Discussion topic for Hijiri’s character in AIR. Feel free to discuss anything from Kano’s route, but mark any references to events outside of Kano’s arc and the common route with the [spoiler] tag.
AIR Bookclub discussion starts from the first reply.
Her birthday is the 3rd of January.
Hijiri, much like Yukito in a sense, is a very no-nonsense person with a huge devotion to her imouto, Kano (maybe a little too much devotion… :/). Much like how Kano’s personality is a little too close to Misuzu’s, Hijiri’s is a bit too close to Haruka’s, the main difference being that she actually does care a lot about Kano.
One thing that bugs me about Hijiri is that she does tend to get a little too affectionate of her sister at times, sometimes to the point of flaunting Kano’s sexuality at Yukito, yet telling him to back off ‘because she’s MINE!’ or something like that. Something else that bothers me near the end of Kano’s route is that she becomes completely oblivious to any thought of Yukito having sex with Kano, which strikes me as rather odd and out-of-character for Hijiri. So I want to bring this up, if it’s okay to put Key Points here: Why does Hijiri ignore the possibility of naughty things happening to Kano at this point? Has she come to the conclusion that Yukito made up his mind to stay, or is she reading into Kano’s desire to be with Yukito forever? What do you guys think about this?
Otherwise, I think Hijiri is a very good mentor character and the source of many jokes within the route. Hijiri best anego. 
I forgot to talk about Hijiri in this topic. Well, I already brought up my keypoint in the Kano thread so I guess I’ll talk about Hijiri here.
Yeah, Hijiri is a fun person. Her chemistry with Yukito is really interesting to read and it adds to the entertainment factor.
But I really really dislike how she brought up Kano.
Firstly, she obviously spoils her way too much. Secondly, she tries to make Kano forget about her problems instead of actually solving it. Sure, she tries in her own way, but she seems to not be willing to let anybody else help her with those problems. Well, anybody except Yukito, that is.
So I disagree with her being a good mentor character as she never really says anything insightful or helpful either. Like, when you get past her whole “older sister” vibe, you can see that she ends up an overprotective and selfish sister. Everything she does, she does for Kano, but she doesn’t seem to realize what would be best for Kano.
This concludes the AIR Bookclub discussion. Thanks for joining everyone, and I hope to see you in the Misuzu route discussion!
If anybody was interested in what Hijiri’s shirt said, I decided to do a little digging. Take the following with a grain of salt, I’m not at all proficient with the language.
At some point during Kano’s route (August 3rd), Yukito receives a matching shirt and describes its Kanji. I looked them up in my Kanji dictionary and these are the characters: 通天門. “Pass / communicate,” “heaven,” and “gate.”
If you have a copy of “The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary: Revised and Expanded,” then you can find them on pages 895, 990, and 266 respectively.
Google Translate didn’t yield a meaningful translation. It was pretty much random. If I set it to Chinese instead, it says “Babel door.” (“Babel” having religious significance.)
I remember someone having asked what her shirt said, but when I went back to find that, I didn’t see anything in the common or Kano discussions.
For reference, this is the shirt:
Are you certain the kanji is 通天門 and not 通天閣?
通天閣 is Tsuutenkaku, the name of a landmark in Osaka, Japan. IIRC, the bus driver asked Yukito if he was from Osaka when he was wearing the shirt Hijiri gave him.
EDIT: And there’s this art by based ZEN too: http://suezen.pro.tok2.com/hijiri.htm
As well as this post by haeleth: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t4UG0CCedEsJ:forums.novelnews.net/showthread.php%3Fp%3D6743+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
I think Sheeta or whoever translated that part just messed up. I don’t know how you could possibly mess that up, but…
There’s two points at which the kanji actually appear in the narration when Yukito comments on them. This is one:
And the other is, as NotKyon said, when Yukito gets spare clothes from Kano that have the same text on them (don’t have a screenshot of that).
Fortunately, I had taken a screenshot when I saw it. So I have this readily available:
[quote=“Rincchi, post:6, topic:768”]
Are you certain the kanji is 通天門 and not 通天閣?
通天閣 is Tsuutenkaku, the name of a landmark in Osaka, Japan. IIRC, the
bus driver asked Yukito if he was from Osaka when he was wearing the
shirt Hijiri gave him.[/quote]
That might be a flaw in the translation (somehow). But 通天閣 would make more sense, especially in light of it being a landmark in Osaka. Thanks!
Translation error? But surely they just took the kanji from the original Japanese script and left it unchanged right? It wouldn’t make sense for them to screw this up.
Actually one thing about Hijiri that was seriously out of character was her literally asking Yukito for help at the end of Kano’s route. And if you chose not to, there were no hints or anything to say Hijiri actually did something.
Meanwhile if you chose yes, Hijiri then wants you to bring her back yourself. Yourself. After all Hijiri’s done for Kano, she asks you, a stranger who’s been there for only 2 weeks, is taking up space and money at the clinic, and even screwed your sister, to save her?
I still love her though.
I would say it would be out of character for her at the start of the route, but as the route progressed and Yukito and Kano’s relationship moved forward you can see Hijiri slowly start turning over more and more responsibility to Yukito as far as Kano is concerned. In fact the night of the H-scene we see her straight up leave Kano in Yukito’s care for the night, so by the end of the route I feel like Hijiri had come to accept that Yukito was the one who Kano was relying on now so she felt comfortable turning to him for help at the end.
Hijiri came across as such an awesome character in the common route, but by the time Kano route came around, she didn’t really… Do anything. She kinda just doted on Kano way too much. I guess I can respect her dedication to trying to protect Kano from her condition by putting up the facade that everything’s okay, but it does come across as overbearing from an outside perspective, and I think it also added to Kano’s guilt. Shame. She deserved a better route ^^;
I still think that the way Hijiri raised Kano was actually detrimental to Kano’s own development D; She was very overprotective and wanted to keep her sister “pure” from any sad thoughts, not realizing those kind of sad thoughts are what help people grow.
I agree with this 100 percent. Hijiri effectively shunted Kano’s growth by trying to shield her from life basically. A lot of people’s knock on Kano is that she does come across as needy and a bit bratty, but you can see where that portion of her personality grew from, since Hijiri sorta bowed down to her every whim she never learned what it was to be told no and so she never really grew out of it. But at the same time its hard to blame Hijiri for that, she was basically thrust into a mother’s role while she was still learning about the world herself, and so she adapted to the hand she had been dealt the best way she knew how to and that was becoming overly doting of Kano. Was it the perfect way to handle the situation? No but the situation was as bad if not worse for her as it was for Kano at the time.
Reflecting on it now, I’d say Hijiri’s role within Kano’s route could be considered to be letting Kano “leave the nest and fly.” (Metaphorically, of course.) Oh, and comic relief.
On the other hand… to twist @Bowiie’s words around, and also provide a pretty warped viewpoint: Blame Hijiri for Kano’s route being… what it was. (Okay, but not really though. Considering the circumstances, Hijiri did a pretty good job. And there were other factors too.)
I guess even after all this, I don’t really have a solid view on Hijiri. She’s the type of person I’d like to interact with a few times at least.
In my opinion, it is too bad that it have not described Hijiri as a mad scientist officially (on the canon). I believe it bring out her charm.
Hijiri as a character fascinates me and is a large contributor to how and why I came to love the alleged worst route in Key’s history. As I have touched on before AIR ultimately is a story about the formation of a family and Yukito’s assimilation into the Kirishima household is a wonderful expression of this idea. Hijiri is a great example of what I like to call Nasu writing, in which a character’s motivations and ideals are painted out beneath their outward actions. In this way the reader gets a feel for how the character thinks outside of their superficial actions. Where this applies to Hijiri is primarily in her interactions with Yukito as the story progresses. Both Hijiri and Kano grow a slow but steady and effective affection for Yukito as the arc runs, but the evidence of this affection is written so smoothly and superbly that is really felt organic. The reader is not told outright that Hijiri is growing to like Yukito, as that is not the kind of person that Hijiri is nor is that sort of blunt monologue organic or deft, rather we see it in her actions.
Things like her allowing Yukito into the clinic and ultimately the emotional hard hitter of her asking Yukito to work at the clinic, stopping his journey and joining their family are not only a more meaningful way of displaying Hijiri’s affection than outright stating it, they also do wonders to characterize Hijiri as a person who is, in an amusing way, rather dishonest with her feelings when it comes to any character besides her sister Kano.
Hijiri’s most defining feature is her devotion. She works hard without complaining and wants simply the warmth of family and well being of her sister that was all she had for the longest. Hijiri cutting into the government stipend that keeps them afloat to pay for Yukito to remain in town, to stay with Kano and her, bringing more happiness into their lives, was touching. And this is all done, as stated, in the Nasu school of subtle and flowing writing, of characterization through action. Hijiri gets few moments as a character to be introspective, we very rarely get a peek into her head, but in spite of that by the end of Kano’s route I have a firm understanding of her character, her, Kano, Yukito, and Potato feeling like a real family.
It is here that Kano’s route excels. The construction of this family is genuine and tangible. By the end Hijiri stands out to me as one of the better supporting characters of any Key story. The Key stories have often had a slew of sub characters that exist only in the context of a single route. But among the Amanos and the Komari’s grandpas, Hijiri stands a cut above as a truly realized secondary character and I think that’s amazing.
AIR is the best.
Stay golden,
Bread
