‘Law 6: Court Attention at All Cost’ -Robert Greene, author of the 48 Laws of Power To say that Haruhi Suzumiya (The Melachonholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) is a bit of an attention whore is a grave understatement. Haruhi lusts for attention. She demands notability. She wants all eyes on her like Tupac. To Haruhi, the world should and must revolve […]
‘Law 6: Court Attention at All Cost’
-Robert Greene, author of the 48 Laws of Power
To say that Haruhi Suzumiya (The Melachonholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) is a bit of an attention whore is a grave understatement. Haruhi lusts for attention. She demands notability. She wants all eyes on her like Tupac. To Haruhi, the world should and must revolve around only on her. (of course, she’s God after all, so she’s not. She’s not wrong to think that [despite unaware of her godly reality wrapping powers]). Every day, she makes an effort to be noticed, to have people know her name, and who she is. She doesn’t care if people speak of her in a negative light; it keeps her name circulating. She loves it.
Haruhi doesn’t want to fade in the background. She does not want be average, or one of faceless many in the world. Haruhi’s drive is to become extraordinary and different from the rest of the world. To understand this drive, we must look at her flashback scene from episode 13 of season 1.
‘So I figure I would change myself in middle school. Let the world know that I wasn’t a girl content with sitting around and waiting.’ -Haruhi Suzumiya
As they’re walking home from school, Haruhi tells Kyon the story of her family going a baseball game as a child. Haruhi was amazed at the sight of the overflowing, sold out stadium. She believed that the entire population of Japan came together at the venue to watch baseball. When she asked her dad about the number of people in attendance, he told her around 200,000 people. These people, including herself, only made up very small fraction Japan’s population (around 128 million during the show’s original run in 2006). After returning home from the game, she did the math, breaking down the attendance , compared it to the entire population of Japan, and discovered that it only made one two-thousandth of the population of Japan.
Haruhi was just one of many. A drop in the massive and everlasting ocean.
Realizing this, she no longer felt special. Haruhi was just like everyone else; doing the same shit (brushing her teeth, eating breakfast, going to school, etc.). Life became boring. What’s life when you’re just like everyone else? Maybe in the world, there was somebody amazing, unique, and extraordinary And yet, it wasn’t her.
At this revelation, Haruhi had to stand out from the rest of the world. She to get up and demand change by her own will. To not become content with being average. She had to make her mark in the world by any means. To court attention at all cost.
‘Be obsessed or be average.’
-Grant Cardone, American CEO, Author, and motivation speaker
Later, Haruhi set out to achieve her dream of being noticed and not average. On her first day of high school, she proudly introduces herself and states that she isn’t interested normal humans. Rather, she wants to meet with time travelers, aliens, and espers. This caused a stir in her homeroom, making people think just who the fuck is this childish girl, and why does she still believe in such things at the age of 15?
Throughout the series, Haruhi attempts (and mostly succeed at) various actions to be noticed. She devolved a system to change her hairdo by style (she even went as far to wear a different hair ribbion each day). She stripped down from her school uniform into her gym clothes, not caring if her male peers were watching. She attempted to join every school club, only to dip out from each and forming her own club: The SOS Brigade. She stole the show at her school festival, filling in for a sick guitarist ( revealing that she’s an amazing musician in her own right). All in the name of courting attention. She places herself at the center of it all, regardless of what others may think.
I write about why you should have a greater appreciation for wacky Japanese cartoons and the otaku culture revolving around it.
I also co-host a Black Nerd Empowerment podcast with my friend The TV Guru over at http://swarthynerd.libsyn.com/ and create off-color memes about crap tier anime over at https://www.facebook.com/yukithesnowman/
It is kind of disheartening to know that all of her behaviour does come down to just wanting to be noticed. Although, I think even she doesn’t know who she is trying to be noticed by and as the story progresses her attention switches from just getting attention to ensuring she has Kyon’s attention.
Thanks for sharing an interesting post.
Yea true but when you realized that you aren’t really as special as you think you are at such a young age it kinda has an impact on your psyche like it did for Haruhi.
It is kind of disheartening to know that all of her behaviour does come down to just wanting to be noticed. Although, I think even she doesn’t know who she is trying to be noticed by and as the story progresses her attention switches from just getting attention to ensuring she has Kyon’s attention.
Thanks for sharing an interesting post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yea true but when you realized that you aren’t really as special as you think you are at such a young age it kinda has an impact on your psyche like it did for Haruhi.
Thanks for reading!
LikeLiked by 1 person