Is our pithy protagonist making a daring fashion statement here, in wearing pants that closely match those of his younger sister? Are man capris popular enough in Japan that the artists responsible for the above would’ve included them in Kyon’s wardrobe without giving it much thought? Or is this just visual evidence of Kyon’s slowly losing his edge?

Not that I want to get into the intricacies of adaptation right now, but I’ll note that Kyon’s intriguing legwear is a KyoAni addition. In the short story, Kyon introduces his visual situation like this:

At the time, I was sitting in my own living room, tuning in and out of the middle school baseball games, which I had little interest in.

And not, you’ll note, like this:

At the time, I was sitting in my own living room, wearing my favorite pair of man capris, tuning in and out of the middle school baseball games, which I had little interest in.

See for yourself, if you like. The point is that…seriously, look at those pants! What the hell, man?¹

Let’s try that again. The point is that surely our hero’s ankle-bearing khakis must mean something, and surely my saying so has nothing to do with any sort of tendency of mine to read into things too much, a tendency which I may or may not exhibit on rare occasions.

Of course, it’s possible that my particular reaction to Kyon’s fashion sense marks me as an outlier (but really, what’re the odds of that?). Perhaps we should begin with a brief investigation of the place of man capris in contemporary postmodern society, an investigation the likes of which the internet makes rather easy. Consider this exchange on Yelp, a site where people can…have conversations about things? I’m not entirely sure, but those who engaged in the aforementioned man capris (or “manpris”) discussion mostly agreed that the effeminate pants aren’t exactly the height of male fashion, provided you aren’t European. Some of my favorite anti-manpris positions are as follows, quoted anonymously to protect those involved from roving bands of vengeful metrosexuals.

Oh lord, I had no idea this was even an issue! How disturbing.

Anything that “K-Fed” wears would be a definite don’t. So big no on the manpris.

When the weather is a bit more temperate…I say it takes a very “special” man to pull off this look…

man-pris + garden shoes are the stuff nightmares are made of. who started this trend? mario batali?

Man capris? If those start becoming the norm, I’m busting out my fannypack- that’s right my fannypack. I’ll just say I’m German.

I just got back from a summer vaca in Italy and not only are all the men over there wearing man capris but they all have MULLETS!!!! Good God please tell me that is one fashion trend that will never make it back over to Boston.

I think there’s some graph that explains this issue. The x axis would be the length of the short, and the y axis would measure the range of sexual ambiguity…

capri pants for men, only if you’re ghey.

Well, Kyon isn’t what I’d call “ghey,” given that we’re in his head and we see some of his healthy male inclinations (i.e. he likes boobies). He isn’t Italian or German, and he has little in common with Kevin Federline and Mario Batali. Perhaps his donning of the man capris is a show of solidarity with these aforementioned individuals and groups; perhaps Kyon means to make it clear that he favors a diverse world. After all, he spends most of his time with an ambiguously gay ESPer, the worst candidate to be a time traveler ever, a cybrid, and an ignorant deity. If one in his position chooses to embrace human differences, said one might find the world a colorful place indeed.

In case there was any doubt, this isn’t really a serious post. Or, I may say something remotely useful to you before the end, but I’m fairly sure I haven’t so far. I’m working on some serious posts (three, in fact, including one for a blog that isn’t mine), but those are hard, and making fun of Kyon’s man capris…no, making fun of man capris in general is easy².

That’s not to say I’m writing this for no reason at all. For one thing, I’m excited as all hell about the new Haruhi episodes. I watched Melancholy as I made my balls-to-the-wall return to anime fandom after years of denial, and I’ll always remember it fondly for being one of the shows that convinced me I was making the right decision, that I really would miss out if I let superficial concerns keep me from an entire narrative medium. More specifically, though, I think the second new episode shows the first signs of the weak mortar in Kyon’s wall of sarcasm, something which, if I remember correctly, plays a notable role in the fourth novel, the plot of which will by all reports be included somewhere among these new episodes. It’s early-stage character development, basically. The (potentially, if you want to look at it this way) emasculating man capris are just a humorous prelude.

It occurred to me that Kyon’s biting commentary (new word: kyommentary) seems weak throughout this particular arc (which, if it follows the story “Endless Eight” closely, hasn’t ended with just the one episode, though KyoAni seems to have omitted all the real plot development so far). He slips his usual criticism of all things Haruhi among the events of summer’s end, but his criticism is often visually punctuated by scenes in which he appears to be enjoying himself.

And that’s not to mention that some of his quips here are pretty dull to begin with.

It’s as if he criticizes because he has to, because being down-to-earth and wry is just his role among his friends. In the short story, he even acknowledges that his objections aren’t much in the face of Haruhi’s enthusiasm; “Sulk as much as I may,” he relates early on, “I still meekly headed toward my closet and removed the items [Haruhi] requested.” Even if they are his objections, they aren’t enough to keep him from going along with Haruhi’s plans, and so they begin to feel like a formality — which, don’t get me wrong, doesn’t mean Kyon is becoming less potent; rather, it means he’s acting in a way that’s consistent with real life friend dynamics. Friends fall into behavioral patterns relative to one another, and those patterns can be difficult to break.

I suppose we might ask whether, in a moment of duress, Kyon would continue to fill his role, or if he would shed all pretense and stand by Haruhi. Of course, so far he’s been bound by his mission; he’s led to believe that, in his absence, Haruhi would inadvertently do strange things to the world, and that’s fair motivation for not abandoning her outright even if he does consider her an annoyance. But what if that suddenly wasn’t an issue, or if Kyon had a way out? I’m looking forward to seeing KyoAni’s take on that question.

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Endnotes

¹I offer my sincerest apologies to any of you who may enjoy the occasional jaunt in a comfortable pair of man capris. Your lifestyle is your business. Seriously, it’s cool with me; I support your rights.

²To be fair, Kyon’s petite pantaloons aren’t the only fashion emergency present in the episode. Setting aside the frog suit, which is too obvious, there’s this:

Clearly, Haruhi is a classy lady.

Tags: the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya

Thus spake Pontifus on Monday, 22 June 2009 at 2:02 am, and Anime expanded tenfold. Become privy to further discussion on the matter via RSS 2.0. You might grace us with a brilliant comment, or trackback from a distant podium.