Daria

I've currently substituted my Kamen Rider watching with the catching up on a cultural milestone, MTV's "Daria".

I'm not sure if you'll be surprised or not when I say I really REALLY like this show. Some people know me as this really upbeat guy (I feel like the number who believe that to be the whole of who I am has been over taking the other group), and the other group that thinks "why wouldn't you like Daria? It's basically you on screen there."

I was quite surprised by the emotional nature of the character. Despite the monotone voice, the extra helping of intelligence, the rigid expectations (hmm, perhaps BECAUSE of the rigid expectations..)- she is very often an insecure girl that is just lashing out. Oh, not all the time. No, don't worry fans, Daria most assuredly strikes a blow against the inane for the sake of itself, but she also does it because she's angry or scared or whatever. Sometimes she even realizes it too. She may even realize it once an episode (okay, that's taking things too far).

Regardless, though I'd have enjoyed her as a mouthpiece for cynical outbursts, I'm quite glad to see her as a sympathetic role model that offers something to her audience beyond caustic wit.

I've gone through over 3/5's of the series, with special note going to the season finales. Burning through so many episodes so fast, I'm not sure if this is the second or third finale, but the episode where she engages in writing a "roman à clef " (a concept I have introduced to the blog before, but wikipedia it if you forget. Or if you need a handy copy paste source so you can get the accent over the 'a' easier) was really great as far as I'm concerned. Daria can't figure out what to write because nothing she comes up with says anything about anything. Her mother ends up giving a speech about how Daria cuts people off from her true thoughts with a glib joke, that maybe instead of using her talent for pointing out how things are wrong, that she actually sits down and writes what she'd like things to be like. What would be right? Show us that! And she proceeds to write a story about herself, an adult now, visiting her parents, her sister shows up and has matured into a caring mother herself, and it's really sweet to get this from Daria. We cut to the "real" world as the mother reads this story and cries with joy at it.

It was really great, if nothing else, watch that episode. I'm almost positive it stands up on it's own, no previous familiarity required. Though it surely helps, emphasis wise.

I'll be sad when this show is over, but hey, there's always more Kamen Rider to get back to. (A lot more!)