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Fun Fact: Though I’m still not clear on why they named a day of romantic love, eros, for a martyred saint(s?) at least known for sacrificial love, agape (and apparently, nobody else knows exactly why either), you can’t deny that it’s become tradition throughout the world. In the west, people celebrate it with their loved ones, with Hallmark Cards™, flowers™, stuffed animals™, overpriced dinners at swanky restaurants™, and whatever else it is couples do - or just not giving a damn about the day in the first place™.
For Japan, one thing does remain constant: chocolate. Valentine’s is when all the girls give the chocolate to their crushes, and White Day would be the day the guys give sweets back in return. Christmas is just as good a day, and mistletoe considered, it makes more sense than KFC being the official Japanese Christmas food.
Though it’s probably more important amongst high schoolers and all those young types, they still quantified it into two kinds: “giri choco,” (義理チョコ) or “honmei choco” (本命チョコ). No points for guessing what choco is in English. Giri choco, which literally translates to “obligatory chocolate,” is something like those little paper valentines you handed out to your classmates in elementary school, if you did that kind of thing - it’s cheap, probably store-bought, and you do it just because you can and should, out of courtesy, not much else more than that. If chocolate’s given, it’s assumed to be giri unless told otherwise. Honmei choco is much more serious business, equal to the girl straight up admitting she likes the person. In addition, it’s relatively more expensive if store-bought, more likely to be handmade if they want it to be special, and would probably feature a kitchen montage if it’s the latter.
As with everything, things need not necessarily be as they seem. In the picture above, the girl in the center, Haruhi Suzumiya, the titular character of the series, is presumably giving chocolate to Kyon, the main protagonist. In the picture, the box has “giri” written on the tag, but it’s honmei in blush, gaze, and everything but aforementioned tag. Apparently something along the lines of this happens in the seventh light novel - the other two are explicitly stated and all that to be giri, but Haruhi’s didn’t have anything on the box indicating either one, and the way she acts is the only evidence to indicate how she feels, and for anyone who isn’t a snarky smart alec of an idiot who’s being crushed on by a reality-warping high schooler, that should be obvious. So hey, lesson of the day, kids: don’t be scared of love - you’d have to be an idiot to run away from your own feelings, and for all you know, if you did, your obfuscations might end up breaking the heart of the girl who meant the world to you.
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Thing of note: Downloaded all the Haruhi Suzumiya light novels to my iTouch some time ago. Spoiled a good fuckton of details for myself already. While the books themselves (or maybe the translations) might not be of the highest literary quality(I find myself nitpicking the grammar once in a while, my own weird run-on sentences notwithstanding), the content, right down to the details, gives quite the good mindfuck when certain theories are applied.
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My sister (@notcamille) and I decided to tag along with Geo (@gdizzle) chilling our butts off outside waiting for Best Buy to open at midnight. Did not get any special deals on these whatsoever, so after all the money that’s been yanked out of it in the last two weeks, my wallet is silently sobbing in agony. Then again, considering the DVDs were the last/only copies there, might be worth it. Then again, Childish Gambino. Worth it.
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You are now listening to ”Bouken Desho, Desho?”, the opening to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, performed by Aya Hirano with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. As in possibly the oldest classical orchestra in Japan creating epic rearrangements. For an anime.
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Anyone who’s been on the internet long enough is most likely aware of Rule 34 (“If it exists, there’s porn of it. If there isn’t, make it.”). Not so well-known is Rule 63: “For any given male character, there is a female version of that character. And vice versa.” So far as I’m aware, in the Haruhi Suzumiya fandom, they started a project so extensive, to experiment how it impacts the story, they’ve done some animation as well. All I can say is…holy shit, lol.
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Fun Fact: In the Haruhi Suzumiya series, it’s implied the events of the Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody arc that occured on Tanabata happened on 7/7/07. This came from Kyon’s first year in high school, which was implied to be in April 2010 in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, when he brings this up. However, a quick look at a calendar calculator(or for any math heads, a quick thought) says that 7/7/07 was on a Saturday, and the only time July 7 was on a Monday would be 2008. Whether this was his mistake, I don’t know, but eh, it happens.
Now for what I was getting to. The Disappearance film, following the plot from Nagaru Tanigawa’s light novels more closely, has a moment referring to the “Remote Island Syndrome” story, where the SOS Brigade heads off to a villa belonging to Koizumi’s “relative” for vacation. In the anime, Kyon’s little sister comes along, and it’s just good and innocent fun. In the light novels the show originated from, Kyon’s sister stayed home, and the brigade instead went to the island to get drunk and party. In a move to prevent encouragement of underage drinking, this was left out of the anime. The murder of the villa’s owner and the mystery that followed, was, of course, left in.
Additionally, the English dub of this film is going to be released on DVD in the US in September 2011.
