I'm rewatching the six episodes of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. After I'm done, I'm going to go through them to grab some images for the top rotation.

Urd, Skuld, and Beldandy are based (well, a bit) on the Norns, three female demigods who guard the roots of Yggdrasill, the world tree. Urd is associated with the past, Beldandy with the present, and Skuld with the future.

In the SOS Dan, we got Haruhi, Kyon, and three strange people. It occurred to me today that Yuki is associated with the past, Itsuki with the present, and of course Mikuru with the future. More, including some spoilers, below the fold.

Our critical time mark is a point three years before the show when something odd happened, something associated with Haruhi, something she may even have done, though she clearly doesn't know it.

The cosmic intelligence, which created Yuki to be an interface with humans, was created at the same time as the universe. Its history exists before that event. Yuki represents the past.

Itsuki and the others in his organization all gained their powers in that event. Itsuki is the present.

Mikuru is a time traveler from the future.

So that was my brain spasm. Moving right along, I've long wondered just what Japanese word it was they have been translating as "Esper".

In the beginning of the "second" episode, at about time mark 0:25:22 (according to my player program, YMMV), Kyon's voiceover says, "I longed for aliens, future men, ghosts, monsters, espers, and evil cartels to just appear from the bottom of my heart."

So, we got uchuujin, miraijin, yurei, yokai, and what sounds to me like chonyokusha. That last one was the one I've been curious about.

I found three different places where it's said quite clearly and they all sound like that. (They certainly didn't sound like they had any lengthened syllables, but the Japanese are sometimes sloppy about that. Kyon's pronunciation of uchuujin doesn't always emphasize the second syllable, though it should.) I'm quite sure that the "sha" is 者 which means "person". But I can't find out for sure because Animelab is down! Waah! (Which is also why I'm not positive I spelled yurei and yokai correctly. Once it comes online I'll check.)

IF that's the right word, then it's a puzzle for me as a gaijin. Is it ちょんよくしゃ or ちょにょくしゃ? I'm guessing the latter. But I could be wrong. And I'm not sure that those both are supposed to be romanized the same way, which is why I'm probably going to search for the hiragana spellings instead of romaji.

Waah! Come back, Animelab! All is forgiven!

UPDATE: Well, it would seem it isn't either of those hiragana spellings. Or I'm wrong about that kanji. Neither shows up on this page.

Actually, that doesn't prove anything. It could be an informal term, or something they created for this series. (At least, in terms of appending the sha to it.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in at 09:42 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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