Saya no Uta: Grotesquery, Beauty, and Love of The Other

Hear me out: Song of Saya is justified in its use of loli because it's a response to Nabokov's Lolita. The protagonist of Lolita, Humbert Humbert, makes a big deal about how he isn't attracted to all children, but just particular girls; "nymphets", aged 9-14, whose "true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac)". He goes on a whole (self-aggrandising) screed about how you have to be a "madman" of "infinite melancholy" to discern between the two. The characteristics of a nymphet are mysterious, graceful, charming slender limbs... and "slightly feline" features. In other words, Saya. Song of Saya is a complete inversion of the paradigm which Humbert wishes to project. Humbert is a lifelong egotist and manipulator; Fuminori was a plain, average man who became a depressed misanthropist suddenly. Humbert sought out psychiatrists just to screw with them; Fuminori refuses to disclose his severe anddistressing neurodivergence to anyone. Humbert dedicates pages of the book to his personal dislike of regular American culture; Fuminori can barely stomach *perceiving* the gore and rot he sees and smells at all times. Humbert is infuriated when Dolores displays thought or feeling or agency and wants to own her; Fuminori is - if nothing else - caring and supportive of Saya and will do anything to protect her. Dolores has very little power, awareness, or control due to her childhood, Saya is more knowledgable, powerful and aware than Fuminori and can manipulate anyone or anything to her liking. These stories are so paralleled that they have a similar plot structure, the first half set in the protagonist domestic life, and the second a runaway to escape the consequences of his actions. By this logic, you can see Song of Saya as a rebuttal that even if Humbert believed the garbage logic he wrote to justify his abuse of a child - even if those ideas were taken to a fantastical extreme - his actions would still be morally indefensible. Using a child's body to feel better about yourself is selfish and inherently violent both to the individuals and - if not stopped - to all of society, and doomed to fail in the process. It may be because I played Song of Saya *after* reading and understanding Lolita as completely non-romantic (as a teenager...) that I couldn't possibly see Fuminori and Saya's "love" as anything more than violence. Fuminori was placed in a terrible situation, but ensured self-destruction by pre-emptively isolating himself from humanity out of fear that he could potentially be dehumanised and victimised. Saya is a child who only knew "love" from a father who noticed her capacity for manipulation and encouraged it so that he could exploit it. She does not understand that it is abhorrent to force others to be more visually pleasing or useful to her, and her offspring are the result of that extreme anti-sociality. I hope this makes it clear why I vibe with a neurodivergent or disabled theory reading, but must strongly disagree with a queer reading. For me to accept the reading of Saya and Fuminori as queer, I would have to accept, for the sake of argument, the premises that queerness is the result of inherent monstrocity or pathological injury; that queer love only occurs as a result of the irrational revulsion of cishetero relationships; that queerness is fetishistic; that queerness is violent and predatory; that queerness is misogynist; that the existence of queerness is degenerate to cishetero society and the concept of beauty in general; that the only possible endings for a queer couple are separation or destruction. I accept none of these things, as they reflect nothing of my experience or observation of queerness, and these are not repeated in Urobuchi's other writings. I am open to discussion on this, but, coming from a place of empathy, it kinda feels like this reading comes from internalised queerphobia. In conclusion, Song of Saya and Lolita are both poignant, repulsive, and very good!

fohfuu