ANIME: Haganai

Anime sometimes produces really great shows. Haganai is one of them. It means "Neighbors club". Its a club for school weirdos who want to learn how normal people are friends together, without actually being friends themselves, because they're a club about being friends. Like it was research. I can say that its sort of a gender-flipped Genshiken, in a high school instead of a college. Genshiken is more specific, but both are about non-conformist types trying to find friendship in a world that won't accept them as they are. A lot of people feel that way. In America, its okay to be weird. In Japan, its a death sentence. Maybe literally. I suspect, from the anime about feeling isolated, that Japan has a major problem with isolation in its youth. They certainly lack job opportunities or growth industries. Its a dead zone, economically, in full collapse, steady state in the high points but no jobs for everybody else. Very sad.

Haganai Club Members Photo

I like Haganai for several reasons.

1. The little sister is one of the best and most believable younger siblings ever. I think she's at least as good and possibly better than Kyon's little sister in Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. She is ten and obsessed with a TV vampire anime series to the point she dresses like a goth lolita and wears a red contact lens in one eye. The hero is her guardian and caregiver, doing all the household things himself so she can be safe and happy and comfort her during her childhood meltdowns.
2. The main character really is a decent guy, acting as his sister's guardian, taking care of her, cooking their meals to the point he's actually fairly serious about cookware and nutrition. I know that feeling. He's very responsible about it all too, unlike his parents who are very much absentee. The harem around him? Unwanted. He was strong-armed into the place and he stays out of curiosity and hope that eventually the social skills he learns will reverse the terrible decline in his reputation as a brutal thug because he has blond hair. It's Japan. Japan does Not Make Sense.
3. The blonde rich girl (Sena) is growing on me. She's offensively obnoxious, but ridiculously thin skinned to teasing. She has blonde hair and huge tits and is good at everything. She's nice when she isn't bragging about herself. And her appeal just keeps growing. She despises people worshiping her just because she's pretty and talented, so she joined the club to find out what a real friend is like. Which is why Yozora constantly teases her. Her father (the school Dean) and the Hero's father are school friends and drinking buddies. Both are nudging the two of them together romantically. She has a tendency to play dating simulations, forgetting the character she is playing is MALE.
4. The brunette girl (Yozora) with the dark impulse to attack all women around her is transparent in her goal to protect her turf (him) from poaching by all the competition. Her jealousy is a defining control over her impulsive behavior. The other women are clueless. Her history with the hero is intriguing, as a past, but she is presently an uberbitch, very much on purpose, because she enjoys the power of manipulating people. She is a quieter Tsundere. She's also the driving power behind the club's formation and activities. 
5. The trap has a secret. One we don't learn until second season. And he's hilarious. He wants to be a proper samurai so picks the hero to serve as his lord, a man who is clearly intimidating and revered by all the students. He calls the Hero Aniki, which is how Yakuza refer to each other. In his way, it makes sense. Its just how he expresses it... in a skirt and maid uniform. Yozora explained that a proper man is masculine no matter what he's wearing. But the trap is uber-feminine to the point that his changing clothes makes the other boys flee the room. So wearing the girly clothes just makes him look more like a girl. There's all kinds of wrong with that.
6. The little girl nun is nearly as funny as the hero's little sister. My friend That Guy(tm) said he would watch a show about their battles together. As little sisters go they really are funny. She's tested out of school at 10, is technically a teacher, but says "poop! Poopy poop!" in her tiny nun outfit when she's flustered, and mostly eats potato chips till the hero feeds her real food and instantly becomes her older brother. This sparks a war between her and his real sister, who attends club to keep an eye on him.
7. The nun's older sister, also a nun, is too sexy and sexualized to be anything religious other than a priestess of Isis (goddess of sex). We only see her in the second season and she's a female version of the hero, only her relationship with the younger isn't quite as smooth. 
8. The Spark girl, who is a proper inventor Hikikomori genius, joins the club to flirt outrageously with both genders, mostly to get a rise out of people. She's so uncomfortable with others she hides behind oversexualizing everyone. She's cute when she isn't pissing people off, but she pisses people off most of the time. 

So yeah, a good show for people who aren't good at being around other people. Its on Hulu.com. One warning however. The show is listed as for Mature Audiences due to female nudity and sexual implications or subjects. Once in a while there's some lines crossed to make a point, so it isn't really good for kids to watch. In Japan the rules on sexuality are very different from the rest of the European world, so what's okay to put on TV there isn't allowed here. Japan also has a consistently WRONG understanding of xtianity and nuns in particular so nuns are never depicted right in anime. As there really aren't many in Japan in the first place this rarely matters, but the cultural bias lingers in their popular media, like anime, and you just have to think: they're only dressed like nuns, not nuns. The Japanese don't seem to understand the sacrilege.