The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱) is a 28 episode super natural comedy based on he light novel series written by Tanigawa Nagaru.  The original  14 episodes aired during the Spring of 2006 and the second 14 episodes aired during the Fall of 2009.  This overview covers the original aired episodes.

    The series is about the title character Suzumiya Haruhi, an eccentric and fearless first year high school student and how she affects the world around her. It is told from the perspective of her classmate known only as Kyon, so you could say he is the main character in the show. There are a lot of monologues by Kyon who also acts as narrator. Haruhi is fearless, unrelenting, abusive, blunt and completely out of her mind. Upon showing up for the first day of school she introduces herself by telling everyone in class that she is only interested in paranormal beings, time travelers, aliens and ESP'ers. In normal situations this would make someone the class fool and leave them to be ridiculed by everyone. For Haruhi it's different, she is smart, beautiful and good at sports…plus she had generated an amazing reputation during middle school with her eccentric antics. Everyone around her can't help but stand aside and watch her work. She unhesitatingly confronts anyone anywhere and demands what ever she wants from them…one such case was forcing the baseball club to give up the field so her club could practice baseball instead.

   Eventually Kyon is able to strike up a conversation with the abusive Haruhi. During the course of said conversation he suggests that she create a club of her own, since she is bored with the ones that exist. That's exactly what she does and Kyon is her first victim/member. She calls her club the SOS Brigade…or the "Save our world by Overloading it with fun Suzumiya Haruhi Brigade". Having no idea for the clubs actual intent, Kyon is swept along in Haruhi's mania. She procures a room to have the club in, the old literature club of which only exists one member, the quiet and alien Nagato Yuki.  Haruhi is able to get Yuki to agree to let her club use the space. Yuki also gets absorbed into the SOS Brigade, due only to her being completely apathetic. The forth member scouted out by Haruhi is the 2nd year buxom beauty, Asahina Mikuru. Haruhi time and time again abuses Mikuru physically and emotionally, using her body to intimidate men, dressing her in bizarre moe costumes and generally controlling her. Kyon half-heartedly attempts to preserve Mikuru's sanity but takes advantage of some situations to feed his lust for her. The final member of the club is the 'mysterious transfer student Koizumi Itsuki. With this, the club has all of its necessary components, at least according to Haruhi, it is time to reveal the true purpose of the SOS Brigade to its gathered members;to search out and investigate paranormal phenomenon involving time travelers, aliens and ESP'ers.

 

 

    As the story develops each of the other members approach Kyon and confide in him that they are members of one of the above paranormal categories. That they are all there to observe Haruhi's actions, summoned to her because of an incident involving her from three years previously. As events unfold Kyon begins to believe the other members fantastic tales. Yet all of this must be kept from Haruhi, for according to all of them, she is the one person in control of reality. The reason all three of them are members of the club is because they represent each of the paranormal groups she is seeking and unknowingly she summoned them to her. Kyon has to figure out what is real and what isn't, as they all work to try and keep Haruhi from becoming bored or angry.

    The characters are pretty memorable, and aside from the main five, there are few supporting roles. Haruhi has the most colorful personality. Kyon is mature beyond his years and goes along with Haruhi mostly because of nothing else to do. He is obsessed with Mikuru but not in the usual anime teenager way. He does peek views at her when he can, but is composed and mature around her, unless she starts getting naked (voluntary or otherwise) during which he tries his best to not embarrass her. Kyon is also the only normal human being in the Brigade. Mikuru, the large chested bimbo, is soft spoken, not particularly bright and easy to walk over. Yuki is the quiet bookworm, always reading a book, which she does at incredible speeds. She says vary little and when she does, says it quietly. Nothing around her affects her in the slightest. Then finally there is Itsuki, the 'mysterious' exchange student. He is suave, debonair and generally good-natured. If it wasn't for the fact that he is connected with Haruhi he would probably be the popular boy in school…but he doesn't yearn for such things and instead enjoys him self with the club activities

 

    The first season was intentionally aired out of order in its original broadcast.  This is referred to as the Kyon Order and is as follows when compared to the correct chronological order of the first season.  The first number if the Kyon order and the second number if the Haruhi/First Season Chronological order.

1/11, 2/1, 3/2, 4/7, 5/3, 6/9, 7/8, 8/10, 9/14, 10/4, 11/13, 12/12, 13/5 and 14/6.
 

  I stumbled upon the series as it was airing in 2006. After skimming through the first episode I almost deleted it and banned it's existence from my memory. This is due to me misunderstanding what the first episode was truly about. My first impression was, this is a low quality, horribly drawn, badly encoded pile of moe garbage. Each time I would play the file and skip around in it I would pick up on things that perked my interest. Eventually I went all the way to the end and realized most of the first episode is drawn to look like an 8mm film being projected on a screen. I also started to realize that the part done like that is actually a home movie made by the characters and isn't really what the show is about. I ended up watching the first episode all the way though with a couple of friends, reassuring them that it wasn't going to be stupid, that it was funny. At the end of the episode, when they realized what I myself had finally realized, I was still unsure about the series. I was even less confident that my friends would be willing to watch any more of it. I decided to shelf the series and quietly pull the remaining episodes to be viewed sometime in the future. The first episode had some funny moments in it and I am a sucker for goofy high school comedies. I started to do some research on the show it's self. learning that the episodes were aired out of order on purpose…partially to mess with people and partially to alter the viewer’s perspective of the story. This intrigued me.

 

 

    The show quickly turned into a phenomenon as it aired n Japan. The novels it is based on jumped in the best selling list on the  Japanese Amazon site. The series ended up becoming one of the hottest fansubbed series of 2006 and generated so much buzz that the American licensing company, Kadokawa Pictures USA, officially recognized the work and effort of the fansubbers. A new special alternate ending for the series was released and ended up being the second most watched video on YouTube, with over 240,000 hits the day after it was uploaded…it was removed by the poster shortly after.

 

     I enjoyed this anime, it is a nice psychological show that kept me guessing for a while. The animation isn't bad; one thing about it is the quality of the characters motions, particularly the dance sequence in the final credits; it is well done and quite fluid. This is common in the series and brings it to that higher level in my opinion. The story is, with out a doubt, engaging and interesting. The characters are all interesting and memorable. All around I would say this series, although quite odd, is well done and can find its place in many peoples collections. If you're put off by the raving otaku fan base around the series and the large quantity of YouTube video’s showing people copying the ending credit dance sequence, don't worry, the show is pretty far from fan service otaku fodder.