Pillow Talk, Part II

Haruhara Haruko:
Haruko is the Vespa/Rabbit riding, Rickenbacker bass wielding, “splendiferous house keeper at Ta-Kun’s house,” who’s “…at least twenty years old” (according to Mamimi) and happens to be the main catalyst for events in the story. The main events of the plot start when Haruko runs over Naota with her Vespa (its actually a Japanese brand called a Rabbit but in the show it’s referred to as a Vespa, so I’ll be referring to it as such), gives him mouth-to-mouth, decides she’d better hit him again when she realizes he isn’t dead, hits him in the head with her left handed Rickenbacker bass, and shakes him stating that “it“ won‘t come out. This causes a bump to form later on Naota’s head (the “it” Haruko was referring to) from which the first two robots (Canti and a hand monster) spring. As for why Haruko is doing all of this, well…..
She’s an alien. A galaxy space patrol officer to be exact, supposedly on the tail of an “astral being named Atomsk” who apparently has so much NO “he can steal whole start systems.” The things is, Atomsk has been captured by a shady organization named Medical Mechanica (more on them later). The other things is, Haruko isn’t tracking Atomsk because she wants to capture him, it turns out she’s in love with him (supposedly, her actions raise some questions as to her true motives). So Haruko chases Atomsk around the universe and presumably does battle with Medical Mechanica along the way (we never really get a history of Haruko vs. MM but its pretty safe to assume based on some off hand comments made throughout the show). Then she comes to Earth. And as stated above, meets Naota and our story takes off. Haruko’s motive’s aren’t really clear up until the end. At first she appears to have come to Earth to help protect it from MM (not the case AT ALL). It’s implied that Haruko has been to Earth before because Amarao (who will be referred to as Eyebrows from now on) implies that he knows her multiple times (he talks to Naota about what a big mistake it is to get involved with her) in the baseball episode especially, claims to know her real name, says he wants to impress a girl that he hasn’t seen for a long time (Haruko is the only one he could be realistically be talking about), and Haruko says his guitar is small, “as usual” (in the fifth episode) and that perhaps what’s happening with Naota has happened before on Earth with Eyebrows (its clear that Eyebrows was once/still is in love with Haruko and that she doesn’t reciprocate those feelings) although if it was there’s a good chance it wasn’t successful (Haruko tells Naota repeatedly that “his head is the only one that works” and when she pulls Eyebrows guitar out of his head its small and ineffectual) which leaves a lot of things unexplained (how earth is still even there for one, but I’ll deal with more of this later when I get into the plot). Haruko clearly hates MM, although its more for imprisoning Atomsk than for what they’re doing on a larger scale: almost all of her actions are motivated by her desire to free Atomsk. She often manipulates Naota in order to further her own plans and uses other people, like Naota’s dad, to get Naota to do what she wants. However, despite her plotting, many of the things that trigger robots to emerge from Naota’s head occur without Haruko’s interference. Much of the above needs to be explained so…
Haruko, Atomsk, and the Channel to N.O.:
Basically Haruko can open a portal using “the left and right brain’s distinct thought processes” that is “capable of pulling things through from light years away.” This is the explanation they give for the robots that emerge from Naota’s head (I’ll get into what I think exactly causes them later). The idea behind this is to pull through robots made by MM until Atomsk appears (either as a robot since he’s imprisoned by MM or to keep MM from accomplishing their goals: its never definitively stated whether Haruko knows Atomsk is imprisoned in Canti). Haruko is capable of doing battle with the MM robots that come out of Naota’s head but she never actually defeats one without Canti’s help and while in the earlier fights its more of a partnership once it comes to the fourth episode its clear that Haruko can’t do any real damage to the robot. Its often unclear how much Haruko knows about the portal. She says early on that the channel is imperfect, when in fact it turns out that its capable of pulling Atomsk through in his true form. Eyebrows tells her that when Canti turns red, the red version is Atomsk; she responds to this in an odd manner. She gets extremely angry although we can’t be certain if its because she didn’t know this information, if she’s angry at what Eyebrows is insinuating (the fact that Atomsk can in fact be contained inside a MM robot and what that implies (that if she gains those powers she may still not be able to completely be invulnerable from MM)), or if she’s angry that Eyebrows is stupid enough to insinuate that a robot is Atomsk’s true form (it shows that he thinks Atomsk has a humanoid form, I’ll discuss whether or not that’s correct later). She also is unsure that Naota is the correct channel for the portal, shown through her attempt to use his dad’s head (which doesn’t work). Despite the fact that her exact knowledge about the portal remains somewhat of a mystery we do see that Haruko manipulates Naota in order to get the robots to come out. We see in the last episode that she’s gained his trust in order to feed him to the terminal core to make Atomsk appear (presumably to save Earth or wreak vengeance on MM). Haruko also exploits Naota in the baseball episode by making him believe she’s in a relationship with his dad (which just turns out to be a robot of hers) in order to make Naota overflow with jealousy and another robot to emerge. The fact that Haruko manipulates Naota leads us to the conclusion that she believes that if the situation becomes dire enough (the robots become more powerful as the emotions that cause them become more potent) Atomsk will step in (leading us down the line of reasoning once again that Canti is Atomsk considering he is the most powerful being pulled through outside of the actual Atomsk which is pulled through by Naota’s true love for Haruko and his brother but since Mamimi’s love for Tasuku and jealousy of Tasuku’s new girlfriend is clearly the second most powerful emotion that overflows in the series). However she seems to believe that lust will bring the true Atomsk through. This is why she flirts and is overtly sexual with Naota throughout the series: when she ties to make him jealous by seemingly having sex with his dad for example. She becomes more and more overtly sexual, pulling his guitar (in an extremely double entendre filled scene) out from inside him as well as trying to have sex with him in the second to last episode (they’re in bed, she’s wearing a slip, on top of him, yeah). She doesn’t know what love (what truly brings out Atomsk in my opinion) is, only lust (which she has for Atomsk, she wants his power more than anything as we find out at the end when she battles Naota for it). Its evident from conversations Eyebrows has about Haruko as well as through his interactions with a female member of his team he only understands relationships in an immature lustful manner.
Haruko learns some humanity:
Haruko clearly plays to the fact that Naota misses his brother and sort of fills in that roll for him. During the first battle on the bridge when Naota sees her swing her guitar for the first time he says his brother’s name (in the original Japanese, not the dub). Haruko teaches Naota to “swing the bat” (literally and figuratively) which his brother never really did (its stated multiple times in the baseball episode that Naota doesn’t swing the bat when playing baseball; he doesn’t swing the bat when it comes to other things like Mamimi either (Mamimi also claims that Naota isn’t one to swing the bat)). Haruko also takes Naota riding on her moped by the beach which he says he’s never done and clearly enjoyed. There’s a particularly poignant scene in the last episode after Haruko returns when Naota hugs her and starts crying and asking why she left (clearly he’s talking about not just Haruko but his brother). Haruko one of the only characters that treats Naota like the kid that he is and doesn’t expect him to be his brother. She tells him multiple times that he shouldn’t come with her because he’s still just a kid (and has lots of life ahead of him to experience). Haruko does come to gain some humanity and care for Naota to come degree. This manifests itself in her taking him on a vacation of sorts when she returns from space in the last episode (this can be argued as manipulation but I think it can be both at the same time, I think its motivated a little bit by each factor). When Naota gains Atomsk’s power at the end and then confesses his love to Haruko, Atomsk emerges in his true from Haruko sees that Atomsk emerges through the portal when love overflows. She then acts like an older brother to Naota telling him that he shouldn’t come with her, that he’s still a kid and that he’ll get it next time (talking about being in love). This compassion from Haruko shows that she’s gone beyond simply manipulating Naota by acting as a brother stand in and truly cares about him.