(Yes, I know the ANN article already says as much.)

I'm not entirely sure why I have to try to come up with some sort of theme titling for posts about The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's invariably "The Something of Someone", and I am not so creative as to come up with a great many versions (possibly 15,498, or even 15,853) of this. And yet, there is the niggling feeling that this is somehow expected of me.

I picked up the second volume of the Haruhi-chan manga a couple of days ago, possibly in the vague intention of having something concrete and non-transient to remind me of the highly amusing incidents therein. I've not had much time to do anything other than a quick skimming, or indeed much time to do anything. I'd say I'm on the depressive cycle of manic-depression, but since I'm not (formally) diagnosed with such, I won't. It's just plain listlessness.

Haruhi-chan has helped in perking me up a little, and I suspect that it's because if I'm reading it, I'm likely not also reading forums or blogs or such: in other words, I'm not interacting with the fandom. This leaves me free to actually enjoy what I'm doing, rather than having to defend my enjoyment of it from the inevitable complaints, flames, and the other hazards of the Internet.

I have, it appears, gone back to basics.

It's always a pleasure to indulge in my hobbies as hobbies, rather than obligations. I know I'll receive all sorts of comments about Remembering to Do This Blog for Fun, which I'm still not sure how to answer: I tend to want to ramble on about whatever is on my mind at the moment, but this only really works in private. Once I have a public blog, I have to watch what I say, because posting these ramblings count as having published them, and now I have to be able to defend what I say. Invariably, the negative comments will get challenged far more than the positive sort, so I try to remain upbeat.

It's tiring, but it's not a matter of choice: if I say something, I must be able to defend it, or retract it as required. To behave otherwise is to shirk the responsibility I have due to the power of merely having a blog. If I claim to be posting my thoughts, I should be actually doing so; anything else would be at least unintentionally misleading, if not outright dishonest. I don't pretend to have a full grasp on the necessary vocabulary for expressing myself, so misunderstandings are inevitable, but that only means I should try even harder to avoid miscommunication.

I knew this when I started this blog, of course. It's something I've come to accept… which, of course, doesn't mean I don't resent it at times.

But I digress. Reading Haruhi-chan has the bonus of being able to see the miscellaneous illustrations the artist has seen fit to use as space-filler, and these are what reminded me of at least part of my love for MoHS: cute girls.

No, really.

I've never made any secret of my appreciation for the fine female form, presumably since I Do Not Get Any in Real Life. I'm well aware that this is escapist fantasizing, and I would never objectify Real Women like this, entirely because I am fully cognizant of the differences between fiction and reality. (I honestly think I'd gouge my own eyes out before I'd treat Real People in the consequence-free manner I could treat Fictional Characters. Not the consequences for me; the consequences for them.) But I will spend an uncomfortably long time staring at a picture of, say, Ryouko Asakura, divorced from the Truth about her personality as displayed in the canon, and simply admire how good she looks.

The same goes for Emiri Kimidori. It's my side character preferences acting up again, I suspect. This may be why I'm looking forward to new chapters of that Yuki Nagato spin-off manga, which hopefully has more of these characters without the plot portcullis slamming down on any further appearances.

All these characters pale, however, against Sonou Mori, the Organization member disguised as a maid. The illustration on page 37 of the second volume of Haruhi-chan (according to the Taiwanese translation copy, anyway) is a fine example of a sexy, sexy lady.

Schadenfreude is not especially prominent in my personality (l'esprit de l'escalier is), and to be honest I don't really find The Endless Torment Of Mikuru Asahina all that entertaining. Of course, later it turns into comedy through repetition, and Mikuru's superhumanly resilient optimism and cheer makes it seem like all the abuse that is heaped upon her is not that serious. It's okay to laugh along. It's okay.

After all, most people I know seem perfectly content to laugh at Taniguchi's misfortunes. There may be a double standard here.

Despite my tendency to skip past the harrassment of Mikuru's person by Haruhi, fate, or both, I find the music of "Higeki no Heroine" ("Tragic Heroine") to be apropos, in situation and title. Mikuru would have been the heroine in another show, probably shoujo, and "tragedy" seems to be a good descriptor of what appears to be the default template for these characters. Despite the existence of two other possible theme songs for Mikuru, one of which is associated with "non-Haruhi" while the other is "too much Haruhi", when I think of Mikuru, the tango comes to mind immediately.

And the incredibly overwrought solo violin, possibly the World's Smallest, places the situation in the comedic context it is intended to be in. (The orchestral version, here along with two other tracks ("Invitation to the Unexpected" and "Beach Vacation"), makes for a startlingly fun showcase of the lead violin.) The strong melodic line is lyrically tempting:

Oh what a tragedy
For a heroine like me
I don't want to be
In this club especially
What is that costume for?
Why are you locking the door?
Oh how can this be
Kyon-kun, help me!

Possibly the most pathetic sort of blog post is the one that promises future blog posts, without actually containing any substance in itself.

The whole Kyonko thing is, incredibly, still going on. Perhaps not as feverishly as before, but various new fanmade material are being put out in various languages, although primarily Japanese and English. In that time, I've heard all sorts of criticisms about this phenomenon. The most common appear to be the usual screed against fanfiction, fanworks, and fan interpretations in general, claiming that by altering the canon, we are somehow blaspheming against the creator's vision. It's the sort of thing that I can't really counter: I don't agree with that viewpoint, but I can't come up with any sort of reason apart from "just because I disagree". If I tried to pass that off as a valid excuse to change other people's minds, I'd get rightly reamed in debate.

Other arguments against The Genderbending of Haruhi Suzumiya include a more specific distaste for altering the characters' genders, both in the physical and sociological sense. And then there are the simultaneous complaints that we are altering the canon too much, and not altering it enough.

The AnimeSuki thread about the phenomenon is still in existence, although the focus has shifted thanks to the project leaders losing interest in a straight novel conversion. My careful withdrawal from what they are doing right now is something that will have to wait for another post, since I'd rather not end up having to retract what I say in favour of something only marginally more accurate to my meaning.

Which isn't to say that I'm completely out of it, of course. I'm just not working on the Current Hot Project; small little fanfictional efforts are still within the realm of possibility. This is, unfortunately, not going very well, mainly because I appear to have lost the ability to characterize.

To be honest, most of my previous efforts were based on my usual shorthand-simplification method of writing fanfiction: reduce the character to their bold strokes outline, assign them an easily-remembered voice and tone, and things generally work out from there. By this system, Kyonko is the world as written by a tsundere, trying to be cool and aloof like the typical teenager, but protesting against Haruki's antics a little too much. Haruki Suzumiya, for his part, always shouts! Using exclamation marks! He's very excitable! And impatient! He also complains about the shortcomings of others! Repeatedly!

For Mitsuuru Asahina, I took the much-maligned personality of the Generic Spineless Non-Perverted Harem Comedy Male Lead, and gave it to him more or less unchanged, since it seemed appropriate. Itsuko Koizumi gets to copy-and-paste from Wikipedia. Yuuki Nagato is fairly easy to write: any time he has dialogue, I strip it out. Yuuki communicates by staring: "yes" becomes a stare, "no" becomes a stare, "pass the salt" becomes a stare… somehow Kyonko always knows what it means. (Cf Discworld's Librarian, ie "ook".)

I may be exaggerating for effect, but likely far less than you might think. I've been told that I characterize well, which always makes me feel guilty, but I suspect that coming up with subtly-nuanced and complex characters is mostly for the author's benefit, since readers will only remember the vague generalities anyway. (I'm not saying that it's not necessary to come up with complex characters, but that's another blog post in itself.)

The current problem I'm facing (apart from having little motivation to work on the actual novel rewrites, thus keeping myself to fanfiction) is that I kind of need to explain some mind-numbingly complicated theory, which allows me both Itsuko and Yuuki as mouthpieces, but it is highly improbable that Kyonko will let them infodump without snarky commentary. The theory (about multiverses, largely obtained from several science fiction books of varying hardness) is difficult enough to understand without the reader getting distracted by pained attempts at humour. And yet walls of text are also unwelcome, leaving me with the version of writers' block whereby I know what I want to write, but I don't know how to write it.

I have newfound respect for Tanigawa Nagaru for being able to explain stuff like Euler's planar graph formula in a coherent and entertaining manner, even through a layer (or two) of translation.

No doubt the title will lead to more Google searches about student council improvements in general, rather than the anime.

I admit that the only reason I even know about this show, apart from seeing it pass uncommented and unmentioned in the torrential rivers of information that proceed daily through my consciousness, is due to the vocal presence of Yukari Tamura. I should mention that I am not a true fan of voice actors and actresses, in that I base my observations on nothing more than whether I like how they sound. I know nothing about their daily lives, their personalities (real or manufactured), their interests and hobbies… actually, if it comes down to it, I don't want to know. I've had the nasty experience of having a work (a webcomic, if you were wondering) "tainted" by knowledge of the elitist and cavalier attitude of its creator. It's a weird mental block on my part, but it does mean that I'd rather not know about all the inevitable celebrity scandals and such accompanying the VAs I recognize and love listening to.

Having Chiwa Saitou on the cast list is a nice bonus, of course.

Best Student Council (or its Japanese name, Gokujou Seitokai) is the sort of show one should not look at too closely. Rino's handpuppetry of Pucchan is mildly creepy, hinting as it does of some sort of unsound mental state. As the show progresses, this turns into something supernatural, which is probably worse.

And yet, if you just watch it for the comedy and the gags and the funny facial expressions, it's not a bad show. Not thoroughly outstanding, but not bad. Certainly enjoyable enough, if only for the first watch-through.

I've noticed that this sort of denial of the more uncomfortable aspects and implications in my entertainment, via the careful compartmentalization of higher mental functions, leads to less aggravation and burn-out overall. So it goes.

For some reason, I find the GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class ending theme "Colouring Palettes" kind of catchy. Specifically, the Tomokane version has some cool guitar riffs, despite my not actually liking Tomokane (as a character) that much, at least compared to Kisaragi or Namiko (or possibly Miyabi). The song doesn't quite hit the "good gods this is AWESOME" area, but it's enjoyable to listen to, and that's probably all that really matters.

It does keep my mind off the spectacle of Baby Noda humping the teddy bear.

Occasionally there are things anime, or at least related to anime by various degrees, that I feel are interesting and worthy of being liked, as opposed to the more generic indifference that I greet many random series with.

Which makes it a pity that I'm not actually allowed to talk about them without thoroughly incriminating myself. That, or the discussion will quickly devolve into a great deal of winking, nudging, and sniggering.

I understand that it's a little difficult to believe all-round, but my peculiar mental and emotional disposition does mean that I can appreciate the admittedly relatively flimsy premise on its own terms, and only long after it has been pointed out to me do I realize that this is not the sort of reaction I am technically supposed to have.

It is said that the surest sign of a dead online endeavour is an excuse about how things are so busy in Real Life and I'll promise to update it as soon as I can, really, no problems about that, just need to find the time… so on and so forth. In many cases when that happens it's time to break out the coffins and dolorous choirs and solemn faces and diamonds worth 5,000 gold pieces.

In any case, I think I'm just about ready to declare that Hidamari Sketch is indeed one of a kind. It's not that GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class is a bad show by any means: indeed, it's one of the more enjoyable ones this season. But I just can't bring myself to appreciate the music as much as I did for HidaSketch. Again, it's not so much that GA is Bad, but more that HidaSketch is Better. (To be precise, Better for me, since I'm basing this all on subjective taste.)

The background music of a show is probably an odd thing to focus on, especially since I don't have any sort of background in music (pun considered and let go). I couldn't tell you why I prefer the music of HidaSketch better, but I just do. This, despite the effective usage of themes in GA, such as during Tomokane's Tangerine Speedo Dream sequence. It's fitting, but I don't find myself humming along after the episode is done.

I should note that with only two episodes (yes, I'm following the subs for this one, since I suck at jargon), GA has a good chance of… well, not really catching up per se. This isn't a competition between HidaSketch and GA, since I find such things difficult to judge fairly anyway. Mostly, I just want to know why I like Hidamari Sketch so much, or if I just like Bright Happy Shows About Girls Doing Art.

Reading other reactions to the show have reinforced my belief that any direct comparisons are misguided. GA is not trying to be HidaSketch, or vice versa, since I'm not sure which came first (or if it even matters). GA does seem to be quite informative, presenting terms used in the visual arts in an easily-digested manner. I suppose one could say that Hidamari Sketch is Art about art, while GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class is art about Art.

I do find myself strangely interested in completely inconsequential random characters, though. What are they really talking about? Why is the girl fiddling with her hair? Why is the guy acting particularly flippant? Are they siblings? Good friends? Childhood friends? Is there a side romance to be told, full of heart-pounding experiences that only youth can bring?

It's a bad habit of mine.

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