we're finally notdotq anymore

I was going to touch this up but I wasn’t actually ever going to get around to it, so in the best interests of posting it while it’s mostly fresh I’m going to… well… post it. While it’s mostly fresh. This is partly fanfic, partly speculation, partly analysis. Spoilers for the ending of the Aria series. Enjoy!

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lolikitsune must watch these episodes at least thrice to take less time than it takes Kyon to get rid of his virginity.

This is not an endorsement of the second and currently airing season of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. It doesn’t say here that this show is good, and that anyone is missing out. Rather, I agree with Pontifus when he says [->]

All the weight/meaning in the world means nothing if you find the experience regrettable or a waste.

So I am not apologizing for the currently airing second season of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. I will entertain no such folly, never mind the delicious Macross references. What I am saying is that I have pierced the barrier of boredom with my drill of personal enjoyment, and I’ll tell you how I did it. Consider it or not at your leisure. » Continue reading this…

So, you know how the episodes of season 1 were broadcast out of order, a cute little gimmick run by those Kyoto Animation whores in order to cover up the fact that their plot and pacing sucked so hard that they would have saved Earth from the Queen of Hell. And then KyoAni pulled this Endless Eight fiesta, and we thought they’d tapped out, that they had no more mana for gimmick spells.

Well, as it turns out, ‘Air Out of Order’ has a flashback cost of sacrificing all your lands. Endless Eight is back, and Kyoto Animation is ultimately spent.

There’s no more economy in their company, just Threshold.

Coin-kun is unamused.

Episode 21 is E8.9, and I can now continue telling you all how hard the show fails without watching a single additional episode.

Fuck.

Yes.

Endless Eight was better than the usual fare because when it was running, I didn’t need to keep up with the show to tell you that Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu sucked my balls. Now, I do. Thankfully, I have the stamina to go through with it, so: I watched episode 20. It sucked my balls.

It seems KyoAni’s really capitalizing on the Churuya-san stuff. Kyon made this fucking face five times per second.

There’s a manga called Onani Master Kurosawa, abbreviated in turns with the initialism OMK and the schematic diagram OGC. It seems to be doing well on the popularity scales right now, with a high rating on MangaFox and everyone in the aniblogosphere forcing each other to read it. ‘Circle jerk’ is a term derisively thrown at the ’sphere every time its members get together and read/watch/comment on something collectively, but now it could be used descriptively rather than derisively.

OMK is a story about a guy who steals people’s shit and ejaculates on it.

Hooked yet?

No, you’re not, because you’ve already read the manga. Because I’m slowpoke.jpg on this and the entire ’sphere has already gasmed to Kurosawa’s bathroom stall antics a million times.

And yes, yes, I know: the story was never about the fapping. The fapping was a metaphor for being antisocial. Thanks, Gunsguru! Amazing, the wisdom you pick up in forum threads.

But interesting to me are neither that the story featured fapping nor that it wasn’t about fapping. Interesting to me is the extra story that Emergency Exit has been translating (by the way, EE, thanks!). In the space of a few well-delivered paragraphs, it takes us somewhere no other manga ever has. Somewhere where I can stand tall, point my middle fingers at the words printed on my t-shirt, and sing a bad country song.

In the manga, Sugawa was a ‘typical’ ‘tsundere.’ I have these words in quotes because I don’t believe in them. OMK is atypical; what business does a typical character have in it? Furthermore, ‘tsundere?’ Really? Recall the only wiki article on tsundere that had jp meyer referenced: there is little that doesn’t fall in the category of tsundere. It’s one of those words, like hikkikomori and otaku, that people try to ascribe a definite meaning to but fail miserably.

In this extra story, we see her true colors: she is a raging bitch of a woman. It’s easy to get into a certain mindset when reading manga. When characters act as Sugawa did toward the end of the manga, we ooh and aah and call them tsundere and for some of us that’s a plus. Also, keep Kurosawa’s perspective in mind: in the latter bit of OMK, everyone has the benefit of the doubt from him. He becomes very Akari-esque, very zen, treating everyone as well as he can, whether or not they may deserve it, and constantly making discoveries of how SUTEKIIIII the people around him are.

Let’s face it. This is a twisted perspective. It’s no less naive than his earlier perspective (‘omg I can only communicate with people through jizzing to them’).

And it’s this new, twisted perspective that allows Kurosawa to fall into an verbally and emotionally abusive relationship with someone that we perverted manga-readers might smile at and call ‘tsundere-chan.’

Do you know what tsundere really is?

And I don’t mean a bit of shyness. I know some people who react mildly violently to things that embarrass them, but that’s different.

Sugawa rages—

“That’s why I’m unable to take this! Why the hell didn’t you talk to me about something so important!? When did you become so high and mighty that you could secretly run off with your buddies and enjoy a fun trip together, bastard?!”

Sugawa’s anger didn’t show any signs of abating, and even now sounded like the screech from a reverberating microphone …

“Don’t fuck with me! We’re breaking up! We’re breaking up!”, and before I could say a single word in return, she hung up. All that remained was a robotic sounding tone.

Tsundere? Tsundere. And what’s tsundere?

I like OMK because unlike in shows like Suzumiya Haruhi, wherein there is a disgustingly violent ‘tsundere’ that people nigh worship, it should be apparent to everyone that Sugawa is completely batshit. While Haruhi might be loved for her eccentricity, her insane abusiveness is so obfuscated by layer after layer of moe bullshit that almost no one sees her for what she really is.

OMK — where’s the moe?

OMK — where’s the blind worship?

OMK — you can see Sugawa. She is naked before you, a hysterical bitch, displaying every reason why tsunderes medium-wide should be rounded up and sent to the chemical showers of fiction.

I have always tried to shed light on the faults of tsundere, but here I am fairly sure I will get across. For one thing, Kurosawa is way more relatable and sympathetic than Kyon (Kyon does nothing but inspire jealousy in me, jealousy for his sarcastic wit; I can not relate to him at all, he is too perfect) and every weak harem lead (humans are stronger than they), so surely readers of OMK feel the pain of a man dealing with the unreasonable. We sympathize with Kurosawa in his ordeals, and wish him happiness.

And his happiness is being denied him by a woman who froths at the mouth at the slightest slight.

OMK shows us the true way: tsundere is the cancer killing /utopia/.

_eternal, no hard feelings. I like you, I like your blog, I want to keep it that way.

First, for the unaware, direct your attention to A Thematic Analysis of Honey & Clover, a spoiler-ful post by our buddy eternal. For now let’s leave aside the fact that the ‘analysis’ doesn’t really focus on themes, and let’s examine the meaning of the word ‘analysis.’ First of all, a quote from the comments section, by the post author himself:

I know it sounds cliche, but I honestly think that the show itself wrote this blog post.

The nerve! (I’ll get back to this later. **)

Let me explain to you what an ‘analysis’ is: an analysis is a detailed examination of something, with scrutiny being the most important player. Now let me explain to you what a ‘reading’ is: a reading is what you get out of a work when you consume it.

Remember something called ‘book reports?’ Those things we did back in grade school, “read this book and write a page about it?” Yeah. Book reports involve consuming a work and then translating your reading of that work onto a sheet of paper.

Analysis is more than that, eternal.

I appreciated your book report on Honey & Clover.

I’m going to go write an essay.

** And now for the final blow, going back to the quote of eternal’s. Breaking news: analysis doesn’t write itself. If your post writes itself, then it’s just the stuff you’re taking away from the show at first glance. If you’re getting anywhere deeper than the surface of the show, you’re putting in some effort. Your book report is only as valuable as the depth of your reading, and your reading isn’t deep if your book report wrote itself.

I’ll say this right now: a post that merely summarizes the characters and their struggles, employing such beautiful turns of speech as “it’s as simple as that,” can never be the definitive piece on any work.

Sorry, eternal, the objection wrote itself.

And now a promise, lest I seem too much the angry troll: expect at least two posts coming in the not-too-distant future, one on an assortment of smiles, insert songs, hard-boiled eggs, and honey sandwiches, and the other on Morita Shinobu and how his backstory episode is a useless piece of tripe.