I think the fact that they are drawn, and are just one of countless cute/beautiful anime faces, makes the true allure of a 2-D or literary character their personality. Standard “moe” archetypes are getting really beaten to death, and they’re usually pretty shallow characters anyway, so it’s a real treat when a complicated, unpredictable character rolls around.

I guess I am another hapless victim of Senjougahara-tore, but I like to console myself with the notion that she’s in many ways more than a “flat 2D character”. This is a girl that used to be “normal” and “friendly” but after a traumatic incident isolated herself from human contact for two years and has been kind of psycho ever since. Having known people with similar pasts, her personality is at times frighteningly believable. You really get the feeling that her actions, thoughts and attitudes are flowing from her experiences prior to and during the show, rather than from a character archetype. (Incidentally, I love the fact that in the show, they characterize her as a tsundere, but she doesn’t really fit the bill.)

So for now, we’ll just say that we have been momentarily overcome by deft literary artistry.

@CCY: thanks! I guess what I was trying to say is that unless you go really, really far down the otaku road what you’re experiencing is quite a commonplace feeling shared by film fans, TV addicts and bookworms both within and outside the anime community. Looks like I got my point across okay, anyway!

[...]

more often than not we can identify with them to some degree and muse over how fun and rewarding it would be if we met someone like them.”

I hate to be the guy that offers very little input, but THIS. I feel like you’ve hit the nail on the head. With a stapler, if you so please.

Excellent job in painting that vaguely complex emotion of the otaku, that often gets so overexaggerated (I may take this moment to cough awkwardly) or shoved under the table.

Somehow it seems more sensible to admit it like this, since hiding such an adoration only serves to make it seem more obscene and strange than it actually is. Which it shouldn’t be, since as you mention, for most of us it doesn’t serve as a substitute for three-dimensional affection, but rather as a supplement.

Perhaps a guide, even. It’d be interesting to consider how 2D and 3D crushes have affected each other.

@ghostlightning: Minmay is a bit irritating to me, but I’ll have to watch the original Macross (i.e. not rewatching DRL? or Robotech) to see if my opinion changes. Sheryl on the other hand…

@Chris K: Senjougahara has the benefit of balanced writing, but the same can be said of the dynamic between she and Araragi. I want to hug the scriptwriter. Even if the scriptwriter’s male.

@Peter S: I have Azu on my ‘to watch’ shelf actually. I also have the week off work, so will make a start on that in the next few days. Watch this space!

@2DT: if a Senjougahara fascination is 2D complex, is Sumire Fascination…1D complex? [laughs] Damn, there are so many heroines of Murakami’s writing that stick in my memory…I need to write about his stuff more.

@Orion:

What about a yaoi furry figure-collecting hardcore-gaming lolicon?

I have some interesting friends! I can think of some that fit any one of those, but not one falls in all of the above. None of them are lolicons, fortunately. As far as I know, anyway. ¬_¬

I don’t think less of someone for being a hardcore gamer, a yaoi fan, a furry, a figure collector or lolicon (apart from the last one. Those guys really are weird).

What about a yaoi furry figure-collecting hardcore-gaming lolicon?

“I doubt everyone can relate to going weak at the knees over the Shinkai and Kon movies…”

* defiant Brofist raised *

“…vintage guitar gear…”

* defiant Brofist raised *

“…or anything Type Moon or Macross-related.”

…

* semi-defiant Brofist marginally raised *

Yes. Yes yes YES. That’s EXACTLY it!

This is what I was trying to get across in my own writing on the Senjougahara Fascination Movement. Our imaginative powers create the character we love out of an image on the screen, akin to how lifelike holograms are made out of multiple 2-D projections. At the time I compared it to Freudian id and superego cooperating to produce the ego, but I think the Murakami quote brings the point home much better. Cheers.

It’s rare that I find an affection for a character if they’re in a series I don’t like. The flip side of that of course is if I like the show the characters are usually well-developed. The exception would be Risa from Lovely Complex. It was a silly show but I found her so adorable I watched the whole thing. And Lovely Complex isn’t really bad, anyway.

As for Senjougahara, she scares me. I couldn’t keep up with her wordplay and I’d wind up with a staple in my gums. I didn’t have the same response to Sumire, either, maybe because I knew going in that she was going to be one of Murakami’s Vanishing Girls.

One of the reasons why I think that she stands out so much as a unique character is because she contrasted by Araragi’s personality. Senjougahara has told Araragi basically that she’s “all in” with her love for him so that makes her the tsundere girl that’s hanging there like “a ripe sweet cherry for the picking” and Araragi too indecisive to pluck that sweet fruit.

Just finished a rewatch of Do You Remember Love? and I can relate to this fascination thing. I’ve had one for Minmay over the past quarter century.