CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

i found another thread for this anime but that thread was quite old so i decided to start a new thread. anyways, has anyone else seen this series? it's one of my favorite animes. when i first watched it, i had no idea what was going on but i ended up really enjoying it. the series is like nothing i'd seen before. it's good stuff.

Yeah, my boyfriend and I are big fans. If I hadn't seen it with him, I wouldn't have understood ANYTHING about it, but as it stands, I liked it pretty well. It was certainly nice to look at.

Haruhi is an experiment, and I don't think it was in all ways successful. But, it was very nice to see something so fresh and ambitious. The producers of this show should be congratulated for going out on a limb and for putting so much work into the details. If I have any advice for them, it's that next time they should go even further out on a limb and count on the viewers to give them a chance even if they choose not to embrace tired clichés like all-powerful high school students and the brazen exploitation of females. Now that would be revolutionary.

Though the show is hardly Christian, it does give me some thoughts about our own God...

[SPOILER=The Philosophical Musings of Cap'n Nick]What fascinates me most is how Haruhi is in control of the universe, yet never seems to get her way. She's stuck in a school that bores her, a life that frustrates her and never gets one glimpse of the wondrous beings she wants to see so badly. The show explains that this is because her desires are complicated.[/SPOILER]

Though our God is very different from Haruhi, I can't help but think he has complicated desires as well. He created the universe and has complete dominion over it, yet allows his creatures to do things he hates and to fall away from him even though he desires nothing more than to be with them. We are not beyond God's control, and God does not desire evil, yet these things still come to pass. It will be a grand day in heaven when we discover what hidden things have moved him to act in this way.

I had another thought while watching the final episode...

[SPOILER=The Continued Musings of Cap'n Nick]Kyon grabbed Haruhi and ran away from the Celestials, but what if he had stopped and said, "These beings are completely illogical. There is no way they could exist!" Knowing what we know, it would be hard to prove him wrong, but chances are he would have been squashed like a pancake.[/SPOILER]

I think philosophy treats God in much the same way. People talk and theorize as though they are creating rather than describing God, while all the while God goes on about his business, unchanged by the discussion. Those who think they have rationalized God away will be in for a rude awakening when his reality comes running over them in the last days.

Cap'n Nick wrote:
Though the show is hardly Christian, it does give me some thoughts about our own God...

[SPOILER=The Philosophical Musings of Cap'n Nick]What fascinates me most is how Haruhi is in control of the universe, yet never seems to get her way. She's stuck in a school that bores her, a life that frustrates her and never gets one glimpse of the wondrous beings she wants to see so badly. The show explains that this is because her desires are complicated.[/SPOILER]

Ah, yes. Nothing really does seem to go Haruhi's way now, does it? That fact, somwhat, leads me to wonder if [spoiler] perhaps it is Kyon who is the god of the universe and NOT Haruhi. Remember, he once wanted to believe in secret crime fighting organizations, aliens, and espers, and he wanted to magically find himself in the middle of a cosmic battle involving them. But, that wasn't going to happen. Or was it? Perhaps it was Kyon who brought all the elments of the SOS brigade, including the "god character" together, despite his own ignorance. . .[/spoiler]


Crazy stuff, huh? It's an interesting theory, whether it has any merit or not.

It's an interesting theory. My personal take on it was that...

[SPOILER=the theory!]Haruhi wanted Kyon to be happy, even above herself. It really hit me in that scene where she tries to throw grass at him, but it blows back in her face instead. But, that does make all kinds of sense. After all, Kyon wouldn't want the responsibility of being God, so if he got everything he wanted, he would no longer be God![/SPOILER]

One of the more interesting implications is that...

[SPOILER=more stuff!]if Kyon were the god, being marginalized and downtrodden isn't just something he tolerates, but an essential part of his nature. What a poor fellow, who can't even conceive of his own comfort or success.[/SPOILER]

I love that anime. It's confusing if you only watch half of the series, or only a few episodes. But that's what made it all the better.
I liked how they mixed up the order of the anime, where you didn't know what was going on in the beginning, but by the end everything fit together perfectly.

i didn't quite understand episode 14 because a fourth of the episode was spent watching yuki read a book while listening to the interactions happening on a TV. also, does it really matter if you watch it in the original order (not chronological) even though it's all mixed up and doesn't make much sense?

ah, discussing the philosophy of this series makes me love it even more!

agreed. this series has many...puzzling aspects that make it an interesting series.

Oh, it was a television? I assumed it was a drama club.

I really liked that scene. Mundane, yet surreal - in my opinion one of the most effective scenes in the entire series, even if it did nothing to advance the plot. It also enhanced Yuki's character by highlighting her extreme impassibility, though at that point in the series it's a bit late to be building up basic character traits.

If there's any scene I don't understand, it's the part on the ferry where Koizumi starts staring at Kyon's mole with a hair in it. Koizumi seems like such an easy-going guy. Fixating on such a minor imperfection doesn't seem like his style at all. Or IS IT?! Perhaps the message here is that Koizumi's relaxed mannerisms are a facade for his finely tuned critical faculties! That, or he has telescopic vision like Superman.

Cap'n Nick wrote:If there's any scene I don't understand, it's the part on the ferry where Koizumi starts staring at Kyon's mole with a hair in it. Koizumi seems like such an easy-going guy. Fixating on such a minor imperfection doesn't seem like his style at all. Or IS IT?! Perhaps the message here is that Koizumi's relaxed mannerisms are a facade for his finely tuned critical faculties! That, or he has telescopic vision like Superman.

i recently rewatched those two episodes (because they're probably my two favorites) and i didn't really get that part either. i also didn't get the beginning of that episode where kyon and koizumi are talking and there's a lady wearing a hat ripping up a piece of paper (probably a picture)...

I'm just curious, have ALL of you seen it several times over? I saw it once and I don't remember half the things you guys seem to remember. O_o;;

i've seen the entire series twice. and i'm probably gonna watch it a third time over my Christmas Break.

Ignore the propagandists.

KYON IS THE ONE TRUE GOD.

then why do those wierd beasts appear in the closed space when haruhi gets bored?

Whether he is the former god or simply the favored of the current god, Kyon's will be done.

[quote="Ashley"]I'm just curious, have ALL of you seen it several times over? I saw it once and I don't remember half the things you guys seem to remember. O_o]


Well, when I watched it, Ash, I was on another message board discussing it. You remember and notice more things when you're discussing them as you go along.

Don't worry, young one. Some day, you too will be well versed in ways of Haruhi-ism. Of Kyonism, as I am more inclined to think of it.

An interesting thing I found off ANN...

"during a recent Gaza City protest against Hamas, a young girl brandished a placard with a picture of Haruhi Suzumiya that said, "Stop Killing the Children." The protest was in reaction to a drive-by-shooting in which 3 children died."

The pic can be found on this page.

...maybe anime can be a bad influence afterall v_v

Tenshi no Ai wrote:An interesting thing I found off ANN...

"during a recent Gaza City protest against Hamas, a young girl brandished a placard with a picture of Haruhi Suzumiya that said, "Stop Killing the Children." The protest was in reaction to a drive-by-shooting in which 3 children died."

The pic can be found on this page.

...maybe anime can be a bad influence afterall v_v

If it had been a sign saying "Kill children in the name of Haruhi", I would have said that MoHS had a negative effect. I think the message of the sign was positive. The only negative effect I could imagine would be the fact that this girl is somehow asking for peave in the name of Haruhi. Perhaps we have a little reality and fiction blurring occuring. . .

Mangafanatic wrote:The only negative effect I could imagine would be the fact that this girl is somehow asking for peave in the name of Haruhi. Perhaps we have a little reality and fiction blurring occuring. . .

That was sort of how those on the ANN forum on that topic took it, so I guess that's sort of how I saw it as. It's one thing to say "save the children!" but it sure is another to have a random anime pic of a character [spoiler] who happens to be a god, wasn't it? [/spoiler] on the sign :/

Yeah, that makes sense. She should have thrown in some pictures of Belldandy to cover all her bases. XD

I thinks he didn't know who Haruhi was when she put it on the sign. XD You know, like Bert on a pro-Osama sign.

P.S. I wouldn't go to the "Bert is Evil!" site thought, just so you know--not all of it is clean.

i don't get how Kyon could possibly be god in the anime series? is there any part in the series that could be used as evidence to prove this?