumiya never does anything half-heartedly) but then he asks about why she increases the number every day and she pauses, her mouth almost hanging open with a bit of emotion.  Somebody noticed.  It genuinely touches her that somebody paid attention to what she did and bothered to ask her why.

Of course, when Kyon offers his opinion, she quickly tells him she didn’t ask for it, and that brings out the complement of her vitality: she’s opinionated and forceful.  All this energy, this self-aware intelligence and disdain for mediocrity, and above all this vindictive disappointment in her fellow humans, comes out in a domineering attitude that is difficult to deal with.  She knows she’s right, and she is far more than the audience would like to admit, but it’s a fine line between getting people to engage more with life and self-centered coercion (although, again, say what you want, Suzumiya is highly effective in achieving her goals).  As such, it’s just as inaccurately trope-y to view Suzumiya as some misunderstood-but-secretly-"nice" genius-victim; she doesn’t make living with her easy, and coming next episode there are parts of her that are inexcusably nasty.

Nonetheless, the scene on the roof is truly poignant.  She is exceptional, and that exceptionality has left her alienated from other people.  She is angry, and that anger turns itself on the universe that seems to have marooned her here.  She’s done her part so why is she still so lonely and unfulfilled?  All that’s left is to throw the ball in impotent frustration at the skyward dome, half defiant, half pleading, for something to come and get her.  And of course it bounces off and nothing happens still.

Thankfully this is a comedy.

Favorite Details:

• Kyon’s opening lines are a wonderful setup.  We instinctively nod in agreement that he is showing his credentials for being a reasonable, intelligent, perceptive person… yet they perfectly describe Suzumiya.  She’s the one who is tackling reality head on while Kyon daydreams, and it will be many episodes before he realizes it.
  
  
• Dutch Angle when Taniguchi ranks Asakura.  Something is definitely off here.

• 
  This episode contains one of my favorite bits of fourth-wall breaking in anime.  We know that Kyon sits in front of Suzumiya, and when he first walks in after she’s cut her hair we see him in the back corner of the room.  He narrates-complains that isn’t cutting her hair right after him pointing it out a bit hasty, and then demands “Hey!” in “narrator voice” while the camera shifts to looking at Suzumiya from the front.  She glances forward before replying, “Not really.”  But… Kyon isn’t in front of her, he’s behind her, and he didn’t even “say” those words either.  Just like last episode, Haruhi can stitch impossible events together and we’ll buy it because we fill in the holes.  Moreover, it doesn’t matter where Kyon is.  Kyon is the audience and Suzumiya is the show; therefore our reactions can and will be perceived and reacted to no matter what the characters could know.
  

• Stuck in the middle of all this characterization of Suzumiya is a trope: girls cut their hair at major life events.  She’s met Kyon and that will change her own future dramatically, with all the energy that used to go into trying to attract attention focused into future events.

• Suzumiya is sitting in the back left corner after drawing lots.  As people have noted, it ain’t Kyon who’s the main character.

• “To see is to believe” is written on the board.  This is a motto that will come back more than once as Haruhi demonstrates that we are so easy to mislead with just a little bit of visual information.

• Kyon is drinking “Tatsuya Cider” while he peruses the club rules.  Tatsuya Ishihara is the director.  I’m not sure if the accompanying lines about writing mean anything, or if it’s a joke that Kyon-audience is drinking exactly what the director is handing them.

• When Kyon is talking to Nagato the camera doesn’t include both of them in the same frame.  This is a repeated visual motif that will come up next episode as well, a representation of how this “girl” doesn’t really exist in the same “space” as Kyon does.  There is a gulf in both comprehension and being.

 

Episode 3 - “I can’t forgive them”

Contemplating that she does not have a computer, Suzumiya suddenly jumps to commenting that she cannot forgive “them”.  

Note: I have rewritten a portion of this from the original Reddit post because I came to be rather ashamed of my original interpretation.  I debated leaving it as-is but I can't help but want to fix it.

...and 3...2...1.  First time watchers are appalled at Suzumiya.  As planned.  Last episode Haruhi convinced us/let us convince ourselves that Suzumiya was an obnoxious, but largely harmless, joke character.  As such, her motivations weren’t questioned.  Now she’s done something that’s quite serious which doesn’t fit with that preconception and… her motivations still aren’t questioned.  All Haruhi has to do is put on silly music and let us rigidly adhere to our expectations of comedy anime even as it is pointed out that those are precisely what ought to be in doubt.  The result is a swift, but erroneous, judgement: Haruhi was trying to be funny and it wasn’t.  This trick unfortunately doesn't work as well as it once did, but I can still bet writing the night before that people will be criticizing this scene as “not cool” and going “way too far.”  But this is, of course, the point.  Even when faced with evidence that contravenes our assumptions we don’t adjust, paradoxically doubling down instead because, just like in bad home videos, characters in comedy anime would never act in so realistic a manner.

The obvious question, then, is why did Suzumiya do this?  Is she just a domineering sadist?  No.  As was established last episode, she’s pushy as a byproduct of her energy and impatience with other people; it isn’t her goal.  Is she just that ignorant of other people and social expectations that she transgresses them without a thought?  No.  As will be established in the future, she’s quite perceptive.  Finally, there are many ways to get a computer, but she chose this one, so it’s not a spontaneous whim (she’s always planning ahead).  Why then?  It’s just as she says: she can’t forgive them.  “Who’s them?” we’re prompted to ask (but don’t).  The answer is all those who should have understood her but didn't, especially if they're male.  Last episode already told us she has a chip on her shoulder, and here I want to tie it together with several of her previous actions.

When she talked about her joining and quitting clubs, she pointedly said that none of them contained "detective material."  This is Suzumiya-ese for interesting, thoughtful people who might join her in exploring the mystery of life, you might say.  People just kept disappointing her, and none disappointed her more than the Computer Club, the in-world representation of the self-appointed smart males and out-world representation of the anime audience that considers itself intelligent.  Haruhi takes a dig at this later, even, when visiting the President's apartment in a future episode: he has an Evangelion obscurities book on his shelf, that quintessential sign of the 2deep4u anime watcher.

But of course, what has happened is that in the first few episodes such people have predictably failed to appreciate Haruhi as much as the school boys have failed to appreciate Suzumiya.  So what's she going to do about it?  She's going to let her spite out, and it will be ugly... but pointed, which brings us to Asahina.

From their first scene together, Suzumiya made no bones about it: Asahina’s existence pisses her off.  Why?  Because Suzumiya knows she herself is a genuine beauty (in mind as well as in form) yet this little moe caricature, who has nothing more going for her than being cute, small, and with big breasts, only has to make a few scared mouse sounds and the boys will come running (or, they say they will then don’t).  And despite it being pointed out how utterly useless she is, an obvious mascot character whose only purpose is eye candy, the audience also predictably takes her side in everything.  Haruhi knows this, and it only infuriates her all the more to know that the primary reason people stuck out the insane antics of the first episode was because they were being enacted by Asahina.  Now it's payback time.

In this scene, she's going to make her point by giving them-us what we want.  We want boobs?  She'll give us a handful and rub it in our face: "Despite your pretensions of sophistication you really only like subservient little pinups, so I'm going to humiliate her and use the undeniable sexual realities to unjustly blackmail you to get what I want."  If it weren't downright cruel it would be an admirably elegant plan (again, she's always effective).  The bunny suits are an encore of this, meant to be a culmination to her scheme.  Notice that Suzumiya steps out into the hall to show herself off to Kyon/us first.  Despite all her disdain, the truth is that she desperately wants to be appreciated, and this is nothing short of saying, “Look, I’m a babe too.  Notice me.”  She doesn’t bother getting a suit for Nagato, nor does she want to wear it when Asahina is not around, because there’s no point in either of these things; this is about wanting to give contrast between her and popular mediocrity.  What do we think?  Can we spot the genuine article?

Which brings us to the aftermath of the bunny suit incident: Suzumiya is genuinely baffled that nobody was interested.  Kyon, and hence the audience, interprets this as just another part of her absurdly oblivious demeanor.  Which, like his monologue at the end of the episode, is both completely right and totally off base.  This is a difficult aspect to capture, but it’s some of the best psychology in the show: lonely people act out in their hurt, and then actually blame others when that acting out scares people away.  Suzumiya is far from delusional, but so full of her own sense of rejected superiority that even though she desperately wants to be liked she’ll nonetheless make it difficult. If people are going to fail to appreciate her uniqueness, fine, she’ll announce on the first day she’s interested in aliens, time travelers, and espers to ensure they’ll know she’s super unique. If people aren’t going to keep up with her, fine, she’ll just be all the more enigmatic just to prove the point that they can’t.  And if people are too dense to see why she’s disappointed with humanity and everyday life, fine, she’ll treat them like they deserve until they earn her good graces by apologizing and joining her.  Her confusion that nobody is interested in her after all that seems ludicrous to the point of being a comedy trope, but is painfully spot-on.  Humans really are just that silly.

So after saying all this, what are we supposed to think of Suzumiya?  Is she sympathetic and pitiable or is the bottom line just that she’s obnoxious and a bully no matter her reasons?  In other words, what we’re waiting for is a decision: is she “good” or “bad”?  You might even be reading this waiting for me to hand that to you, and that’s still missing the point of the show: we are just too obsessed with categories.  What we have is a portrait of a complicated person whose strengths are also her weaknesses; Suzumiya forms a coherent whole, and you can’t appraise one part of her without keeping the others in mind.  With that, then, I’m going to end here and leave that topic simmering until much later.

p.s. on Nagato

Poor Nagato; every time I write on this show I feel like I end up sidelining her to explain Suzumiya, yet she is a remarkable character in her own right and one of the best parts of Haruhi.  I promise, Nagato, now that I’ve laid most of the groundwork, I’ll get to you soon.  In the meantime...

Nagato in the early series is maintained in a very fine balance.  She hasn’t done anything yet… and that’s what’s so weird.  Expecting the shy bookish girl who is secretly sweet, we instead get an unreadable lump with no personality at all (we think).  But what we are actually starting to see this episode is a subtle but growing parallel between Nagato and Suzumiya.  Both are easy to misunderstand because we know their tropes, except whereas Suzumiya is too “loud” to easily comprehend, Nagato is too “soft.”  The result is that we don’t yet have a way of getting a bead on what is going on with Nagato.

The end of this episode plays on this.  Earlier events have knocked us off kilter, because even if we’re still sure this is a SoL comedy it’s… not normal.  Things can happen we don’t quite like; this puppy can bite us.  Now this uncertainty concerning the show is seamlessly united with our growing sense that something is truly *weird* about Nagato as well.  Reading quietly in the clubroom was merely odd.  However, walking into her apartment the inhuman sparseness is striking.  This is something much harder for her to fake as a character, and the episode strings us out as Kyon, like us, is made more and more uncomfortable.  More subtly, something that Nagato could not control (maybe?) has changed: the atmosphere.  As soon as we entered her technological, ethereal theme began.  The bloom is increased to otherworldly levels.  Even the shots become disjointed, moving from Kyon to Nagato and back, as though they are not occupying the same “space.”  Characters can be delusional, but can series?  Is this series?  We’ll just have to wait for the next episode…!

Favorite Details:

• Toward the end of the episode Kyon “narrates”: “The truth is that you understand, right? Just that you have nowhere to vent the frustrations of youth and that restlessness is leading you down a different path.  Snap out of it already.  How abut you go find some handsome guy and walk home from school together or go see a movie on Sundays?  And join some sports club and knock yourself out.  They’d make you a regular member in a flash-”  At this point Suzumiya interrupts his thinking to announce she’s going home.  Another piece of unique Haruhi fourth wall breaking.  As rewatchers will observe, she takes all these suggestions in the future.  It’s arguable it’s the explanation why she even falls for Kyon at all.  But what’s notable is the psychological dynamic: she really does want to be liked, and that’s why she’s willing to take these suggestions from the “audience.”  But she won’t admit to doing so, and as soon as Kyon gets to the part about being regular she cuts him off; like before, the idea that she actually stoop to being a “regular” person to gain popularity incenses her and she storms off.

• Nagato: “It is difficult to express in words.  Discrepancies may arise during the transmission of data.  Regardless, listen.  Suzumiya Haruhi and I are not ordinary humans”  And on cue, Kyon misunderstands.  The greatest part is, we hardly notice.  Nagato being strange is our fixation, and we assume she’s just being a bit obtuse.  She smacks that down immediately: “That isn’t what I mean.  I am not referring to the absence of universally accepted personality traits.  I mean what I said.”  Kyon gives Nagato a stare like, “Not you too.”  But of course, that’s the joke: yes, her too - there’s more than one person in your life who’s out of your league.

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The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Introduction and Episode 1

This is part of a series of reddit posts I made for the 2021 r/anime rewatch.  The index for these can be found on the Other Essays page.

Episode 00 - Humor

Hey all, rewatcher here.  My comment got auto-deleted and I didn’t notice until now.  Lovely.

I love Haruhi.  Or, more specifically, I love S1 in Broadcast order (I’m one of those people you were warned about).  It leapt over long-time favorites to my #2 when I first saw it ~two years ago, and although I wrote a rather lengthy essay at the time there’s a lot more to say.  Consider it an insatiable need to explain, and so share, how utterly brilliant S1-Broadcast is in tying together its primary theme: What we observe is a product of our expectations, and those are generally in the service of our self-esteem.  As a result, we miss the obvious and devalue that which is genuinely remarkable to our own detriment.  I know this isn’t what many people get out of it, but I hope to offer reasons for thinking that’s what it’s after.

To start out, I also hope people will forgive me for this very long first post.  I’ve found that a lack of context makes just pointing out what Haruhi is doing and why unenlightening.  And unfortunately for all of us, this starts with the task of dissecting humor.

Defining humor in its entirety is hopeless, but a manageable chunk is to talk about the ingredient of “harmless surprise.”  This comedy begins when something happens which we do not expect, or two (or more) elements we would not normally associate are juxtaposed.  The result is surprise and reevaluation, but in a way that is not harmful.  Take for instance the lowest level: the slip-and-fall on a banana peel of slapstick.  Being sudden and out of cadence with continued walking it is surprising, the contrast being all the better if the person had just made a point of being dignified.  It is also strengthened if we are given a small indication it may be coming, as completely random surprise isn’t very satisfying; some link has to exist between what came before and the “twist.”  However, once they’ve fallen, shocking or not, they need to be relatively unharmed; if they remain on the ground with blood seeping from their skull, it is suddenly not funny.

Now, art can have humor in it as well through similar means.  A simple example is Picasso’s Bull’s Head.  A book I once read described it as a “visual pun” and I think that is quite apt: bringing together two things that you do not normally associate, whether it be different words with similar sounds or different materials with similar shapes, you find there is a small bit of consonance.  They surprise you by not being all that different in a strange way, emphasized by how little the “found art” bicycle parts had to be altered to immediately elicit the effect.  It is a joke.  Not a very deep one, as most puns are only worth a chuckle, but it still gets to be classified as humor.

Now jokes in art become far more complicated than this, and they do this by relying on knowledge of what came before them.  Homage, because it lacks any real surprise or contrast, isn’t comedy, but parody, with its mockingly exaggerated depiction of the original, is.  People generally recognize parody.  But Haruhi isn’t parody, which is why I’m having to do so much explanation to avoid misunderstanding  However, like puns, parody is usually pretty basic; you can only exaggerate so much before it becomes unwatchable and the message is limited to undercutting what is being mocked.

An example of a more sophisticated art joke is a villa I once read about (I apologize, I’ve lost the reference) full of “architectural jokes.”  How does an architectural joke even work?  Well, when Classical (Greco-Roman) architecture began columns were, of course, the weight-bearing mechanisms.  They had to be in certain places because the physics of lintel-and-post construction demanded it.  In time, however, improvements in engineering removed the necessity of every building looking like the Parthenon… yet people continued to put pillars (vertical elements which do not necessarily have to hold anything up) and pilasters (pillars sunk into the wall with a purely aesthetic function) in the same locations as columns due to convention.  An architectural joke in this context is one that knows where a pilaster would be commonly found and then puts something else there, like a free-standing column in a specially-prepared alcove so it stands out underneath a spot of the wall that obviously doesn’t need additional support.  That’s absurd… but a type of comedy because there was an expectation, it was defied, but it was defied in a way that was harmless (the building isn’t going to be condemned due to unsoundness) but related to the nature of the convention it is defying (pure randomness is weak/non-comedy).  Obviously you don’t need a real column there, what with all the effort it took to insert it, so why did you feel that this “fake column” was supposed to be there?  The joke isn’t just funny, it taught you something.

“...that’s not very funny, though.”   

Yes, but that’s because you don’t “get” it.  I don’t mean that in a condescending way (I don’t “get” it either), but to point out the nature of humor: you can’t just have it explained to you, you have to have internalized the ideas enough that you can perceive the expectation and the surprise simultaneously.  To find the villa funny you need to be intimate with Classical architecture to the point that it no longer requires you to reflect on your knowledge before coming to a conclusion.  Which now, with all this, I can actually get back to Haruhi spoilers (sorry first-timers if you read this far).

Haruhi S1 in Broadcast order is a structural comedy about the viewer.  You have to be able to catch yourself in the very moment of reacting to the show.  This is why Haruhi thrives on the tropes of anime; not because it is parodying or criticizing them, but because it is relying on the viewer to be conversant in them… so much so that our reactions are predictable and inflexible.  That’s the first part of the joke, and also the theme it is trying to teach us: we think in categories that we don’t even know we have, and they are so ingrained that we don’t try/can’t get outside of them.  It is a rather dire aspect of life, actually.  You wouldn’t expect humor to be the tool of choice to tackle such a tough topic.  But as has been observed, great comedians are both intelligent and serious people.  Haruhi is absurdly funny.  And it is dead serious.

Episode 01 - Where did that money come from?

Mikuru runs past the camera five times, crossing the same background repeatedly as she becomes progressively more tired.  On the fifth pass, the payment she received for advertising in the market appears between her breasts.

The first thing we instinctively ask ourselves when we watch a show is, “What kind of anime is this?”  Is it a drama?  A comedy?  A romance?  We want to categorize it so we can set our expectations, and we do this by looking for the indications that we know must exist.  We also know that no matter what type of show we’re watching, the first episode has to fulfill certain functions: introduce us to the characters, establish the setting, and give us enough to entice us to watch the next episode.  The Adventures of Asahina Mikuru is a Super Ultra Miracle Excellent Trick Introduction: it does none of this and all of it at once.  And more.

For a first-time viewer, it is disorienting and tantalizing.  Adventures is possibly the most unique opening episode in anime and it is impossible to have expected anything like it.  More to the point, it is impossible to “read” it in the normal way.  There is no genre that opens with a twenty-two minute bad home movie.  It can’t be a drama because it’s too goofy, but it's also just a bit off for what a comedy usually does.  And forget romance; that whole part is obviously a farce.  The fact that it just keeps going (we’re only halfway?!?) only to end without any payoff seems like a prank rather than a joke

Now, of course as rewatchers know, it becomes clear that Adventures tells us a great deal about the characters and supernatural setting.  The hints were everywhere and in retrospect it was funny in how clearly it explained things.  Indeed, after the first reveal that Nagato is an alien, we can’t help but look back at it reflexively to try and piece together and anticipate the rest of the series (Haruhi is counting on it), although there is just enough random noise that we keep begging for more hints (Haruhi is counting on this too)

But, and I feel a little frustrated with myself because I never feel like my writing captures the real brilliance, this isn’t what makes Haruhi, Haruhi.  Tricking ignorant first-time viewers once is a weak joke.  Showing repeat viewers that there was hidden information here is more clever.  Adventures, and all of Haruhi, takes it one step further: the first episode will show you its trick, then watch you fall for it for the rest of the series, demonstrating you are easiest to mislead when you are most confident you have the answer.

To start, we are told in no uncertain terms: there are discrepancies here.  You can use these discrepancies to create a narrative.  And you do.  You create a narrative of a bad home video.  You do so so swiftly and so effortlessly that you don’t even reflect on it, thinking that is the given and the genre is the question.  Therefore, you don’t look for meaning in the scene jumps because they’re evidence of amateurish editing.  It doesn’t make you think anything is unusual when Mikuru talks to somebody behind the camera, because you know the rest of the gang must be standing nearby.  And it’s not even worth pausing to wonder why the actors suddenly change their behavior, because that’s just breaking character.  None of this is surprising because we know we are in the universe of bad home movies.

Yet, and this is how Haruhi shows wannabes how to really break the fourth wall, if you pay attention you will realize that you also know this is an anime episode and not a bad home video.  In fact, it even tosses in demonstrations to that point: it has an OP (that is 1:30 long no less), an eye catch in the middle, a few commercial breaks, and a narrator who only comments on what is happening in front of the camera.  Everything is where it should be.  As such, this isn’t a poor-quality production at all; if anything it took superlative skill to create this facsimile of a bad home video that is also full of reminders that it is an episode.  It even winks at us the whole time with its almost-ostentatious display of skill in accomplishing both at once

And the best part is, we won’t notice.  We were just shown the trick, but we will nonetheless go into the rest of the series thinking we’re “getting it” as we try to figure out references and plot puzzles.  It can tell us, in the first few seconds no less, not to worry about the setting… and we’ll ignore it.  It can draw our attention to the fact we can learn much from the discrepancies… and we’ll ignore it.  We’ll treat jumps in the episode-order narrative as uninformative pranks, take no note when the cast members stare out of the screen and address us, and disregard “out of character” behavior because of our familiarity with the tropes.  And just like Kyon in Adventures, we will confuse ourselves because we stubbornly, and unsuccessfully, try to interpret all this at one level (“Why isn’t this movie plot coherent?  I’m so smart for seeing through it.”) when there are numerous signs we ought to look at it from another (“It’s incoherent precisely so you’ll come to the conclusion it’s a bad home video that you’re smart for seeing through.  Your failures should have warned you that you were doing it wrong.”).  The joke’s on us: we’ll accept the most obvious suggestions and obediently alter our expectations.  This story isn’t just going on in front of us; we’re part of the act!

Which brings us back to Mikuru running.  Seeing her cross the screen repeatedly with the same backdrop we know what’s up: this is a cheap way of showing us that she is running far when in truth she’s being forced to jog past the same point again and again to give that illusion.  We bite on the easy answer and think we’re clever for seeing through the ineptitude.  But after the fourth pass the slip of money appears between her breasts, a location that the predominantly male audience will not fail to overlook.  Haruhi drew our eyes there on purpose.  Yet we just saw in the previous scene she received that payment for her services standing around in the market: the fifth lap cannot immediately follow the fourth one... and we won’t even bat an eye.  We have the framework (it’s a bad home movie) and the easy evidence (the background was the same and she was getting more tired) and anything that doesn’t fit with those will be ignored.

So at the end of the episode, when we leave Suzumiya’s movie and enter the “real” world of the anime, we seamlessly allow our expectations to be changed again thinking the joke is finished.  But the projector is set too low, the credits flowing across the table a flawless recreation of ineptitude.  This isn’t over yet.  Haruhi has placed columns in the location of columns, told us where to look, then watched as we spent the whole episode superciliously examining decorative pilasters.  And to prove the point, when Suzumiya tells you-the-viewer that Haruhi-the-anime is really well done, guess what?  You don’t believe her.

Right, Kyon?

Favorite details: 

• At 6:50 Nagato holds up her wand while Kyon explains what it is.  Our attention is directed to the cheapness of the prop… all while Nagato flawlessly blocks every pellet fired at her in a way that should hint she’s genuinely more than she appears.  It’s like a preview of the baseball gag (which we also won’t take seriously).

• At 9:05 Mikuru pushes Koizumi out of the way so he isn’t hit by Nagato’s beam.  Then the shot jumps to Mikuru running into a pole… which shouldn’t be possible because there was no pole behind Koizumi and he would have been in the way even if there were.  Like the money, we bought a temporal sequence of events that can’t have occurred  Then at about 9:35 a car begins to drive off behind Nagato.  The shot cuts to Koizumi and Mikuru (who is holding her eye to emphasize the pole scene just occurred) and you can still hear it driving away, reinforcing that they follow each other, but when the view again returns to Nagato walking away you can see people where the car should have just driven.

• The zoom in on Nagato’s face followed by Mikuru’s at 10:46 always gets me - it’s an action anime reaction face, where the expressions of the fighters are shown in close up to emphasize their intensity.  

• Speaking of the camera, there are great moments when the “zombies” and Koizumi are walking on that reservoir bridge and the camera view shakes in time with their footfalls.  The continuing joke is that the camera will sometimes dip out of focus in future episodes, subtly poking us that we’re still watching a film

• Finally, The whole plot is an outline of Suzumiya’s frustration.  A buxom bimbo has appeared to entice the male MC, while the rather strange and off-putting one who appears to be the aggressor offers much more (I’ll be returning to the parallels between Nagato and Suzumiya later).  That conversation between Nagato and Koizumi is in fact the show stating its point: we have two choices before us, we can think and achieve something or we can take the easy route and squander ourselves (because who are the characters talking to again?).  And when we figure out this key something… Koizumi looks knowingly right at that something with a grin… will change.  It is the preview of how Haruhi will unite our failure to appreciate Suzumiya (and Nagato) with our failure to see things in general for what they are.

Episodes 2 and 3→