Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow; no tomorrow, no tomorrow

Despite being so fragile, so transient... the years and months composing ten billion years ...are, to the point of sorrow, endearing

Panglossian

The term panglossian is an adjective and refers to to extreme optimism, particularly in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity.

Many people dislike ImaSoko because of Shuu or just dislike Shuu because they feel his overoptimism takes away from the story. In the middle of a war fought by preteens and teens, death everywhere, a man shot in the head point blank range right before his eyes, Shuu remains a positive.

If we had only known Shuu from the events in Heliwood and Zali Barth, then it would be a far assumption that he may suffer from optimism bias; defined by Wiki as “The demonstrated systematic tendency for people to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. This includes over-estimating the likelihood of positive events and under-estimating the likelihood of negative events.”. It would seem like the events would have triggered this optimism, as opposed to pessimism or detachment, as everyone reactors to stressors differently. However, Shuu was like this from the beginning, happy go lucky and cheerful. So while the events of Heliwood certainly made a mark on him, he reacts with renewed optimism.

Shuu is one of the few characters without blood stained hands - he never kills anyone. Even after Nabuca's death and Shuu is completely enraged and begins to beat Hamdo with his stick, to the point of breaking the stick to bits, he pauses, realizing rage has taken him over. When given the chance to whip Tabur and the other boys who beat him, Shuu refuses, saying that it isn't fair to fight someone who can't fight back. He isn't into the eye for an eye doctrine of retribution.

So does this make Shuu phony? Unbearable? Hell, even in the middle of the dry apparently barren desert flowers grow and there is life. I think the purpose of Shuu's characters was not to have an optimist character; rather Shuu is a symbol for mankind's goodness and indefatigable spirit. The world is full of hatred, killing, apathy, but there is still good. Shuu stands for the better angels of our nature.