The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの退屈) is the third volume in the Haruhi light novel series. It was written by Tanigawa Nagaru with illustrations by Ito Noizi. This third volume was originally released in Japan in 2003 and in English in 2010.
Click here to read the synopsis of the second volume, The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya. This series is 20 years old at this point, but spoilers follow.
Summertime finds the members of the SOS Brigade being lead around unwillingly between a series of adventures by their brigade leader, Haruhi. The first thing that catches her interest is an amateur softball tournament hosted by the city. She signs the Brigade up without consulting the others, with her goal being on victory and exposure for their group of weirdos. In order to make sure they could field the correct number of players two of Kyons classmates, Kinukida and Taniguchi join, along with Kyons little sister and Asahnia's friend Tsuruya. Even with the correct minimum number of players they don't stand a chance against their first opponent, the winners of last years event. Haruhi's unnatural abilities aren't enough to keep them from being eliminated. For fear of her disapproval causing a fracture in reality, Nagato casts a spell on their bat, allowing them to hit any ball pitched at them. Will that be enough to satisfy their fickle god?
The next segment finds the group being forced to celebrate Tanabata, sending the stars their wishes for the future. Instead of sending wishes back to the future, Asahina sends Kyon three years into the past. There he is tasked with helping the first year middle school version of Haruhi with defacing her school yard, writing a strange message to supernatural beings. Kyon works to hide his identity from the girl, telling her his name is John Smith from North High. Once the deed is completed he and Asahina find themselves in a jam when her time travel device is missing. Faced with being stuck in the past the only person they can come to for help is the version of Nagato that exists in this timeline.
The third story deals with the first classmate who approaches the club for help with solving a mystery. Kimidori Emiri is dating the president of the computer club and is concerned that he has been absent for many days. She asks them to try and find him. The request is a little awkward given Haruhi used Asahina to blackmail the missing president of the computer club into giving the SOS Brigade their best computer. Yet they agree to go along with her plan. The group goes out to visit the presidents apartment, where he lives alone due his parents being overseas. Haruhi quickly becomes disinterested and chocks it up to the boy being a sudden hikikomori. They agree to leave for now, but regroups once Haruhi has really headed home. Nagato and Koizumi sense something wrong and they break into the quiet apartment, only find it leads do a closed space, different from the ones created by Haruhi. They have to face whatever denizen occupies the space in hopes of bringing the lost student back to the real world.
The final and longest story finds the club spending a few nights in a newly build house on a remote island, a house owned by a relative of Koizumi's. Much to Kyons chagrin, Haruhi is filled with excitement at any chance for mystery and drama. Kyon fears that her imagination may get away from her and doom them all. Yet their arrival on the island is less eventful than either of the anticipated and they begin to relax and enjoy their time being pampered by Koizumi's wealthy relative. But things are definitely not as they seem and even their ability to get destroyed on wine after dinner doesn't change the fact that there is a mystery afoot. Yet who's really behind any strange occurrences they encounter?
This volume is a compilation of one-shot stories previously released in a magazine called The Sneaker. The anime covered them in episodes; 7 through 10 for the first season. 'Remote Island Syndrome' is the only story arc for the anime that I disliked, usually skipping it during re-watches. In general I wanted to get through this volume as quickly as possible, not ever being interested in most of its story lines. That doesn't say anything to the quality of the writing and the story telling, its more my disinterest in revisiting these parts even more. I do enjoy the Tanabata story as that is a pivotal moment in the entire story of Haruhi and is strongly related to the movie. There are certain amounts of continuity concerns between this volume and volume two when it comes to Kyon's level of acceptance to the supernatural events around him. In the third volume he still shows some reluctance in accepting much of it as being little more than circumstantial. In the afterword the author talked about how these stories were released first, ahead of the first volume, but didn't explain what order they were actually written in. This could explain some of the continuity fluctuations in what level of disbelief Kyon is will to have.
On to my favorite part of the Haruhi anime, volume 4, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzuimya!
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