Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT - Episode 6 Discussion / Poll

[Solafighter]

Yakimura saying "Fuck" amused and surprised me the most.

So, does Yozora and Sena see eachother finally as friends, maybe...?... This incident with the Barnem Effect kicked up some dust between the both. Looks like, that in the end, Yozora starts to care for Sena and the others, I guess.

Rika in maid outfit = moe moe
Sena in maid outfit = moe moe kyun!
Though, Rika and her maid personality complete broke everything imaginable.

Yozora, what has happened with her, going so tsundere(scene, when she wants to ask to explore the Culture festival alone with Kodaka).

In Japan, I have also witnissed a maid, doing this spell to make the coffee taste better. So this must be really popular in the Japanese scene and Yozora knows about it.

Hairstyles really change the whole look of the person. Rika with blond hair, splitted into two ponytails in the previous episode, Sena having her hair into multiply ponytails, their whole image is changing. For a few episodes, Rika has changed to something, that gets more and more attractive. Her crazyness gets less and her love points are going up.

[AmeNoJaku]

It's not so much that the hairstyle changed her look, rather then the anime is not drawing characters very consistently.

[Haiprbim]

Originally Posted by Shinova

She's not even being truly mean. She's like that one friend who loves to prank his or her friends real hard, and likes giving people jabs.

The word truly did not stand for how much but how I think. Also, I totally agree with the part you said.

[frivolity]

I think we may need a clearer demarkation of what is considered right and wrong in the context of the show since the arguments about the characters' actions seem to be occurring on very different planes, with some of us holding them to real-world standards and others saying that none of the moral standards apply.

Something along the lines of how an ordinary reasonable third-party who exists in the show would view the issue is most likely a better method of assessment.

[~Yami~]

Rika, Sena, and Yozora in maid costume... priceless...

excellent episode... lol!

[Haak]

The ending just about managed to save it for me. After a very good previous episode I was quickly coming to the conclusion that it would once again revert to the same crap as before with Yozora bullying Sena and the show trying to justify it by putting the blame on Sena for being too gullible or for being obnoxious in non-related scenes/moments.

But then the ending came round and showed me that my dissonance with the show's moral values isn't as bad as I thought it was, since it does clearly put the blame on Yozora in the end. The dissonance is still pretty bad though...

Also, the show seems to have a rather strange affinity for a particular English swear word. Their way of Getting Crap Past The Radar by any chance?

[Rising Dragon]

It might be. According to my first Japanese teacher, the Japanese language doesn't actually have swear words like our language knows them.

[Haiprbim]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

According to my first Japanese teacher, the Japanese language doesn't actually have swear words like our language knows them.

Such a clean country... makes me wanna visit it for a year or two. :D

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Haak

Also, the show seems to have a rather strange affinity for a particular English swear word. Their way of Getting Crap Past The Radar by any chance?

I think it's more peculiarity or bemusement than anything.

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

It might be. According to my first Japanese teacher, the Japanese language doesn't actually have swear words like our language knows them.

Eh? I don't really get what it means by that. Afaik Japanese have their swear words just fine. In fact Maria keep spewing a specific kind out every chance she got.

[Newprimus]

Originally Posted by taichi-kun

Ok my bad, don't get mad sena fans.. but you understand my point.I was talking about her goddess complex and the dudes that follow her

The guys follow her around and worship her on their own initiative. She's not the one who made advances on them. Get the material right please.

[DragoonKain3]

So that's it for the childhood friend past reveal? Anti-climactic much, considering that they were bent on keeping it a secret. I thought it woulda caused drama, considering the purpose of their club is 'practice making friends because they currently have none', when the two founders were friends when they were kids. But it's just swept under the rug...


As for Yozora being a bully... the way I see it is that Kodaka promised Pegasus in the first episode that if Sena were ever to be bullied, that he would be the one protecting her. And for the most part Kodaka has largely left Yozora's antics go unchecked. So if Kodaka hasn't really seen it as bullying, I don't see why I would crucify Yozora for her actions.

[frivolity]

Kodaka isn't necessarily the best person to use as a gauge in determing whether or not Yozora's actions constitute bullying. It would probably be better to look at it from the perspective of an ordinary reasonable 3rd party in the show.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by frivolity

Kodaka isn't necessarily the best person to use as a gauge in determing whether or not Yozora's actions constitute bullying. It would probably be better to look at it from the perspective of an ordinary reasonable 3rd party in the show.

Kodaka is the protagonist and the one we're suppose to identify with, he's essentially the closest to 'normal'.

But why are we applying what's 'normal' to these people?

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Kodaka is the protagonist and the one we're suppose to identify with he's essentially the closest to 'normal'.

You are right, but I can't see this has something to do with gauging whether something constitutes as bullying.

When someone jerked out and accuses Yozora as being a bully, I imagine it was an emphatic reaction; that they imagine themselves being the victims of her antics. What right do we really have in saying "nah, that's not bully, suck it up" to someone who clearly doesn't like the way he/she is treated?

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

But why are we applying what's 'normal' to these people?

I'd guess the logic behind that rhetoric is the reason why Kodaka or any member of the Neighbour's club isn't a very good benchmark. And I'd say there is probably no benchmark in the first place.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

You are right, but I can't see this has something to do with gauging whether something constitutes as bullying.

When someone jerked out and accuses Yozora as being a bully, I imagine it was an emphatic reaction; that they imagine themselves being the victims of her antics. What right do we really have in saying "nah, that's not bully, suck it up" to someone who clearly doesn't like the way he/she is treated?

I'd guess the logic behind that rhetoric is the reason why Kodaka or any member of the Neighbour's club isn't a very good benchmark. And I'd say there is probably no benchmark in the first place.

But we're not talking about them... If they want to view Sena as themselves that's up to them, but they are not Sena and they don't think like her.... I hope.

I'll put it this way, before this episode- when have we really seen Sena being seriously upset? And I mean seriously upset. All of the time she brush it off like it's a tsukkomi act between them. In fact, that's probably the intention to begin with- That this is their version of a tsukkomi play.

Aren't they the ones forcing their personal ideas into onto the characters instead of seeing it as part of their group dynamics?

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Kodaka is the protagonist and the one we're suppose to identify with, he's essentially the closest to 'normal'.

But why are we applying what's 'normal' to these people?

I'm trying to push for a more objective standard that everyone can identify with, so that we can all be on the same page. Just look at the discussion in this thread over the issue of whether or not Yozora's actions over the last few episodes have constituted some form of bullying.

I don't mean to pinpoint anyone, and I sincerely apologise if I misinterpreted anyone's posts, but we've got thundrakkon (#36) applying a strict standard to bullying due to his own personal experiences. And then Sumeragi (#80) made his point that the simple logic of being nice is non-existent when applied to the Neighbour's Club. After that, potchip (#85) went as far as saying that there's nothing wrong with the club since everyone is flawed!

As I see it, the main problem is that we're all arguing on completely different planes. thundrakkon is correct in saying that Yozora's actions would not be condoned in real life, but the problem with his argument is that Haganai is not real life, and we should not impute real-life standards to the characters verbatim. Sumeragi's point isn't wrong per se, but it's clear that he's not completely right either, because the lack of niceness is precisely why these kids ended up joining the club in the first place. With regard to potchip's argument, I've already given my opinion that flaws are flaws, and just because everyone is flawed doesn't mean that we can't discuss the characters' flaws individually.

So if we're going to have a more robust discussion than what we've had so far, we should come up with a more rigorous standard that everyone can agree on. Obviously not real-life standards since this isn't real-life, but not the standards set by the members of the club since their own standards are already flawed to begin with. The most suitable standard, in my opinion, is to look at what an ordinary and reasonable person existing in the show's setting would think about the issue. Going by this standard, we should not be making arguments along the lines of "What Yozora did was bullying because I suffered from the same thing." We should be arguing that "What Yozora did was/wasn't bullying because a reasonable person in Haganai would or wouldn't think so," and then proceed to give our reasons. In this way, we aren't applying "normal" standards to these people, but looking at whether it is acceptable to reasonable persons in Haganai.

This is in fact what we should be arguing about, otherwise we will be stuck in a ZnT-esque situation with some people saying that Louise hates Saito since she constantly whips him, and others saying that whipping is acceptable in ZnT.

Of course, the concept of an ordinary and reasonable person is merely a theoretical construct since no such person actually exists in Haganai, and as such, we cannot reliably count on any one character's words. I don't approve of using Kodaka as our ordinary reasonable person simply because he generally isn't one. He has been shown to be dense at times (I'm aware that there are hints that he actually knows what's going on, but this actually reinforces my point that his actions alone aren't exactly a reliable indicator of his thoughts), and is often overly nonchalant. Furthermore, Kodaka is not as useful in terms of serving as a uniform standard because he cannot be used at all once we start getting down to discussing issues such as romance that involve him. This is why I advocate the ordinary-reasonable-person-in-Haganai test.

Again, I apologise if I misinterpreted anyone's posts, but honestly, this thread is a mess of Sena supporters and Yozora supporters arguing the same issues using such different standards that I think everyone's starting to misunderstand one another's arguments.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by frivolity

This is why I advocate the ordinary-reasonable-person-in-Haganai test.

(Let me assure you I did read everything you posted, but obviously I'm not going to quote it all.)


Your idea of having an outsider third person view, even if it's in-universe, is the equivalent of asking a non-Anime watcher to review an Anime. Or a non-Gamer to review a Game.

To put it simply, he or she would not 'get it'.

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

(Let me assure you I did read everything you posted, but obviously I'm not going to quote it all.)


Your idea of having an outsider third person view, even if it's in-universe, is the equivalent of asking a non-Anime watcher to review an Anime. Or a non-Gamer to review a Game.

To put it simply, he or she would not 'get it'.

No, it is not the same as an outsider's view. The concept I'm trying to get at is a reasonable view of a flexible hypothetical someone in-universe, who knows these characters sufficiently well. The concept can be stretched and modified accordingly, such as knowledge of each character's history and such, perhaps a more flexible version of Kodaka if you prefer, who sometimes "gets it" when Kodaka should but doesn't, and sometimes doesn't get it when Kodaka shouldn't but actually does.

The overall point I'm making at the end of the day is that the debate we're having here needs to be made on a more rigorous basis. We need to be looking at it from inside the novel's setting, but we cannot be looking at it from any individual character's perspective, because as everyone has pointed out in some way or another, these characters are flawed.

If you would like to suggest a better standard to use, then I genuinely invite you to do so, so that we can finally get somewhere in this whole discussion.

Let me also say that I'm aware that what I'm advocating isn't perfect either, but it's the most feasible solution I'm aware of. It's similar to how we can read a story based in an African tribe with completely different practices, and when analysing the characters, we can sometimes say, "I personally believe what he did is wrong, but I think that his tribe would consider it to be correct."

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by frivolity

No, it is not the same as an outsider's view. The concept I'm trying to get at is a reasonable view of a flexible hypothetical someone in-universe, who knows these characters sufficiently well. The concept can be stretched and modified accordingly, such as knowledge of each character's history and such, perhaps a more flexible version of Kodaka if you prefer, who sometimes "gets it" when Kodaka should but doesn't, and sometimes doesn't get it when Kodaka shouldn't but actually does.

So essentially you want a magical character that understands all of them well, yet is not a part of their group, but would judge them reasonably from the outside? You realized how contradicting that sounds?

Would you like your Animes to be judged by someone who doesn't understand the finer points of the 'culture' ? I mean, sure you could do it, but I'll bet it'll leave a bad taste in your mouth afterwards.

Originally Posted by frivolity

The overall point I'm making at the end of the day is that the debate we're having here needs to be made on a more rigorous basis. We need to be looking at it from inside the novel's setting, but we cannot be looking at it from any individual character's perspective, because as everyone has pointed out in some way or another, these characters are flawed.

If you would like to suggest a better standard to use, then I genuinely invite you to do so, so that we can finally get somewhere in this whole discussion.

Let me also say that I'm aware that what I'm advocating isn't perfect either, but it's the most feasible solution I'm aware of. It's similar to how we can read a story based in an African tribe with completely different practices, and when analysing the characters, we can sometimes say, "I personally believe what he did is wrong, but I think that his tribe would consider it to be correct."

I don't get it, why can't we look at it from any individual characters? If the author intends from us to view this group from the outside, he would have created that character himself.

And what's stopping this character of yours from being flawed him/herself?

[potchip]

In my view you simply get it, or you don't. What you are suggesting is a slippery slope in anime critique. Next thing you know, characters have disproportional eyes and I can't take them seriously anymore. The problem with the previous sentence is, you are not supposed to take certain aspects seriously, somethings in anime are taken for granted. Some traits will be exaggerated. Feel free to judged based on morality but don't expect other people to take such judgements seriously either. It's like arguing about the physics of shounen. Where does that leads to? What is a 'reasonable person's subjective observation but not Kodaka' anyway? I agree Kodaka is an unreliable narrator because himself is also flawed. I don't agree his flaw is overly nonchalant - his primary problem is afraid of change and does not seek feedback - so he tends to get the wrong impressions of many situations.

As for trying to come up with a universal scale on a characters' personalities - first of all, there's no universal scale even in real life - no personality is absolutely BETTER than another, and then we are just talking about single personality traits. When a character has multiple traits like any other person would, there's no point trying to be objective, and furthermore laughable to even contemplate it.

I can use words to describe what I consider the traits of each character, and list them. I can even go as far as ranking them in prominence. But even then there are too many variables for comparison, and some people would rather use ONE word to describe a character.

In a way the current character interactions are in equilibrium. Yozora is a sadist, Sena is a narcissistic. If you imagine instead a 'nice' Yozora, given what I know about Sena's character and other things being equal, Sena will get carried away and antagonise Yozora instead, and you get a horde of people hating on Sena. And I hate boring characters - if Yozora is nice - well, there's one less interesting character in this show. Just the other side of the coin.

And last words - instead of disagreeing with what a character's portrayed and trying to pigeon hole them into some sort of 'ideal' character that you'd want to see, (and complain about how the character isn't this and that) try spend more time looking at different aspects of a character and think about what the author/producer is trying characterise.