I don’t understand the allure behind Anaru.

I feel it, of course, just as surely as everybody else seems to feel it.  (Even Peter Payne of J-List recently commented on how taken with her he is–  which, in its way, is a very good measure of popularity.)  But her charms are so mysterious that I can’t help but want to explore them.  I’m drawn to her, but why?  What is the je ne sais quoi of Anjou Naruko?

Screencap taken from Thoughtcannon's post on My Sword is Unbelievably Dull... Which, if you've read it, gives this a perverse sort of poetry.

A few years ago, a writer friend taught me a trick to make characters more vibrant and memorable: Just make them contradict themselves.  The only people who live with absolute consistency are sociopaths.  The rest of us are full of all sorts of little hypocrisies, harmless or otherwise, which we either justify or simply fail to recognize.  As readers, witnessing this kind of self-betrayal drives our feelings about the characters.

For an easy example, take Yukiatsu.  He’s easy to hate as a cold, disdainful know-it-all who looks down on Jinta’s fixation on the past.  Having him abruptly “outed” five episodes later as a total hypocrite (and a rather flamboyant one at that) is immensely satisfying…  And oddly enough, it also gives him just the right emotional currency to start becoming likable.  Contradictions drive our feelings.

As for young Miss Naruko, let’s not be coy about it: Her childhood nickname is a homonym for anal sex.  At her age, it sounds like something the boys in a bad school would call the notorious town bicycle.  And yet she’s as pure as the driven snow, despite her dyed hair and her skirt hiked up too high, and the sketchy friends she hangs with who probably wouldn’t mind if she lived up to an epithet like “Anaru.”

The nickname hasn’t been exploited quite so explicitly yet (with the notable exception of “Hooray Anaru’s jelly!”), but lord knows everyone’s thinking it.  Her unfortunate nickname puts her innocence in high contrast.  And despite being in the beautiful bad girl crowd, she is a true innocent: Sensitive, naïve, and so very easily manipulated…  I’m sure that has something to do with it too.