Heroes 1x20 Five Years Gone (brief rewatch notes)

[oyceter]

Brief notes and fun with pronouns!

Spoilers through 1x20

Dude! Sylar as Nathan totally drops hints throughout the episode! He asks Matt specifically if he's sure our Hiro isn't an illusion ("You never know these days") and he mentioned that he knew how things worked to Mohinder. Also, there is even more Mohinder/Sylar slashy vibe going on.

Of course, the main purpose I rewatched was for the Hiro and Ando scenes, all of which still rock. Brief language notes: our Hiro refers to himself as "boku" (for those who aren't anime/manga fans, this is the somewhat younger and less aggressive sounding male pronoun for "I") whereas future Hiro refers to himself as "ore" (super masculine "I"). Future Hiro also addresses Ando as "omae" (super masculine "you"), and I never caught him actually referring to Ando by name, so I'm not sure if he dropped the "-kun" from "Ando-kun" or not (our Hiro calls him "Ando-kun," dropping the -kun would indicate more intimacy, though adding a -san would indicate less). Our Hiro calls Ando "kimi" in the beginning and probably does throughout the show (more polite, less macho).

But! When future Hiro starts talking to Ando and mentions that "it wasn't as fun without you," he switches over from "omae" to "kimi" (more intimate, less masculine)! Awwwww!

Comments

[xwingace]

In ep 21, when protesting that our Hiro isn't the same as future Hiro, I think he says 'Ore wa mirai no ore janai'... (I can't be entirely sure as that's said really rapidly and I have to go by subtitles most of the time *anyway* since I don't actually speak Japanese. I do know he doesn't actually say Hiro, like the subtitles would suggest) That might be a switch to using the more confident pronoun?

XWA

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

That is just adorable of Hiro. I am so thankful for the internet, since it makes it so much easier for me to understand American and now Japanese Culture.

I was buzzing away to my flatmate about the Sylar and Mohinder vibe - this forming of a personal connection makes Sylar so much more interesting! Does he want a friend, a pet, an idealised replacement of the mentor he was hoping Mohinder's father could be? The whole time I was watching the latest episode and everyone was talking solemnly about how Molly would find Sylar, I was like 'ahaha, you GUYS, just wait around for him to call Mohinder again.'

[naye]

Hi!

Um, I was reading interesting LJs, and ended up here, and saw this post and had to pounce on the subject. Really hope you don't mind my butting in, but - Heroes! Hiro! Pronouns!

That last one I've been pondering for a while. I need to go back and rewatch to be absolutely sure, but I'm of the impression that Hiro actually started off using "ore". Then it changed, and I think the switch to "boku" happened after he failed to save Charlie, and lost faith in his powers. Since then, it seems to me that he's chosen to use "boku" when he's feeling more insecure (of himself/his powers, not so much of the situation), while falling back to "ore" when he's being all determined...

Or that's my non-verified theory of something that could possibly explain the fact that I know he switches pronouns, but have no idea why. I'm not exactly fluent in Japanese, and always before when I've encountered this kind of pronoun switching, it's been in characters who are put in very different situations (adapting to whether they should appear tough or polite, for instance), or who have actual split personalities of some kind... Hiro's way of switching is new to me, and I find it most intriguing!

Oh, I hadn't actually caught that future Hiro did switch back to calling Ando "kimi"! Awwwww! Did Hiro always use "kimi" with Ando, or is that a more recent thing? I have a vague memory of registering an "omae" early on, but I just finished mainlining the show in ten days, and could easily be getting my timeline mixed up...