In the mid to late 2000s, Haruhi Suzumiya was the talk of anime fandom, in the same manner how Taylor Swift today has kept herself the center of attention in music after all those years. I never saw the appeal, apart from just being sickened by her self-centered character for reasons which were beyond me at the time. She's suffocatingly obnoxious.

The idea touched on that Haruhi happens to warp reality to her will, like a Goddess or a Singularity. The first season blew up like wildfire, but the second season had those Endless Eight episodes where Haruhi unconsciously made everyone repeat the same two weeks of summer, over and over, simply because rileycs-- oops, Haruhi felt dissatisfied and bored - which only highlighted the fundamental problem with Haruhi which is that she is a narcissist, like Taylor Swift and Mark Carney.

There's always going to be those shows or people who end up massively well liked like a viral meme, but deep down you don't really get the appeal about them and even resent them for being *everywhere* like how Elizabeth resents her alter ego Sue in The Substance. But what they all have in common is being oddly out of touch with the realities of genuine human vulnerability. Suffering, pain, enemies, anguish, encountering real love and all the sacrifices which come with that. Haruhi and Taylor Swift never change or grow because they have no inner lives or genuine depth, it's just the same overrated schtick with a fresh coat of paint like prettyboy's Tilted Zone Wars (XA) in Fortnite, which my map "Dairy Tilted Urban Warfare" started as a copy of, and Taylor always seems to be crapping out songs about her numerous ex-boyfriends or her jealous haters.

Unlike Haruhi who fizzled out of public consciousness like Hitler's spell upon Germans after his death, another show, Claymore, is something I love. Not because of the music, art style or having "stunning animation quality" which is far from the case. (I was blocked on X by some account fetishising animation quality, when I said I'm not in my teens or 20s anymore and don't care about being wowed or dazzled by how much sweat and come is poured into dem "calls attention to itself" shaky-cam action scenes, any more than how much sweat is poured by nerds into explanations about why you're wrong about XYZ on Reddit or a YouTube video essay, or authors who try to dazzle readers with their florid vocabulary, sentence composition.)

Unlike Haruhi, Claymore is unpretentious and instead of focusing on a general harem of warriors like the overrated Attack on Titan, it focuses on a particular woman's journey, Clare. She's suffered through a whole lot, but it was her unrelenting devotion with Teresa, wanting revenge on Priscilla who took her away, and Raki's devotion back to Clare which endows everything with a timelessness. Real heroes are singular, are not supposed to be cool/badass or gifted or well-liked by everyone, and are very much painfully ordinary. They struggle with a loneliness or weakness which sets them apart from everyone else.

I never got around to watching Haruhi, and Taylor Swift along with her music is going to age like spoiled milk.