Info
- Title:: Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu
- TitleEN:: The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan
- Studio:: Satelight
- Year:: 2015
- Format:: series
- Episodes:: 16
Log
2024-07-21: ep1–5 identity
i don’t think i can beat the allegations that she is me. like let’s see…
- food-motivated
- visibly neurodivergent
- abnormally shy
- prone to fantasy
- has extreme difficulty confessing her feelings to others
like yep, that’s me.
paralogue: Re: anime time anime time – 21 Jul 2024 07:55 pm
i don’t know what it means that the biggest thing i got from the movie is that its version of nagato yuki is so adorable and i want to take her in my arms and make sure she never gets hurt again. she hits some moe-moe core in my heart far stronger than anyone in this show has yet… i’m tempted to say that i have a thing for danderes, but it might be more that i am one, so i know how it feels and it makes it easier for me to empathize with how she feels.
i mentioned this to my roommates and one of them suggested that, if i like this take on nagato, then i should watch the disappearance of nagato yuki-chan. so i decided to take her up on that.
when i was looking up the show, i saw that it was polarizing because it throws out a lot of what made haruhi specifically interesting in favor of just making a slice of life romance anime, though i’m also not the sort to insist that other entries in a series hold faithful to the original material, so i don’t mind that on its own.
the show does come off as fanficcy at times, though, admittedly, but that’s also not a big deal to me. it takes itself a good amount less seriously too. they seem to be having fun with it, and i appreciate that!
nagato is also changed somewhat from her characterization in the movie, but it feels like that’s done more in service of fleshing out the dandere type that’s sketched out in the movie. and as a result they turned her into, uh, me.
food-motivated, visibly neurodivergent, abnormally shy, prone to fantasy, has extreme difficulty confessing her feelings to those she’s attracted to… some of those were me at that age, some of those are still me now. it hurts just a little to watch, but it’s a good hurt – a hurt that dredges up similar moments in my own life and makes me feel less alone. i remember the feeling of seeing the one i’d fallen for being a little too friendly with someone else, misinterpreting it as being more than it actually was, and having my heart drop through the floor. i remember waiting just a touch too long to just get the words out! and losing my chance – wondering if i’ll ever get another. i remember being shanghaied into someone’s unhinged schemes and being too nonconfrontational to leave, but everyone goes through that one, right?
a lot of the comedy here seems to be driven by the shy girls (nagato, mikuru,koizumi) being paired up with boisterous, overbearing counterparts (asakura, tsuruya, haruhi) who run the gamut between defending the targets of their attachment and exploiting them. and now that the whole gang is here, i’m curious to see how much they play with these dynamics, or for how long the show remains bearable…
still, i’m liking it so far.
2024-07-27: ep6–9
the onsen episode arc! because of course we need to hit this one. it’s obligatory in the genre!
- god i wish i could feed yuki-chan so many foods…
- she’s so pure of heart
- fun fact: haruhi absorbing all of that power smoke is the backstory for how she ascended to godhood in the main series
- we support bisexual icon koizumi
- meanwhile, kyon is absolutely the sort of guy who would’ve said things like “no homo” around this time. he’s so goddamn straight!
- haruhi is definitely more tolerable in this series. i think it’s more fun to have her as just an eccentric who everyone recognizes as kind of a dick and feels ok pushing back against, rather than having them all fall in line because to go against her would be to risk getting wished away to the cornfields
2024-07-28: ep10–13 pathos
i think that this is going to be the arc that makes me fall in love with the series. even if this specific trigger is a bit sudden and isekai-y, i choose to read this as an instance of a traumatic event happening to yuki, her derealizing to the point where her former self feels like a completely different identity, and everyone having to cope with the aftermath.
asakura and kyon are so gentle with her too… even if they both may have preferred the old nagato, they’re willing to accept the nagato that she is now and discover the charming aspects that she has too. and perhaps this outcome is a bit too mature to expect from both of them, and perhaps it cuts out a pretty big opportunity for conflict and drama to arise here – instead placing the source of conflict within nagato herself – but fuck it i need this. i need to see my girl being accepted and supported. i need to see her having friends who still choose to love her even though she’s changed from the person she used to be.
(it’s telling that haruhi is specifically gone during this arc so as to prevent any likelihood of her starting shit)
i found it interesting how, as the arc went on, the exaggerated reactions and switches to super-deformed animation started to come back. i couldn’t help but read it as evidence that they’re healing – that despite the trauma they’ve started to be able to feel levity again.
this musical shift also touched me, and outside of the debussy callbacks this is the first time i really noticed that music in this show.
and even though it ended with nagato² believing that she’ll die once the old personality takes over again, which may or may not be an exaggeration, it still tugged at my heart.
2024-08-03: ep14–end
and now we’re back to normal, and i’m not sure how to feel about that.
it feels like the only lasting impact of the arc that anyone seems to especially care about is the fact that nagato² confessed to kyon, and he decided to become a little bitch about it – like, to the point where i couldn’t even judge his motivations.
did he even like nagato, since he’s more than happy to lust over most of the other girls? or did he see her just as a friend and felt stuck as to how much he should reciprocate? i’m inclined to think it’s more of the latter, since his confession to her is phrased like he’s telling her that he didn’t not fall for her. and then when it turns out that she didn’t hear what he said, he’s fine with leaving it be from there. so it’s like his goal with confessing was just to share his own feelings on the matter and not to try to enter into a romantic relationship with her.
so it’s still kind of unrequited, and still kind of deluded on her part, because she’s still smitten for someone who is apathetic about romantically being with her, and that’s sad!
she deserves better.
i’d say she deserves me, but i don’t know how much of that would just be a romance of matching affinities.
she would sit on our bed playing her rpg, and i would sit on my chair playing my kart racer, and we would both be happy just to be around each other. we’d go out for bubble tea and hold hands all the while, and every so often i’d lie on the bed too and cuddle up beside her, and (lord willing) every so often she’d be happy to reciprocate. i want to stroke her body and kiss her lips and enter into her gently; i’d let her control the pace and go at her own comfort – i really just want to be close to her. we can put on some light music if that would make things less awkward.
(though when i was dating allison, wasn’t that pretty much nagato 4 nagato?)
the ova
it’s about what one would expect. a weak endless eight reference, a bit of fanservice though not especially more than what was in the aired show, and a plot development that slides in comfortably alongside what was in the series but without challenging it.
an au of an au? a pocket universe? or an opportunity to spend more time with these kids?
OP / ED
i liked the ED a lot more than the OP. or, the OP was fitting enough for the series, though it didn’t take itself very seriously, and it felt like it was aping haruhi’s a bit too much for comfort.
but the ED was this very charming and touching little vignette.
Notes
Spinoff of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu (2006) which follows the hypothetical character development that Nagato Yuki experienced in Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu (2010). To my knowledge, its universe is completely separate from Haruhi’s – rather than just developing from the point where Kyon decided to remain in the literature club, it instead presents a reality where Nagato’s fabricated backstory had always existed in the way she describes.