When watched in proper order, the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi plays out like a short OAV series followed by a bunch of omake episodes. Suddenly, the jumbled broadcast makes sense.
Not to say, of course, that the show isn’t satisfying when the episodes are viewed in chronological order. It definitely held my attention better. However, I was surprised by how little “happens” in the show; it’s so much more evident when the primary story arc is stuck up front. Beyond that, it’s little more than a slice of life show, and as a whole, it’s clearly a brief introduction to something bigger, deeper and more complex. At this point, I’m just as anxious for a second season as anyone else.
The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi is one of a handful of shows I’ve watched in short bursts lately. I’ve already made note of Clannad and ef - a tale of memories, of course, but I’ve also rewatched Kimikiss - Pure Rouge in recent weeks. It was just as good the second time around, if not better. I also finished it off in a single weekend, which was a bit unexpected given the show’s age and length. Then again, I guess it was the same story with Clannad.
I’m gradually coming to the realization that this is the way in which I prefer to watch anime: one show at a time, all at once. Since early this year, I seem to have lost all ability to keep up with new series on a weekly basis, save the odd favorite here and there. And, even then, it’s tough. On the surface, I chalk it up to being busy; I spend far more time thinking about work (and matters of similar weight) when at home than ever before, and I’ve been making an honest attempt to add some flavor and variety to my plate of hobbies and interests. Suddenly, I’m not so much in the mood to keep up with shows like Itazura na Kiss and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu week after week. But catching up with them in single evening when the mood strikes? That’s simple enough. And a lot more fun.
Which is how it’s supposed to be, of course. I’ve long been one of those weirdos who doesn’t watch television. I haven’t had cable or satellite service in ages. I don’t even own a pair of rabbit ears. Outside of anime, I have little experience “keeping up” with television shows - or any other form of entertainment, for that matter. It must be in my nature to be overly protective of my free time. You won’t find me on IRC all that often, I don’t do instant messaging, and I don’t have text or e-mail service on my cell phone. I don’t do much recreational web browsing. I don’t read many blogs.
Considering my age, interests, and comfort with technology, you’d be surprised how disconnected I am from it all. And the distance only increases with age. I figure I’m only five years away from spending my weekends in a forest alone, penning haiku on old napkins…
as the sun slowly rises
Smells like mustard
I’m exaggerating, of course, but the message is clear: I’m not really all that suited to keeping up with much of anything day after day, week after week. Unless it’s of particular importance, that is (I’ve only taken five days of vacation in the past year, after all). So, my falling off the weekly anime watching and regular blogging wagon in recent months was to be expected. I expected as much, at least.
But, you know, there are a lot of passionate anime fans outside of Japan who don’t do the weekly anime watching song and dance. Prior to the age of digisubs and raws on demand, it was normal to watch what was available when time allowed and the mood struck. If you think about it, this whole, “oh noes, my backlog is out of control because I can’t keep up with all thirty-six shows that are airing this season,” nonsense is very much a new paradigm of anime consumption. It’s something a lot of anime fans fret about. It’s something I used to fret about.
To hell with all that.
Which is why I’m only following three or four shows this season, because it was so much hassle to keep up with any more than this that it defeated the object of watching anime at all (i.e. to unwind and relax at the end of the day). Like you (and, it seems, a relative minority of viewers and bloggers) I’m in the 9-5 monday-friday grind of full time work so that leaves evenings and weekends, which I prefer to spend getting household jobs done and generally recharging my batteries.
I’ve grown used to watching episodes in batches since I started my anime viewing through DVDs and it suits my blog posting to do overviews of arcs or sets of episodes too. I can probably get through three or four eps, then watch nothing for a couple of days after; which is true for DVD volumes and fansubbed episodes. It’s also interesting to know you don’t have a ‘normal’ TV connection - I decided against a TV licence because I was short of cash when I moved in and TBH I don’t miss it. When you’re talking about £140 or so (equivalent to $US 250 or therabouts) for a piece of paper that allows you to legally plug in an aerial, it hardly seems worth it. More often than not all I’d watch is the evening news (which I can keep up to speed with through the internet anyway) before getting on with something else or falling asleep in time for work the following morning.
I always thought the significance of Haruhi’s shuffled episode order escaped me - it seems like a gimmick when the likes of Berserk and Gungrave take events out of chronological order for much more obvious reasons. When viewed in cronological order, the various plot points must surely make more sense because they’re being shown in context…I honestly don’t know why or how the broadcast order’ approach was chosen. Any ideas?
Haha, more people without TV licence/cable/satellite… it seems to be a growing trend. Someone should write an article on us!
I was once taken with the idea that the significance of the jumbled episodes was a reflection of the “accidental control” exerted by Haruhi herself.
So although the chronological order was disturbed, clearly the most important thing was to start with a bang (her 00 episode movie). But more importantly, the finale was very much centered on the climax of her romantic relationship with Kyon, (as opposed to the chronological order of events and or plot line). That would have been very Haruhi-esque to accidentally rearrange the plot to what was more important to her.
Then again, maybe I’m overanalyzing : )
I’d always thought Haruhi’s broadcast order had a point, I just couldn’t figure it out. After convincing my one sister to watch Haruhi, her watching it in chronological order (she’s seems to be a dub-only fan), her being only mildly positive about it - saying the second-half was fluff, I realized why they did it.
The chronological order will probably work best when viewed in conjunction with future seasons but when viewing the first season by itself, the more slice-of-life episodes help flesh out the characters before we see the climax of the Melancholy episodes. I don’t think I’d've cared as much about Haruhi ending the world without seeing the later episodes first.
And speaking of watching older shows again, I just recently started rewatching Lucky Star. One my first viewing, it took me several episodes before I started to enjoy it and it was about halfway done before I started to really look forward to the next episode. On this rewatch I was shocked to find myself laughing quite alot at the first four episodes. I remember just trudging through these episodes without a laugh - now they’re hilarious.
I don’t watch much TV, mainly just the History channel, Discovery channel, and SciFi channel. And I watch even less network TV; the reality tv shows and series that go on for years and years aren’t my cup of tea - I like the structure of anime shows. I do follow Heroes when it’s on TV but before that the last show I watched on network tv was X-Files.
Since I’m like 3 weeks younger than you, this post also succeeded my making me feel old - Haiku writing in the forest sounds kinda fun.
Great haiku.
You know, I recently wrote a post on this “anime consumption” and yes, it is quite out of control. I say let the kids run with it, but eventually its tough to quickly cram down many different objects all at once… indigestion ensues.
In various ways, some years are better than others ^^
I didn’t enjoy Haruhi chronologically that much. The pacing was too off. But yeah, the first arc really does feel like setting up for the something bigger… which is why I’m pissed the KyoAni hasn’t delivered yet >:O
The plot does indeed make better sense when the episodes are watched in chronological order, Martin, but since that plot is almost entirely contained in the first half of the series, the second half just kind of meanders around until the show ends. Now, since I’m a slice of life fan, I really enjoyed those latter episodes (the “Remote Island Syndrome” arc has always been my favorite part of the show), but closing with those episodes in the television broadcast likely would have rubbed a lot of viewers the wrong way, given that the standard TV series approach is filler first, plot second.
By shuffling everything and distributing the plot heavy episodes evenly throughout the broadcast, you stand a better chance of keeping people watching week after week. I’ll admit that, as much as I found the jumbled broadcast order an annoyance, I still found the show well paced.
Of course, I don’t know the exact reason why the broadcast order was so screwy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the above was taken into consideration when the decision to air things out of order was made. But, as Sarah proposes, it was probably just as much a creative decision as anything else. I wonder if the subject has ever come up in an interview with the production staff?
Oh, and thenullset, I’ve also been rewatching Lucky Star as the DVDs are released. Like you, I’ve been enjoying the early episodes - a lot. I’m glad I decided to collect the show on DVD (initially, I wasn’t planning to do so), because I have the feeling it’ll get better with each rewatch.
Do have to agree 100%. I have been watching most of my anime in batches rather than episodic for awhile now, with some exceptions (like Hidamari Sketch).
It’s kind of like reading a book… who wants to read one chapter a week?
And Sarah’s point is very interesting, and while I am usually hesitant as a viewer/reader to apply my own interpretations where they may not have been intended, I do have to admit her suggestion makes a lot of sense.
I don’t know about you, but I still like to watch most anime episodically. Plus that is entirely of a different reason to the cause of “oh noes, my backlog is out of control because I can’t keep up with all thirty-six shows that are airing this season.” You’re just spreading yourself too thin if that’s happening at all.
To be rational about it, some anime are better when you watch them all at once or in big chunks, others are not. It’s not worth generalizing. I think the important thing is to find whichever way that works best for you with a particular show.
As to Haruhi, I don’t really care how you watch it, but I think the difference between the two ordering is much more pronounced if it is your first time through than your second or nth time through the material.
I’ve heard it suggested that the broadcast ordering of Haruhi was a nod to the original serialization of the novels, where “The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya” (aka the baseball episode) came first.
I don’t think I’ve followed any shows week-by-week until their conclusion since… ummmm… Haruhi. Even with Haruhi I didn’t start following it until the first 5 episodes had already been subbed. Maybe part of it is the irregularity of most fansub groups’ releases. Grabbing and watching each episode the moment it’s released can be less than satisfying when you might have to wait a month or two for the next one. (To any fansubbers who might be reading, I’m not demanding faster releases or anything. Take your time, I’ll wait–though I might wait until the whole series is out). My favorite series of 2008 thus far is Kurenai, which I didn’t bother to download until the batch torrent became available, and postponed watching for a month or so after that.
Count me as another disconnected geek. I don’t have cable or satellite service, and rarely watch TV save for (American) football games. My cellphone gets more use as an alarm clock than as a communication device, and I’ve never sent a text message in my life. I don’t belong to Facebook or Myspace. Maybe we should start a club? ;-)
Wow, that was the same shows I was rewatching a month ago.
I was a good decision to jumble Haruri’s episodes. It can be considered throwing away viewership if they aired it in proper order.
Keeping up with weekly releases can be considered now as a hassle, because of work, studies and probably because of the insane and irregular filesizes.
I actually limit myself to one episode per show per day. This is because I feel that watching successive episodes makes it become passive entertainment, and you become lazy to think about the show, to try to understand it because all you have to do is to continue watching, and all questions will be resolved 9all at least most). It also dilutes the effect of plot twists and revelations, as you will not fully grasp the implication until given enough time to sink in, which if you marathon the show, you will not have. Of cause, if you are rewatching, then it does not matter so much. This is just my take on the matter though.
I think part of the order jumbling also comes from the producers’ desire to husband their resources. Often you’d get a slow, uneventful (and relatively easy to animate) show followed by a show that obviously had the animators working around the clock. I think the last episode (chronologically) showed that best, with that long scene of Yuki sitting alone in the club-room, reading. The next week, they had the episode where Yuki defeats Ryoko, with that animation-intensive fight scene.
So, animate one episode with half-staff, and put have the other half get a head-start on the following week’s episode.
Me, I only have time for one episode every other day, for the most part. So following more than a couple of series doesn’t work any more. The only drawback I see to that is not being able to participate in active discussions as the series airs.
dm: this is kyoani so I don’t think time is a problem in the production.
Thankfully I never fell into the thirty shows in a season thing. I stick to about three or four maximum, and maybe pick up one or two on the way if they’re real gems.
That said, the coming season is looking to be utterly massive. Clannad, ef, Akane Iro, Today in 5-2, Toradora, Gundam 00, and that’s just the ones i KNOW I’ll be watching. There’s always one or two I won’t discover until later.
I agree with your post, and also with ILM’s comments - two shows that I’m watching weekly are Geass and Macross; both pack each episode with details and plot twists that require deconstruction and conversation to explore. Watching either of these shows in a marathon would lead to a mind-numbing WTF? as the battles and machinations blur together. Given time to breathe, I find myself anxiously looking forward to the next episode.
On the other hand, shows like Clannad and ef and True Tears can be gulped down over the course of a few evenings or a weekend, and the pacing and emotional involvement work together to push the story forward into what feels more like a long single movie instead of many disjointed episodes of each show.
“The only drawback I see to that is not being able to participate in active discussions as the series airs.”
Indeed. I don’t have to watch Macross Frontier or Code Geass when it’s on, as everyone else is doing. But based on the conversations I’ve seen these two shows start, and as someone who like to communicate and connect with other fans over a shared experience, I miss out on that aspect, which lowers the overall experience for me.
That being said, my anime watching habits are driven by like 75% necessity, and 25% arbitrariness. What I decide to watch is at anytime is based more often than not on what time gives me. And ever since 2nd year started, it’s been more of an issue than before. :P
Here,Here!!
I agree watching more than 1 or 2 shoes at a time can be a hassle as well as time consuming, we may as well catch up to it after a awhile especially after it had just ended its season.