The Intuition of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの直観) is the twelfth volume in the Haruhi light novel series. It was written by Tanigawa Nagaru with illustrations by Ito Noizi. This twelfth volume was originally released in Japan and in English in 2020.
Click here to read the synopsis of the eleventh volume, The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya, part 2. This series is 20 years old at this point, but spoilers follow.
After a break of nine years between this and the last volume of the series to come out we return to the world of the SOS Brigade with a series of stories. The first one takes place just after the return from the ill fated winter mountain mystery retreat. On the way back home from the retreat Haruhi decided that all five members of the Brigade would hit as many shrines as they could to ring in the New Year. The first shrine they stop at to pray leads to a minor inconvenience as the strap on one of Haruhi's shows breaks, causing her to rely solely on Kyon to get out of the shrines grounds and meet up with the rest of the Brigade, nothing more than a bit of personal time between the two main figures.
Next the story jumps to late May of the second year of high school. A messenger from the schools mystery research club arrives with a stack of research material for Haruhi based on a passing glib remark earlier in the day. Haruhi had asked the girl, also a recent transfer and classmate of she and Kyon, if there were any legends or mysteries related to North High. Kyon and Koizumi count the timing of the delivery as in their favor given that Haruhi is not yet in the club room. Instead of hiding the mountain of material freshly delivered from the overly perceptive leader, they decide to head off her ambition and come up with seven mysteries for her. The four of them debate and conspire about different strange occurrences that could take place in the school, be explainable by skeptical means and be interesting enough to entertain Haruhi. All in the name of preventing her imagination wrecking havoc across the campus out of her sudden urges to be mystified with localized legends.
The third, final and by far longest story in this volume involves the members of the SOS Brigade and a guest, the aforementioned member of the mystery research club with the bizarre nickname 'T', partaking in an investigation instigated by Tsuruya. Prior to Haruhi arriving to the literature club room, T and Koizumi are having a spirited discussion about mystery novels and the various methodologies of deconstructing their narratives. Surprisingly, Nagato is also offering limited interactions in the conversation while Kyon sits by, bewildered by the level of nerdom the two transfer students are engaged in. Their conversation comes to a natural conclusion with the arrival of the Brigade chief who immediately receives an email to the SOS Brigade website...something that has never really happened before. The email is a request from Tsuruya to help her solve a mystery. In a series of emails she provides anecdotes around her life as trophy daughter of a powerful business family, being dragged around to important social events for meet and great duties. In each of the examples the Brigade begins to deconstruct any obvious clues to determine what the mystery may be, digging closer into the same principles of methodology that T and Koizumi had previously debated while getting an insight into the real life of their weirdly optimistic upperclassman.
I wasn't sure what to expect with this volume for a few things. The biggest was it being released nine years after the prior novel. The other concern was how solidly the last novel wrapped up a really nice ending point for the franchise as a whole. Sure, there are a few things that have been mentioned in passing that would elicit stories of their own, particularly around the pending cherry blossom viewing party at the Tsuruya residence and the mystery of the object unearth on her family mountain. Yet neither of these things were expanded upon much in this volume. Instead something I feared would happen, a series of potentially unrelated stories, a format I have come to dislike in Tanigawa's writing. But my fears were unfounded. This was a really enjoyable volume and the Tsuruya mystery portion was well done. As it started to unfold I was concerned that some aspects of the mystery were going to be unfathomable by non-Japanese readers given a particular reliance on kanji readings that would not be apparent in another language. As that part unfolded those fears were eliminated and the manner it was handled was quite enjoyable.
The future of further stories in the franchise isn't entirely certain. A thirteenth light novel volume is planned to come out in the near future, with two previously published stories and two new ones. Beyond that though it's hard to tell. I am not sure what resource there is to see what other stories have been published in magazines that could be compiled into future volumes beyond these next two. Either way, this volume did not disappoint, especially given the almost complete lack of super natural elements to it. I will wait to see what else may transpire, forever hoping for a return of an animated adaptation.
Speaking of the anime, there is a final afterward in the twelfth volume in which Tanigawa reflects on the tragic and horrific loss of so many lives in the terrorist attack on the Kyoto Animation Studio 1 in 2019. He speaks about brief memories of some of those staff members he spent time with during the course of the TV and movie adaptation process, unable to really express his grief for the senseless loss of life. His words are worth reading and reflecting on.
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