Reasons why YURIPPE isn't Haruhi.
1. Recruitment of Underlings
First off, I just thought we should get into their different methods of
recruitment. Haruhi is marked by the fact that she always demands things
from others for what amounts to no particular reason. This extends to
how she winds up with the four members of the SOS Brigade. It is a group
of people, from Haruhi’s point of view at least, who were forced into
this club for no reason except that they happened to pass by. Let me
remind you that Kyon is the only member of that group that isn’t there
because someone else told them to do it. Haruhi is basically the leader
of a group of observers who never seemed to have an interest of actually
being friends with her outside of their duty to be friends with her.
Yurippe, however, seemed to just find people who, like her, were given
the short stick in life, and wanted to rebel against the idea of a god
that would let that happen. First episode, Otonashi arrives in the
afterlife conveniently next to Yurippe. She gives him a simple offer, he
can join her group or not. He chooses not to, and she does
not force him to join. Later, he finds themselves within
their headquarters. It does take the guy some convincing to join, but
it’s always clear that he does not need to accept. The important
difference you should come out of this with is that Yurippe respects the
will of other people, Haruhi does not.
2. Treatment of
Underlings
Now, like my previous point stated, a slight
similarity between these two girls is that they are the leaders of a
group. However, the way they run these groups and the amount of respect
they give their members is completely different. As I stated, Haruhi
forces people to do things for her. She treats the members of the SOS
Brigade as nothing but the tools to meet her end. Case in point, the
baseball game, advertising for the club, movie production, outright blackmail,
all coercions using people to get what she wants. I would also just
like to note that she commits what is in no uncertain terms sexual
assault against Mikuru on what we can only assume is a
frequent basis.
Now
we come to Yurippe. Yurippe has a much different leadership role than
Haruhi for the fact that she actually partakes in military skirmishes on
a daily basis. She commands her group not as some afterschool club, but
as a battlefront in the war against what she believes to be an unjust
god. Sure, Yurippe has been guilty of belittling her own people, but
you can always tell that it’s in the kind of jest that someone makes
between friends. Lord knows I’ve ragged on my friends and get ragged on
all the time, but it’s never meant maliciously. The true extent to how
she cares about her group is highlighted in the second episode. In it,
along with the most intriguing example of what one is capable of when
they know they can’t die, is how she reacts as those around her
sacrifice themselves or fall victim to traps and die. She doesn’t blame
them, she questions her own leadership. She cares about her group so
much that, even though she knows they are perfectly fine, the idea that
maybe she could have been better, that more could have survived, haunts
her.
3.
Backstory and Personality
Honestly, I don’t
know if this has been explained, I only know as much as the anime goes
unfortunately, but Haruhi really doesn’t have a lot of backstory. She is
god, we don’t know why she just is. Even when they go back to the even
three years ago there isn’t much revealed about her except for the ever
prevalent fact that she is a selfish bitch. When Kyon goes back in time,
he just becomes Haruhi’s bitch again and draws some lines on the ground
to “attract aliens”. As for her personality, this is pretty much as
biased as you can get, but if you can gather from what I’ve been saying
this whole article, I have little good to say about Ms. Suzumiya’s
character. She is selfish, doing what she wants however she can get it
done. She’s almost one dimensional in the way that she’s just this
selfish platform from which they drive the plot. How do we decide what
the episodes gonna be about? Let’s have Haruhi bitch about something and
then drag everyone along to get it done for her. Brilliant.
Yurippe’s
biggest source of backstory was the life she led before she died. It is
an incredibly depressing tale. If you haven’t watched the series,
spoiler alerts from episode two, but maybe this’ll get you interested in
the show then. Yurippe lived a normal life with her three sisters. As
the oldest of them, she was in charge of taking care of them when her
parents were gone. One night, burglars break in. When they can’t find
anything valuable, they force Yurippe to look for any valuables they
believe their parents hid. If she didn’t come back quickly enough, her
sisters would die one by one. She fails, and all three sisters are
brutally murdered. She was supposed to take care of them, but she was
helpless to do anything to help them. It is also important to note how
she assures Otonashi that she didn’t let the depression lead her to
suicide. While she still feels the guilt, she was not overcome by it.
This is the driving notion behind the idea to rebel against a god that
would allow her sisters to be murdered in such a way. It explains how
she can be a bit callous, but most importantly it explains her purpose.
Why she fights. Why she is different from Haruhi Suzumiya.