Character Study-Kyon

((New little thing here. I've always thought that characters really make or break stuff for me, so why not look at some?))


                Kyon may be one of my favorite protagonists of all time. Never before has a main character or narrator been so relatable. He thinks in such a way that most readers can immediately identify with him. So who is Kyon? He's your average Japanese freshmen (equivalent to an American sophomore), a bit of a cynic, a smartass, and while his grades suck, he's actually quite intelligent. He's just lazy, and isn't very good at many of the subjects they study at school. He's also pretty spineless, and only rarely does he back up his words of woe with any action. He's quite a static character, with exception to the movie and 4th book, but I'll save that for it's own review.

                How the medium accomplishes setting his character is different depending on the source. The books have him narrate the entire thing in first person, leading to several times where several paragraphs are entirely made up of his rambling train of thought. As a master rambler myself, this is great to see done so well. In the anime, he still narrates everything, but the time limit of the episode restricts the amount of rambling available. They make up for this with by literally giving him a voice. The original Japanese seiyuu is Tomokazu Sugita, an apparent badass from what I hear. You may have heard him as Hideki from Chobits and Gintoki from Gintama. As Kyon...he's okay. I won't say he's great, but he doesn't stand out much either, especially compared to Aya Hirano as Haruhi, who I'll talk about when we get to her. In America, he's voiced by Crispin Freeman. And...wholy shit. Not only is this the best acting in the dub, not only the best acting in any dub of the show, not only the best job Freeman's ever done (and that's saying something), it may be one of the greatest bits of voice-acting in anime history. I seriously love his performance that much. Freeman's other roles include Jeremiah Gottwald from Code Geass and Itachi Uchiha from Naruto, among many others.


                To sum things up, Kyon is easily one of the my favorite characters in anime history. While he may not develop much, he doesn't really seem to need it. He's an interesting person, and one most fans relate to at a close level. Laters.