lolikitsune almost committed suicide once. Then he watched an episode of this show. He’s still borderline. Convince him to watch the rest.

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. The main problem of the Endless 8 arc is that every episode after the third one is a copy of the same show essentially. The TV format may not even be the ideal way to do it. From the archives I retreive two posts:

1. Towards a Quantification of Love for Animu Part 1: the Rewatchability Ratio
2. Towards a Quantification of Love for Animo Part 2: the Value of Rewatchability Through the Lens of Eternal Recurrence

Both posts by mechafetish, where he looked into our common behavior of rewatching shows we like. The first post measured a show’s subjective rewatchability ratio. Using the tools in that post, I would give this current season 2/6 (current episode count) = 0.33. This does not account for the recency bias; this ratio, as subjective as it is, may not hold over time with me, since I gave the clearly superior first season a 2/13 = .15 (the one with Lost my music, and Haruhi & Kyon’s preview leading to that episode: “LISTEN TO MY SONG! BOMBAAA!”). The second post, references the idea of eternal recurrence proposed by Friedrich Nietchzche as presented by Milan Kundera in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Mechafetish says,

This behavior fundamentally alters the way I derive utility from anime I watch. Generally, I tend to have fonder memories of anime that provide me with rewatchable moments simply because I generate more utility per minute due to selective rewatching. For example, I actually love Brain Powered (an anime generally agreed upon to be atrocious) because of exactly 2 moments in the later episodes that I watched more than all the episodes of the entire series combined.

Crappy anime, but with rewatchable moments. I felt that I was onto something here. There was almost this independentutility in rewatching a particular moment that is distinguished from the show, but not apart from it. The context is still decisive in appreciating such moments, but this enjoyment does influence one’s affinity for the show that made them. So this comprises the first part of the premise of my enjoying Endless 8. The second part is very much related, otou-san put it thusly,

Re-watching anime, like any visual entertainment, can give you new perspective on it just from the plain and simple value of seeing things again. We tend to see plot, character development, and visuals the first time around (and considering anime means watching with subtitles for most of us, even the visuals can be secondary at times). But that second viewing can reveal details of reference, symbolism, and detail. If you only watched The Holy Mountain or, yeah I’ll say it, FLCL just once, you missed something.

–otou-san, Welcome Back or: what color are your glasses now?

While never close to insane levels of rewatching the way mechafetish does, I rewatch anime and reread manga a lot. And yes, I often feel that I discover new things every time I see the same show again.

The way I ended up enjoying Endless 8 episodes 4, 5, and 6 is that I related to them as rewatch adventures for episode 3.

But episode 3 was just a few weeks ago, it’s too soon for an appreciative (as opposed to a data-mining for articles) rewatch. Yes, that is true. It was a solid wall that would’ve stopped my enjoyment frozen. But it didn’t. It was a wall? I smashed right through it. The difference is, that there are definite, obvious, subtle and new things to discover, not only because I missed them the first time, but rather there were changes by design.

Maybe this only works because I don’t have the best short-term memory, maybe I find the episodes interesting because I skipped chunks of it. I’m not the biggest fan of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, but I like it; and I wasn’t enjoying myself at all watching the same episode over and over again. Until, I realized how often I do this for singular episodes of other shows (list does not include the constant rotation of random episodes from the Macross franchise):

• Aria the Origination 12, “Chotto ureshii dake da yo” [->]
• Shin Mazinger Z 03, “Its name is… Its name is…” [->]
• Black Lagoon 07, where Rock grows a pair [->]
• Turn A Gundam 50, the epilogue that kills me every time (featuring “Tsuki no Mayu” full version)
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 27

Now, I’m not saying the Endless 8 recursion of the 3rd episode deserves a place on this list, but as for the episode itself – there was much to enjoy within it. It’s the recursion that bothered me, not the content it is based on. So basically, I found a way to enjoy this (and it’s not like I’m jumping up and down screaming how awesome it is, that happened in episode 02 during Kyon’s ‘Kakizaki Requiem’ with matching Itano Circus).

So this is how I inadvertently found myself enjoying episode 06 after I thought I’d given up after episode 05. Take this as you will. I just happen to think that ‘who enjoys, wins.’

Hatsukoi: favorite of this season. This is still spring right? I forget. I like the dynamics, especially Kusuda/Enomoto. Yamamoto is hawt, too.

Saki: I semi-marathoned Akagi whilst Saki aired, and I instantly lost interest in Saki after that.

Eden: *yawn* (not enough motivation to watch ep3)

K-ON: soooooo disappointing. A music anime could have potential…Beck needs rewatching…but the malignent cancer was getting to me. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of was really enjoyable, but when there’s about 3 seconds of music in an episode it’s kind of like wtf.

ristorante paradiso: wwwwww reverse pedophilia.

haruhi s2: first episode was nice. want moar.

the ‘sphere is afraid of me. i have seen its true face.

[re; 117]Situation: someone’s life is in danger, but saving this one person puts into jeopardy the lives of many, many more. What do you do?

Would a moral person assign priority to the short term and save this one person? The reasoning was that Koiji and Ikumi couldn’t sit around and watch someone die. Yuki, on the other hand, views all lives equally regardless of context and stops the two from jeopardizing the lives of man others.

Perhaps Koiji and Ikumi were deluding themselves from the more crucial fact that they were hypocrites? – if Yuki had asked them “what would you say if you were that one person in danger?” would they respond “I’d be selfless and say ‘leave me behind for the sake of many others’”? If so, they would be contradicting themselves. If not, they would appear selfish, but that too would contradict their position of “selflessness” because they’re putting their lives at stake for the sake of one person.

[If 'what if' statements are not legit in philosophy then oops.]

But I think we can use ‘what if’ statements because Koiji and Ikumi were thinking not of the person in danger but of themselves, of their egos. Perhaps, the central theme here and thing which undermines the position of the two is the fact that Koiji and Ikumi wanted to save not so much the concrete existence of the person as their own abstract selves. This is supported because, as it were, this “concrete existence” isn’t even concrete to Koiji and Ikumi – they never see this person, only their representation on a digital device. Maybe.

Thus: does knowledge alone of a real thing make it concrete? If I know it’s there but do not, with my senses, perceive that it is there, does that still make it as concrete as if I were really perceiving it with my senses? If, then, suddenly I can perceive this real thing with my senses – I can see it, touch it, hear it – does that change the nature of the thing or, perhaps moreso, my own perception of that thing not in simple terms of the magnitude of my emotions directed towards the thing, but in terms of why these emotions arise within myself and to what they are really directed?

[hermeneutic sidepoint: essentially, considering the anime, trying to draw a conclusion is futile because we can never know the true intentions of Koiji and Ikumi (unless they admit to us the nature of their egos).]

Pragmatic conclusion: a life is a life, we should ignore our abstract selves and save as many lives as possible, thus, the person dies.

Realist conclusion: the effect of the symbolic representation of this real person has on us is worthless because a concrete person exists beyond our idea of it. Do we save it? – ask the deontologists!

Idealist conclusion: the effect of the symbolic representation of this real person has on us enormous effect. Do we save it? – ask the pragmatists!

Deontological conclusion: focus on the immediate effects of the act – you are directly neglecting to save a life, thus not saving this life is morally wrong. Save it!

ObersteinConsequentialist conclusion: yes indeed a life is a life, that is why we should save as many as possible. The ends justify the means.

[note: it may seem like I'm misinterpreting idealism because, nevertheless, this person is still real and exists outside our immediate ideas of it, though it is only known through the proxy of an abstract representation. I do not know of any ethical philosophy which deals with semiotics...though I've never really read much of any of the philosophies I've cited except a bit of The Prince.]

You recently wrote a short post called “Will we get better comments?” to which I responded in a troll-ish manner here. With Impz penning his thoughts on team blogging referencing you, I would like to give my opinion on your blog in general.

You should get rid of the registration thing. You situate your blog in the public sphere, but really, when you effectively disable comments, you’re positioning it in a private sphere meant for IRL friends. Anitations and Ani-Nouto are different because they exist in a different paradigm of the sphere – the metaverse. Essentially, and not to offend, your blog seems like a contradiction – why exist on twitter when you have no interaction with those bloggers? I know it’s not hard to register (I just did), but people are so lazy they won’t even click on an RSS feed to subscribe to a blog. Have faith in people but realize they are lazy and unappreciative.

Best,
lelangir

p.s: your forums are down I think…

One half of the lead character binary is Kanako: lesbian, tall, tomboy, deretsun for Maria; only becoming insecure (tsun) once her homosexuality is put into question. Her character design and personality remind me of a cross between Yakumo and Tenma. Her external side is amiable, unconfident, pretty darn moe; her internal side is yuri. She contains both the lady-like grace of Yakumo and the horribly klutzy comical antics of Tenma. Her internal/external tendencies can reflect both Maria’s “split” personality and that pleasant Tenma/Yakumo proportion. Maria in fact breaks the fourth wall and calls her out for her lack of verbosity.

The other half of the duo is Maria, the trap. Without drawing needless parallels to Eri Sawachika, it seems established already that Maria is the seme and Kanako the uke. Maria’s façade is humorous enough now that the entire universe has been spoiled of the secret, though it’s the masculinity that is paradoxically accentuated by the feminine appearance, making him much more conniving and serpentine. In some ways he reminds me of Light – not overbearingly GAR but with enough boyishness to possess “best” (or worst?) of both gender.

What’s significant is that the viewer experiences the anime through Kanako – we see her internal monologues. By positioning the viewer “outside” of Maria, [s]he is effectively transformed into the incrementalist, the character that is revealed bit by bit. Reaction porn for some hopeful action porn? I think what this means in the long run is, unless SHAFT starts dealing out paradigm shifts and situating the viewer within Maria’s soliloquies, it will be expected of the viewer to find humor (1) in that incremental revealing of Maria’s secrets and (2) Kanako’s predictable reactions – all the super deformation is reserved for her. The anime, replete with Kanako-colored lenses, establishes a sort of Unlimited Poetic Justice Works: since all of Kanako’s yuri actions are laced with guilt, it’s only natural that we expect Maria to backlash with hypocritical masochism (HUH?).

Anyway, this show is really hilarious! Its comedy does not downplay at all the yuri, and even if you DO NOT WANT trap, you’re basically forced to temporarily forget about it because we’re observing Maria via Kanako. Kanako the flaming lesbian.

Final verdict: if you liked the characterizations in School Rumble, the yuri/catholic(?) themes in Strawberry Panic, and SHAFT’s crazyness, you will definitely enjoy Mariaholic. [note: I did not catch a lot of marimite in here - marimite isn't really even indirectly satired.]

BTW, 100^th post, dedicated to lolikitsune, mai dear waifu.