That was fun, I suppose.
With the exception of the episode shuffling, there’s not a lot I could point to and say, “Nope… didn’t like it.” Not without getting nitpicky, at least. Still, it’s not often that I finish a show of this quality and say, “Gee… I’m glad that’s over with.”
For all the hype, the show didn’t amount to much. And as for the hype itself, I have to say it got especially annoying at its height. It’s like I had someone standing behind me the whole time, smacking me upside the head, screaming, “LOVE THE SHOW! WOOOOOORSHIP THE SHOOOOWWW!”
That got really old, really fast.
Oh well. I tried. But, in the end, I just don’t get it.
The hype was the main reason I could not enjoy the show to the fullest as well. That, and the number of bloodthirsty crazed maniacs.
I do intend to start reading the novels and this will hopefully allow me to escape the frothing fandom. Or join them.
I don’t know why you should let that get to you. It initially got to me a little bit, but in the end I was able to appreciate the show on its own merits.
Or take TJ’s advice: if you can’t beat them, join them.
Good art, consistent animation, played to stereotypes without feeling like a retread of another series. Novels behind it, so there’s plenty of source material. Lots of Easter Eggs for the obsessive, but without getting too self-referential.
It’s not a classic - but it WAS fun, and delivered the goods, animation-wise, in a way that some other heavily hyped shows couldn’t (KIBA, xxxHolic, etc). It was one of the best of what can otherwise be considered a lackluster season.
It was definately a fun ride and I hope there’s a second season, so the characters are more fleshed out…but yes, the rabid fanbase was a turn off. I like the series, but whenever someone made a justifiably critical statement about the show, people would be so vicious and rude. That’s not cool.
The show was banal and shallow as I saw it. That doesn’t mean I hate the show, but I myself was totally stunned and surprised with the popularity. Why do a lot more guys like this than, shall we say, Touch? It definitely wasn’t something special except for its animation.
I thought it was one of the best shows of the season and probably my most favourite new show of the spring season, although I’m not really counting second seasons of older shows here. Otherwise I’d have a tough time deciding between Aria, School Rumble and this show, for the most favourite award. Honourable mentions to Black Lagoon, Higurashi and Saiunkoku Monogatari.
I do agree that certain sections of the fanbase could be especially annoying but I chose to ignore them. Just like with any show I tried not to let the fans or the detractors of the show get to me.
As for the hype, well, at the start there really wasn’t any at all. Very few people took any special interest at that point and most of those were probably novel readers. So when I watchd the first episode it came as somethnig of a surprise, which helps I guess, since going into it I didn’t expect much. It built up massively afterwards though, which is when I switched on my annoyance filters I guess.
Oddly enough, I managed to get to the middle of the series without actually realizing that there was a ‘hype’ to the show to begin with… Which is probably why I was able to enjoy it as much as I did.
On its own merits, Haruhi no Yuutsu is still pretty good… Enough in fact, to warrant a rewatch using Haruhi’s sequence instead of Kyon’s.
This, from someone who’s actually read some of the Haruhi novels. ^^;
Granted it’s not the best, but the show is one of the better series on offer this season (aside from Higurashi and Nanoha).
I quite enjoyed Haruhi, especially in the early episodes, but it seemed fall flat as it carried on, and had a combination of stock one-joke characters, a lack of main plot and nothing about it that leapt out and said “this is great!” apart from the visuals. In fact, many of the episodes began to bore me, and I spent the last few hoping that the end was in sight and the credits would roll.
My views on the show ignored the hype until about the half-way mark, where I was becoming increasingly discontent with how the show was portrayed by many as an excellent, future classic series, and yet I could not see why that was the case; most arguments for the series being so amazing seem to just consist of “Haruhi is easily the best show I have seen for months” without anything to back up this view.
Haruhi was quite fun for me, but it really made me ask questions to myself such as “is there something wrong with me that prevents me from getting this show?”
Jeff, I think that you might be missing the point of the show. You see I don’t really think this show was really meant to be taken all that seriously. The Melancholy of Snakes on a… I mean Suzumiya Haruhi is a parody. I’ve talked to some of my friends and they agree.
And it’s ironic that scifi fanboy crowd took it seriously. And the show itself is making fun of the scifi genre. They actually thought it was a serious scifi. It was actually kind of amusing to see people commenting on how the plot was progressing when some of the plot was probably never meant to make sense.
Okay picture this. Imagine a setting with a bunch of fanboyish scifi types watching that episode where Kyon goes to pick up the heater…what was that episode A Day in the Rain. Then picture the scene that shows Yuki reading for three minutes. The viewers are trying to understand the scifi significance of this scene. The director is laughing his head off.
Does that make sense? Maybe I’m taking this a bit too seriously.
I avoided most of the hype through the simple expedient of not being around (web)places at which that hype occurred. (ABM isn’t exactly a mega-hype-machine, after all.)
I think that with lesser production values, and most importantly without Kyon, Suzumiya Haruhi would’ve been just another “wacky hijinx ensues” production that some people would’ve loved and most of us would’ve ignored. But. Kyon IS the man. By centering everything on him (and deliberately leaving aside the question of exactly HOW important he is to this little universe in a teapot) the show gains a unique flavor that most “wacky hijinx” shows could never hope to achieve. So, those of us who aren’t normally into that sort of thing ended up loving this show.
Was it an all time classic? Maybe, maybe not. Was it better than 2/3 of the stuff running alongside it? Oh, heavens yes. Was it deserving of the rabid fanboy/girl hype? Er, dunno. Very little IS, when you get right down to it… and certainly little else lately has been “worthy” of rabid-fanbase attention, so I suppose they had to glom onto something.
“Okay picture this. Imagine a setting with a bunch of fanboyish scifi types watching that episode where Kyon goes to pick up the heater…what was that episode A Day in the Rain. Then picture the scene that shows Yuki reading for three minutes. The viewers are trying to understand the scifi significance of this scene. The director is laughing his head off.”
You could say that about loads of shows. That perhaps people are overanalysing things when the producers of a show really had no intent of hidden meanings/pretentious bollocks in some scenes. *cough* Honey and Clover *cough*
Without a doubt Haruhi was, for me, the best show of spring 06 season. No other comes even close (except maybe Higurashi, once it has done its full run). Kyoto Animation can’t do season 2 soon enough… too bad Kanon will stall them for a while - though with KyoAni’s treatment, it may even reach a cult hit status.
Haruhi is the best anime evar in the same way that Nadesico is the best anime ever: it’s not, but it’s still pretty damn good.
I can’t say why I think Haruhi is the best anime I’ve watched this season, but all I know is it’s the only one I’ve totally enjoyed all the way through in a long time, as wella s the only anime I’ve felt totally lost after it ended. At least, since the first I watched the last episode of Air. :)
“Oh well. I tried. But, in the end, I just don’t get it.”
I can’t blame you.
I think the satire only works if you’re REALLY into the show. It’s something you have to look for. And, if you don’t go looking for it… well, a lot of the show is lost right there.
There’s a bit of satire, although I think part of the fun for fanboys was looking for various anime references, or things that would appear later in the episode of subsequent episodes when they read about said thing appearing earlier in the series.. and then going back to obsessively view said scenes again and again to look for the little extra ‘clue’ hidden in it. Things like the hidden Haruhi code on the website only added to this fervor, as it gave those who wanted more meaning/Easter Eggs a little bone.
But how someone could take a show where battle cries like “Fumoffu!” and “SECOND RAID!”, along with a Lambda Driver reference is a bit beyond me. I have to agree with whoever said it was a parody - it is, in a way, and if you’ve viewed quite a bit of anime there are a lot of visual jokes and puns to pick up on (Ep 11’s final battle, and the Computer Club President’s uniform are homages to Gundam, as was the Gun*BLEEP*). Other things like the lines from other series being recited in the background as Yuki was reading, and some of the situations which appeared were similar in their intent, as far as I could tell.
That, and Kyon’s sarcastic commentary all the way through the series helped the show immensely, lifting it out of the morass of otherwise mediocre season. In some ways, you could even call it a parody of a harem show, since EVERYONE there seems to like Kyon, or at least look to him for leadership/instructions… although that’s stretching it. As far as I’m concerned, the show succeeded because it was consistent in many respects - production values, humor, and by including something for just about all viewers… and by being in the same season with shows which had been similarly hyped, but which fell well short of expectations (F/SN, Kiba, Soul Link, Disgaea). If you ‘got it’, then you liked it. If you didn’t… well, you didn’t.
It’s interesting to note that most of the hype seems to come from overseas - in Japan, it was enjoyed, but didn’t seem to make as big a splash as some other series.
I liked the show. It’s my favourite of this season by a wide margin, and I think the Spring 2006 season was one of the strongest in ages.
I know how these things go, and how someone’s rampant enthusiasm for something that you think is not-that-special can get old fast. Naruto or DBZ or professional sports leagues, for example in my case. But someone else’s fanboyism or fangirlism has never prevented me from liking a show that I, myself thought was good. There are people who proclaim that Eva was the greatest achievement in the history of human civilization. But I still like Eva.
I don’t consider these kinds of fan-reactions to be “hype.” To me, hype is more something orchestrated by corporations as marketing and advertising. The Haruhi “hype” was largely grassroots. The fans embraced the show, and poured out their love. It hit some kind of zeitgeist in anime fandom.
As for whether this show is parody or science fiction… Well, to me, the question makes no sense. The most interesting works of art, for me, are dense enough that they can accomodate more than one way of seeing. To me, since Haruhi explores SF themes without overtly contradicting those premises, it is SF, regardless of whether it is parody. Also, since a lot of the show’s elements are parodies/homages of SF and other common genres, as well as of fandom itself, it is parody, regardless of whether it is also SF. The two are not mutually exclusive. It’s like “kidding on the square.”
I think two things about Haruhi really hit home for me. First, it’s about the longing for the fantastic instead of the mundane, and how that is reflected not just in anime fandom, but in life as well. We all want to be special. It’s a bit perverse, but my heart was warmed by Haruhi’s reaction to the destruction happening around her in the final episode. She was enjoying it! Odd, but I think I would react in the same way. Yet when you think about it, that is completely the wrong behaviour for a stock, non-evil character. Those little touches are what make her so interesting, in my eyes. Does that make complete sense? I don’t think so. But I find it fascinating nevertheless.
The second thing about Haruhi is that it is technically, a real SF story, done at a level that is very very rare in anime. It’s certainly in a different league than all the Gundam-type shows out there. What have we had recently that’s good SF in anime? Noein, Planetes, Fantastic Children, Ergo Proxy? Those are good shows, but I don’t find them as full of ideas and subtelty as Haruhi. Even Ergo Proxy is devolving somewhat into a superpowered henshin hero show. When Koizumi mentioned the anthropic principle a couple of days after I was reading an article about it as it relates to cosmology, I could relate. Yet the anthropic principle is a real scientific idea that overlaps, well, discussions about the meaning of life! Yet it’s not heavy-handed in the show. Koizumi just slips it in. (The fans make it heavy-handed. I admit my guilt.) In comparison, something like Top2 is NOT SF. Buster Machines with tennis rackets and temperatures below zero kelvin are fantasy, not SF.
Yikes. Sorry. Overly long post. Got carried away.
The show has a different effect on people. For me, the satire stuck out like a sore thumb. Others may disagree and then there are those who will, after reading this, rewatch the show just to find the satire.
I think S. Haruhi is too many things at once and some of the enjoyment is….well…. “meta-level.” Its enjoyment value partly lies in what it leaves out and is left to your own thoughts and imagination. The thing with this show is that it makes sense on many levels. You can indeed analyze everything ‘literally’ and it is a perfectly self consistant and solid sci-fi. You can view it on a genre level as a slice of life anime, a harem anime, a mystery anime, character drama and a whole bunch of things and it would give a nod(but not quite everything) in the right episode. You can view it from the ‘Kyon’ level and wonder about the absurdity about this whole set up (but not so absurd that it comes close to breaking the fouth wall). You can view it from the outside perspective as a “outside-observer” into the show and it still delievers the easter eggs for you as well as the planned out of synch episode effect. It is both making fun of anime (viewers) AND being completely serious at the same time.
The fact that the anime can blend all that in without contiunity breaking ‘in-universe’ is of course, genius. After all, this is an anime that switches from bunny girls and anthropic principle and have it all seem relevent. (and that is just insane)
I’ll agree that the mid point was running on filler-y material, but it is forgivable to the analyzers because we were trying to hard to dig out the background as the directors are probably laughing at us in the background, but that is like THE point. In anycase, it makes fillers into “somewhat paced” development and builds up the plot in a proper (but out of chronological order) way. The start and the end, of course, is simply great. (and I’m Asakura moe….)
Kyon really is the man. He is the glue that ties everything together, and he is us! Just like episode zero, kyon is the observer to the process (ah, another meta-self reference) both in the anime (he has to learn how everything works), in haruhi’s film and in his relation to the viewer. He echos our thoughts (well, alot of thoughts that would come from the viewer anyways) and puts everything in context. There are musing that are just great, like “why do I come here (and view this anime when its …weird)”, the “sorry, but I like bunny girls” variable morality(common to moe lovers), the “I used to believe in aliens…but it can’t exist” and the “despite all the whines, I love this life (as an anime viewer(?))” Sure it might be a case of over-analysis, but I think it is allusions intentionally put in to be picked up.
——————————————————————————-
Is S. Haruhi the funniest, most moving, most badass show ever? No, not even close even if it delievers the goods at times. However, it is probably the most clever show of the preceeding year. And that, that is a whole other kind of enjoyment that most other anime can’t deliever.
Nothing else to add to the above, but I just wanted to correct something.
The Computer Society President’s uniform in Ep11(13) was not a homage to Gundam, but to Space Battleship Yamato. The character he was ‘cosplaying’ as is one of the villians, Desslok( also known as Desslar). The hints were the colour of his uniform, the colour of his skin( lighting effect from the CSP’s bridge), and the cup he was holding in his hand.
Cheers.
much of the purpose of the series, for those who were unable to understand, was revealed in episode 13, when Haruhi presents her view of the world to Kyon. RobertM did a pretty nice job explaining things as well. It didn’t help tho that the series was so short it didn’t cover most of the novels, so most ppl who don’t read (like me) would be unable to fully appreciate the story.
i dont know how the hype can get to ppl, altho it does tick me off occasionally when ppl keep trashing Kanon because it supposedly “killed” Haruhi. Haruhi has become my favorite anime, but other good series exist out there as well, and good shows such as Kanon should not receive so much hate for a decision that had nothing to do with it, even if Haruhi is better.
but it is of my opinion that the opinions of others should not affect how much you enjoy something. this applies to anime as well as other things in life. I personally think SHnY is the greatest anime ever. However, I came to that conclusion on my own. The opinions of others is a matter of differing taste. Disliking an anime cuz of so-called “hype” (and for SHnY, when it first began, was non-existant anyway), i think that’s an unworthy reason.
Skane: Ah, my mistake. I thought he was also doing the “Glory to Zeon!” speeches towards the end, especially just where he got his ship blown out from under him. There ARE a lot of visual puns in there, which make the series a gold mine for those so inclined to overanalyze the series. :D
There WAS a lot of hype around the show - but as noted, it was grass-roots, and a lot of it was from overseas, due to some of the meta-level aspects of the series, especially since Kyon voiced the thoughts of the viewers quite often, and there were points where the enjoyment comes from the fact that it DOES break the Fourth Wall, both in subtle and less-subtle ways.
We’ll probably see more FMP before we see more Haruhi, but whether that’s a bad thing or not, I’ll let history decide; if we get A Dancing Very Merry Christmas for FMP, I’ll be overjoyed. If Kanon turns into a debacle, and FMP turns out to be not all that entertaining, on the other hand… then we may have some valid grounds with which to complain about how they’re prioritizing shows.
“There WAS a lot of hype around the show - but as noted, it was grass-roots, and a lot of it was from overseas”
I must have missed that then, because before the show aired not many knew anything about it and certainly not enough to hype it up. Just looking at the anime blogosphere, there was very little mention of the show just before the start of the spring season, never mind any intention for any of the bloggers to actually blog the show. Even looking at some of the posts on animesuki around the same time, there was very little on it. Certainly it was nowhere near the level of hype of some other shows e.g. Fate Stay Night
Stephen Wang wins. Jeff loses. To me Suzumiya Haruhi is why I love anime. Hype is what makes this anime more fun than what it is. If you got bothered by that, well, why do you even have a blog?
Archon: I believe pretty much every blogger missed talking about it, with the exception of one or two, at least until it started - and then we got the hype machine rolling; that’s when the raving and uncritical praise began. I suspect that’s what Jeff’s complaining about - the way everyone suddenly said it was the next NGE, rather than the next Azumanga Daioh (great, funny, but not something which would become the archetype of anime for the next 10 years).
I think I did mentioned Fate/Stay Night as an example of a show which didnt’ live up to the hype, and which was a horribly disappointing entry for this season. The fight scenes promised by Curtain Raiser weren’t there or were very short, and the pacing was awkward, plus the promise of an original storyline which didn’t conform strictly to any of the timelines was tossed for an approach was carbon-copied from the first (Fate) storyline, right down to the final scene (you can compare the animation to some of those screens, and they’re almost completely identical).
Ah, Fate/Stay Night, a failed opportunity, and such a waste of good material. I think I’m not alone here when I say that I wished there was more of the Ultimate Blade Works storyline incorporated into the series and less of F/SN…
As for Haruhi, the best way to enjoy the series is to go into the show without any preconceptions. I think that’s one of the main reasons (aside from the over-the-top fanboyism some people display) why some people don’t enjoy it for what it is.
That’s what I did, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the series.
Wow! Its nice to hear something.. err.. different about the show. =)
I thought episode 1 was great, and well done, but after that it went downhill and dragged on quite a bit. The animation was nice, but it not like I havn’t seen good animated shows before.
I think what annoyed me alot about, fans of the show.. and I can feel what jeff means about the… ” It’s like I had someone standing behind me the whole time, smacking me upside the head, screaming, “LOVE THE SHOW! WOOOOOORSHIP THE SHOOOOWWW!” ”
Its just one of those shows where if you say bad things about it, (some.. well alot! in this cause) fans will jump all over you. People I find too often use cheap remarks such as “it cause you dont understand it” >.> Cant someone just dislike the show?… >.>
Well I liked the show sometimes, but it wasn’t anything that great to me.. didn’t end up watching it all, but I watched most of it…
@Haeslich: Ahhh. OK. Gotcha. Simple misunderstanding of that sentence really. I do agree though, that it was like a sudden and quite dramatic spike in popularity/hype after the first episode.
I wouldn’t be able to write that any better without flaming. The show really wasn’t bad but as far as I’m concerned Black Lagoon was my absolute favourite this season. If I wanted something deep, complex and touching, I’d rewatch Texhnolyze.
Watched years of anime like a lot of people here and there have been better anime than this so I can’t understand what the hype was about. There have been many anime that did better than what Haruhi has done. I thot the parodies were poorly executed and anime like Excel Saga or Yakitate! Japan did a much better job of that. About the easter eggs… I thought easter eggs were the bread and rice of anime; it’s everywhere and Haruhi wasn’t the first or the founder.
Kyon’s introspective witty remarks was a personal turn-off for me; anyway this is exactly the same as the remarks made by Shuffle’s main character and even the voice actor is the same, so I wouldn’t call it original. This seems to be a turn-on for other haruhi fans.
I guess the hype was the combination of the good animation quality, the easter eggs, the episode reshuffling and the moe characters. Overall it was an enjoyable series.
Chris: Black Lagoon really WAS over the top, wasn’t it? And in such an interesting way too - it went the extra mile, and hearkened back to the action movie blockbusters of the early 1990’s… which made it a heck of a ride. Was anyone else thinking Die Hart, Armageddon, or something similarly outrageous when they counter-attacked EO’s chopper in Ep 2, the One-Woman Fleet Killer in Ep 3, Revy’s Nazi Smackdown in Ep 5, or the Roberta arc in Ep 9 and 10? I mean, the action was completely unrealistic, yet executed with such gusto that it was an utter pleasure to watch.
Evil: I’ve had friends jump on me when I didn’t immediately gush over the show, so I know that feeling perfectly well. I enjoy the series, I loved its irreverent approach, yet I didn’t feel it to be the be-all and end-all of anime in the past five years.
Moot: no, Haruhi didn’t invent any of that… but it DID carry off the mix rather well, and didn’t take itself NEARLY as seriously as some of its competitors this season do (Zegapain, F/SN, Kiba, even Nana and Strawberry Panic take themselves a bit too far along the ‘oooh, drama!’ route than they should). The Easter Eggs in the series were fun because KyoAni was a) apparently enjoying putting them in, and it showed; and b) because they were put in either in a very silly way (the Gun*BLEEP* complete with blurred-out Gundam, Koizumi’s battlecries) or in perfect mimickry of the source material (the Gyatsuken Saiban scene was an almost-perfect match for some of the game). This is something that a lot of shows don’t manage to get right - they can do the homage, but it’s usually either a bit messed up, or done in their own way so it’s a sly reference that’s hard to catch… while here it’s unashamedly ripped from the other series, and KyoAni got bonus points for ripping themselves in the same way that Sunrise does with Keroro Gunso and any Gundam references there. In fact, I’d be interested to see what other series you could name besides Excel Saga which have done it better - I can name maybe two off the top of my head, and one that matches it in level at least (Keroro Gunso), but not ‘lots’.
Die Hard, even.
I managed to ignore the hype …. so I’d say this was a very good show not a great one. It had its boring moments but as other comments have discussed it had its unique points - Kyon’s narration/commentary was certianly one of the main factors that made this such a special series.
I would not really call it scifi or an especially groundbreaking concept - just a solid story, well told with well drawn characters. In fact the juggling of episodes, while justified in that it may have contributed to the hype/buzz about this being such a “different” anime, really does not do much for the story per se.
Re watch it in the chronological order and this becomes a well told story that utilizes scifi or philosophy to underpin what is really more a interesting point of view i.e. what if a teen struggling to come to terms with the world around her could actually control the world around her. Am sure this has been done in literature before - but never this well presented.
The SOS-dan fanaticism got ridiculous a couple of episodes in, when it became pretty apparent that they couldn’t keep the show running 100% just on ESPers, aliens, and time travelers.
It’s entertaining, but doesn’t have nearly enough material to warrant the sort of cult—almost religious devotion—that it’s got right now.
That being said, I’m glad that the SOS-dan meet at Anime Expo 2006 wasn’t a bunch of people saluting and saying, “Heil Haruhi!”
There was zero hype for this anime. I never heard of it before it was released and I only d/led it because I have a habit of d/ling the first episode of each anime that’s released and seeing how it goes.
If you mean fanboyism then yeah, there was quite a bit after maybe 7-8 eps had aired. I wasn’t really bothered by it because the only fanboyism that annoys me is in real life and most of my friends aren’t anime freaks so they had never even heard of it.
I don’t know what it is about this anime that makes it so appealing, but I like it. Maybe the overusage of scientific jargon (i heart the quantum physics) combined with the atypical plot.
But unless there’s sequels this anime is probably going to disappear in a couple of years. People are like OMFG while it’s out, but then they quickly forget about it, like Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. It doesn’t have that “epic saga” feel, which animes like Shaman King, Groove Adventure Rave, and of course, the still ongoing Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, etc have.
Then again those animes had an exponentially higher fanbase.
Aghh whatever.
Haruhi is a good anime and I don’t think fanboys should affect people’s judgment of it’s merits.
Of course it’s not going to have the “epic saga” feel. The ones you mentioned are all fighting shounen, which can easily run for many, many episodes simply by powering up the enemies and then the main character in various sorts of ways. Not to mention I don’t believe SHnY was meant to be “epic.”
well, personally, i nv heard any hype about it til after i finished watching it (was interested in from a sig of yuki playing guitar in a forum, lol), so without much expectations, i copied it off a friend and watched it, so maybe i enjoyed it more than those who heard the hype.
i think it’s a pretty good anime in its own way, that not everyone can enjoy. without much details (those who think in similar ways to me may get what i mean) i’ll say that overall, it was meant to be comedy on various levels. be it about plain visual jokes, jokes spoken here and there, kyon’s constant iritated narration, the episode numberings, the underlying meanings of the anime, or the expectance of them but finding none, parodies from anime/manga… the list goes on and on.
i doubt anyone would understand all of them, esp not me. so all in all, not everyone will get the jokes, and some who do may not really like them, and eventually get irritated with them. so yea. a pretty mixed comedy anime. i, for one enjoyed it quite well.
if someone said something similar already, i apologize, i didnt read all the comments here >.
Well, now I’m glad I never heard the hype or knew about the maniacal fanbase before I started watching the show. A friend of mine suggested I watch it — suggested being the key word. There was no forcing and no one was shouting in my ear to APPRECIATE THE SHOW OR BE BRANDED TASTELESS.
I really liked how it was structured. It reminded me so much of French New Wave — which is weird to see in any animation, let alone anime (like jump cuts, voiceovers, altered timelines, etc.). And I really liked the juxtaposition between both randomness and fixed events and between humor and seriousness. For example, there was the “camera” focusing on Kyon’s mole (a random wtf) and Haruhi’s ability to alter the world around her (fixed events). And there was of course humor, but a darkness as well. I mean, the fate of the world relied on the happiness of a hard-to-please girl. That’s *scary.* While not completely original by any means, it’s certainly original in the anime genre (at least that I know of, seeing how I can’t have possibly seen every anime in existence [I wish!]).
This is more than a month old but I don’t know why I feel the need to express that this was one of the best series I’ve seen in quite a few years. I haven’t read the manga before, and admittedly I know nothing of the hype until I actually finished the series and browsed around blogs. Instead of just saying “I LOVE IT AND I R 2 COOL 2 TELL U Y”, I’m going to take the unconventional task of explaining (as best as I can) exactly why I believe this show has depth to warrant high praise. I made this post on another forum so it’s copy and pasting:
In terms of the organization of the episodes, they’re not “random”; the episodes are not ordered chronologically, but they are ordered in such a manner that the plot builds up to a climax. Watching it chronologically definitely makes the surface plot easier to comprehend, but I don’t believe the plot was the point at all.
I believe Haruhi shines when one watches it for its character development and philosophical topics. For example, people often believe that Kyon is the sensible person that “regulates” Haruhi, and that Haruhi is slowly changed by Kyon; I would disagree. Kyon starts off as a sensible person, but he seems to lack imagination and dream. He is overly cynical and while he wants to believe in UFOs, time travellers and ESPers, he doesn’t have the courage to do so. Cold adherence to logic forces him to “live without really living”. Haruhi, on the other hand, desperately tries to make life interesting by actively seeking “weird incidents”. However, in one of the last episodes, she exposes why she’s constantly looking for supernatural phenomenon: Because ssignificant, and her life meaningless. She’s constantly struggling to not be normal because she’s afraid of a boring life.
It seems as though Kyon and Haruhi are two completely different people, but they actually have much in common. They both can’t see the the meaning and the happiness in life. Haruhi tried too hard to look for things that she can never obtain, and in doing so she missed the meaning in inter-human relationships. She set her eyes too far and she missed out on what she was looking for even though they were right in front of her all along (which works along with story, because UFOs, time travellers and ESPers were right beside her all the time, yet she never realises it). I think an important concept that was expressed was that Haruhi (and people in general) should create meaning and purpose in life, rather than seeking and hoping some external object would hand them meaning and purpose.
In terms of Kyon, he is clearly someone who is overly cynical. In episode 2, you clearly see that he wants to believe in UFOs and time-travellers and such, but common sense tells him not to, and he submits to these “rules”. As such, he lives day to day without any interest in anything at all. Haruhi slowly changes his attitude over the course of the story, and he learns to appreciate different things, even if it goes against reason at times.
These two characters start at seeming opposite sides of the spectrum, but yet at the same time they both have a fundemental desire to feel as if they are somebody, and to affirm that their existence is not meaningless. The character development is definitely more important than the plot to me, which is why I have nothing against the seemingly impossible and non-sensical plot. The non-sense makes the viewer seem as if they’re thrown into the shoes of Kyon (which explains why Kyon is the narrator even though Haruhi is the “main character” (sort of)), and like Kyon, we sometimes have to abandon our reason in order to truly enjoy and appreciate the show/life.
Lastly, I would like to comment on some of the philosophy thrown in. They actually packed quite alot of questions into the series, such as the concept of reality as a dream, or reality as perception (phenomenalism) and etc. The “meaning of life” and themes of domestic epic sort of echo the modernist movement so that probably contributed in my interpretation of the story. That’s definitely interesting for me, but as I said, the characters are definitely the main driving force of the show. As such, I’m sure anyone can enjoy the show even if they disregard everything philosophical, and simply watched the show as a whacky crash course through life.
(This is not intended to be a be-all-and-end-all attempt to disect the show, it’s merely one of many interpretations, but it’s the one that worked the most for me.)