Who among us hasn’t wished that they could turn back time and live their teenage years differently—to try harder in school, be more involved in clubs or athletics, ask that girl out or reject that boy you should never have dated. To just live better.
In Haibara’s Teenage New Game+, the titular salaryman makes a wish that he could relive his high school experience—that he could make it into a “rainbow-colored” youth.
This is anime, so, of course, he gets his wish. And it starts out well. He loses weight. He becomes friends with the popular kids. Girls start to like him.
But soon, things begin to go awry. The one friend he previously admired most pushes him and the rest of the group away. And the culprit?
Haibara himself.
His conflict is with Tatsuya Nagiura, the life of the party and a natural leader. In Haibara’s past life, Tatsuya used to stand up for him, but eventually became frustrated and pushed him away. In this current life, the two are close friends and equals, except that Tatsuya doesn’t actually see it quite that way; when he looks at Haibara, he sees him as beng “perfect.”
Threatened and additionally envious because his crush, Uta, starts to like Haibara, Tatsuya does what he did in the previous life—he pushes his friend away. But even worse, Tatsuya pushes the entire friend group away, including Uta, the girl he’s pining for.
Haibara, in turn, is lost and unsure what to do. The thing is, though he’s technically older and spent his post-high school years developing himself in many aspects, he’s still a little immature. He’s still somewhat emotionally stunted. And he definitely lacks wisdom.
Maybe if we’re being honest with ourselves, we can admit that we’re much the same. After all, being a teenager or a young adult doesn’t make you suddenly wise. Wisdom is something that develops through experience, discipline, and time.
Thankfully, Haibara gains a little wisdom and maturity through this experience—and lends us lessons that may help us gain it as well.
Find Good Friends and Mentors
Haibara initially responds to Tatsuya’s retreat by becoming depressed. This imperfect reaction is probably to be expected. After all, though Haibara has changed the “outside,” transforming on the inside can be a longer process. He hasn’t matured as much as his outward self would make it appear.
Thankfully, his childhood friend, Miori, comes to the rescue.
Miori takes the time to listen to Haibara’s concerns and think on them. Then she comes to a quick conclusion:
Miori tells Haibara how stupid the whole situation is, and she’s right, in a sense. This is all the stuff of misunderstandings. But that doesn’t mean it’s not also real. Relationships can suffer if we’re not willing to communicate, or if we don’t know how.
How often have you lost a relationship or seen one deteriorate because you didn’t know what to do in the face of conflict, or because you didn’t have someone to push you in the right direction? A good friend can do just that. One of the Proverbs (27:9) reads:
Oil and perfume make the heart glad,
and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.
The value of friendship is never seen more than when we’re in a tough situation. With Haibara’s other friends directly involved with the struggles he’s in, it’s a blessing that he can go to someone outside of it all—to his childhood friend.
And while Miori isn’t an older figure, her maturity level is beyond her years. She reminds me somewhat of an elder mentor. Haibara doesn’t seem to have that in his life—either past or present—but someone like that could help even more. I think back to the Bible and of Paul’s constant encouragement of Timothy in his letters; the elder apostle reminds him over and over again that he can do the work, despite his age. How encouraging must that be to hear from someone older, wiser, and more experienced than you!
My own experience has taught me that the words from an older person I trust have an impact on my life. I recently made a big change to focus on a sin I’ve long struggled with because of the advice of a mentor. He was able to cut to the heart of the issue and a offer me a way to deal with it. Without his guidance, I wouldn’t be moving at all.
Love Others Above Yourself
Another thing that Haibara learns over the course of this episode is to care more about others. It’s strange because he obviously does love Tatsuya and his other friends; it’s why he’s feeling so down! But two things can be true at once, and that’s the case here: Haibara loves his friends but isn’t loving them very well.
The episode makes it pretty clear—at issue is how intensely Haibara is focused on living his life. On his concerns. He’s playing this redo like a video game, just doing what is best for him without thinking about how others are impacted at all—at least not beyond just the surface level.
But of course, everything he does affects others—including those he cares about. Including Tatsuya.
We don’t know much about Haibara’s life before his redo. We get glimpses into it, and while he seems to be doing fairly well—he’s growing in various areas, seems to be doing well at work, and appears to be generally happy—we also don’t see a lot of relationships in his life. He remains a longer as a young adult, like he was as a teenager.
When you lack meaningful relationships, you lack the opportunity to learn how to love. Haibara cares for all his friends, but up to this point, he hasn’t really done anything that exhibits a love that’s more than skin-deep. He hasn’t had to sacrifice for them.
But in this situation, Haibara is going to have to sacrifice if he wants to help Tatsuya. In fact, he’s going to have to do the thing which scared me most as a teen and young adult—and which frankly, is still a struggle.
Haibara has to become vulnerable.
What he chooses to do is confront Tatsuya on the rooftop of their school and reveal that he isn’t “perfect.” It’s not easy for Haibara to do. After all, his entire self has been focused on attaining that rainbow-colored life that he didn’t get to enjoy in his youth, and exposing his true self—the overweight, uncool otaku—might derail his plans entirely. It seems counterintuitive.
But that’s love, after all. Returning to Paul, his famous writing on love (I Corinthians 13) reminds us that it is “patient,” “bears all things,” and “does not insist on its own way.”
For Haibara, that means showing the one side of him that he doesn’t want to show anyone. And while it’s played for comedic effect, all the blushing and blubbering and sweat drops indicate the truth—this is scary, even for a twenty-something teen!
But this is also the first time Haibara has really, truly done something loving for his friends, something more than showing surface-level affection. And it has a powerful effect! Tatsuya not only returns to the friend group, but he also finds the courage to pursue Uta despite being immediately rejected in the aftermath of the rooftop scene (Uta and the rest have been listening to the truth spilling of Tatsuya and Haibara’s conversation). Meanwhile, the other friends feel closer to Haibara after learning about his past, deepening all their relationships.
Taking the focus fully off of himself and loving his friends unabashedly leads to something unexpected for Haibara: an even more rainbow-colored youth, one with deeper and more vibrant colors.
Break Out of Your Comfort Zone
Through this entire conflict, I see a stubbornness in Haibara—an unwillingness to deviate from a pattern that feels comfortable for him.
You can detect this in Haibara’s reaction to the falling out with Tatsuya. He worries for a while, and then eventually goes “full emo.” I mean, this guy walks out right into the pouring rain in his school uniform without an umbrella, as if he’s filming a scene in a melodramatic teen drama! It’s almost childlike, but then, too, has been his approach to relationships.
If there’s been an easy criticism of Haibara’s Teenage New Game+, it’s this: The anime is very procedural and superficial. For instance, Haibara became popular really quickly; all it took was a regimen he closely followed as he lost weight, became stylish, earned better grades, and increased his athleticism. He stuck to a routine, and results followed.
But episodes three and four dig a little deeper, showing that relationships don’t work this way. And Haibara, perhaps feeling a bit prideful after seeing his hard work directly lead to such great outcomes, is perplexed and frustrated.
In fact, what’s he’s really been trying to do is take a shortcut in growing his friendships. Haibara treats them like commodities to be moved around and manipulated—if not in his heart, by his actions. Building and maintaining friendships, of course, takes hard work and sacrifice. And unlike seeing your weight decrease as you consume fewer calories, good deeds don’t automatically or always translate into relationship points, which, of course, don’t exist in the first place!
And yet, if we hope for stronger relationships, we must stay the course. We have to spend time with people. Be there for them. Show up. Serve them. Call them up. And be thinking of them.
And in the case of Tatsuya, it also means facing hardship head-on. It means, as I mentioned earlier, being vulnerable. It means sometimes saying things which are uncomfortable.
But it’s worth all the effort if the goal is vital enough or if you love the person. I think we see a bit of this teaching in Jesus’ instruction (Matthew 15:24-26) to take up our cross, for he follows that up with, “…what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” In other words, there’s nothing more important than following Him, and it’s worth dedicating our all to—our energy, our thoughts, our sweat and tears, and our excellence.
And indeed, that’s what both the young adult and teenager in Haibara is learning through his redo—that living a rainbow-colored life is worth it for more reasons than making him “feel good” about his past, and that it takes work and wisdom to do so.
I don’t think the symbolism of the rainbow in that rainbow-colored life is lost on him, either. While Haibara often talks about the “gray adolescence” he experienced, he should comprehend that storms must come first before a rainbow can appear. But thankfully for him and us both, if we make good friends and seek out trusted mentors, they can hold umbrellas over us in the rain.
So as you walk through your youth into young adulthood and beyond, look to Haibara. Learn with him. And remember, if wisdom feels out of reach at this age, that’s okay—we have friends, mentors, and faith along the way to offer guidance as we seek to live a colorful life.
