June 01, 2007

Kyon-kun

So I'm rewatching a few of the episodes of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu and just got to ep 3 (broadcast order). There are a lot of small peculiarities about this series. Here's one: Kyon's little sister (who is always referred to by everyone in the series as imouto i.e. "little sister") calls her older brother "Kyon-kun".

That is bizarre. No 'nii-chan? That's what I would have expected.

It's not unknown in anime for charaters to use names for older siblings. Megumi calls Keiichi Kei-chan in Ah! My Goddess! But she's only one year younger than he is. Kyon is first year highschool, probably 16, and his sister looks to be 8 if she isn't even younger than that. I wouldn't expect an anime sister that young to be using her older brother's name, even his nickname.

Another peculiarity: we never learn what Kyon's real name is. Neither his given name nor his surname; everyone (including even his little sister) calls him "Kyon". It does make you wonder, doesn't it? Does he actually have a name? Maybe he himself doesn't know what it is, and doesn't realize that.

Haruhi's quest is for space aliens, time travellers, sliders, and espers. The Japanese terms for the first two are uchuujin and miraijin which literally mean "people from space" and "people from the future" respectively. She stops talking about sliders early on, but does keep talking about espers. I've been trying to figure out what word they're using, but it's long and they say it so fast that I can't hear it all, and my guesses haven't been turning up anything in the dictionary. Ah, well...

[No spoilers please.] (I think maybe I'll look into changing the comment entry template to include "No Spoilers" in big bold letters.)

UPDATE: Here's something we hear Mikuru say a lot: 機密事項 kimitsujikou.

UPDATE: Only I'm wrong. That's not what she's saying. I wonder what it is? It sounds like keisotsu jikou desu but that can't be right. It doesn't make any sense.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in at 02:12 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 333 words, total size 2 kb.

1 No spoilers, but Kyon being a slider was an early theory of mine I mentioned to Dr.Heinous way back when.  Supposedly the "nickname" originated from his grandmother and his sister insisted on always using it so it stuck. 

I can barely believe it stuck in the family.  But how in the world did she cause it to be used by with Kyon's friends?  That's just bizarre
.

Posted by: ubu roi at June 01, 2007 03:05 PM (VKp6v)

2 That right there (the fact that we never hear his real name, not even from his kid sister) is one of the biggest arguments put forth by the "Kyon Is God" camp.

I've made a deliberate point of being agnostic (as it were) on the entire debate, mind you.

Posted by: GreyDuck at June 01, 2007 03:07 PM (7eLDR)

3

Arguably Haruhi herself is a slider. Perhaps "the event" three years previous was arrival, not creation.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 01, 2007 03:15 PM (+rSRq)

4 I prefer to believe that Kyon's real name is just a small running joke. He definitely has a full name, we just never hear anyone use it (which is the joke). At one point in the series, he begins to introduce himself to someone (I can't recall who), but Haruhi cuts him off before he can say his name and just says "This is Kyon!". For the same reason, we only see the tail end of his self-introduction before Haruhi's famous "aliens, time travelers, sliders, espers" speech.

Posted by: Andrew F. at June 01, 2007 04:08 PM (46297)

5

There's a discussion going on in the comments at The Pond about the "Future Men" translation, Steven, if you want to take a shortcut.

Andrew, the introduction that isn't is in Ep2 (#3 on the DVD), Kyon to Itsuki.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 01, 2007 04:17 PM (eCrFX)

6 Oh, and Kyon does specifically say that 'Kyon' is a nickname given to him by his grandmother... that would imply that he not only has a real name, he knows what it is.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 01, 2007 04:18 PM (eCrFX)

7 Just so you know, Steven, I've never heard (in real life) a younger sister refer to her brother as Nii-chan.  This is not to say it never happens, but it's certainly a good example of how "anime-manga" Japanese differs from Nihongo as she is spoke.

Posted by: Toren at June 01, 2007 09:45 PM (khKUJ)

8 Not really a spoiler....

In the novels, he says that "Kyon" is a nickname given by his grandmother (or aunt, the word is the same) and her sister thougt it was so funny that she insisted in using it in front of everybody, even when his friends from school came to their house, so everyone in school ended calling him Kyon too..

In both the novels and the anime it's a running joke that we never get to know his real name... Haruhi always introduces him as Kyon, all his friends call him like that, and a couple of times he's about to say his real name, but something or someone interrupts him.

Also, the fact that his sister calls him Kyon really annoys him... he wants her to call him "onii-chan" but she never does.

Posted by: mauro at June 02, 2007 12:19 PM (CGyUJ)

9 Double post of doom...

I'm not totally sure, but Asahina-san could be saying either kimitsu jikou desu ("those are confidential matters" as you guessed) or himitsu jikou desu ("those are secret matters") but in both cases, the basic meaning is the same.

The fansubbers here transalted it as "información clasificada" (that's "classified information", yeah I'm watching a spanish fansub) and I think the english fansubbers did the same thing (watched it a while ago)... pretty accurate by translation standards, and it's a more common english expression for undisclosed information.

Posted by: mauro at June 02, 2007 12:33 PM (CGyUJ)

10 .... or kinsoku jikou desu ("that's forbidden information")... damn you Steven, you made me watch it again!

Posted by: mauro at June 02, 2007 12:44 PM (CGyUJ)

11 It goes beyond a matter of cuteness. In the credits, Kyon is just "Kyon", and Kyon's sister is "Kyon's sister". Typically, even if the character has a stupid nickname, they'll at least get it paired with their last name... and only bit parts aren't identified by name.

Posted by: Avatar at June 02, 2007 02:08 PM (PyY3O)

12 Hi, mauro;
Aunt and grandmother are not the same word.  Aunt is oba-san (or oba-chan) and grandmother is obaa-san (or obaa-chan). Unlike some Japanese words, the extension of the vowel sound is quite striking and impossible to miss.

Posted by: Toren at June 02, 2007 02:12 PM (khKUJ)

13 Oops.... you´re right, though there are jokes in a couple of series about aunts that don't like being called oba-san or take it as an insult... maybe a pronunciation sort of pun...

Posted by: mauro at June 02, 2007 05:17 PM (CGyUJ)

14

It isn't either a pun or a pronunciation issue. The Japanese are very loose with their usage of relationship words. Oba-san means "aunt" but it also means "middle aged woman". Obaa-san means "grandmother" but it also means "old woman". (Likewise for oji-san "uncle/middle-aged man" and ojii-san "grandfather/old man".)

The joke about a woman getting upset for being called "aunt" comes from the fact that the same word also means "middle aged woman". (E.g. Misaki's aunt in Angelic Layer.)

By the same token, onii-san means "big brother", but any kid can refer to an older boy that way even if they are not related. Likewise for onee-san for older girls.

At least in anime, sometimes those terms are abused for comedic effect, or to establish character. The captain in Vandread sometimes calls Bart 'niisan. In Full Metal Panic, Kurz Weber sometimes calls Melissa Mao onee-san.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 02, 2007 06:24 PM (+rSRq)

15 Right you are on oba-san.  Women under their forties don't mind being called oba-san by nieces and nephews, but god help the poor sap that calls them oba-san as a generic term.  Claws out!

Posted by: Toren at June 02, 2007 07:00 PM (khKUJ)

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