The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの暴走) is the fifth volume in the Haruhi light novel series. It was written by Tanigawa Nagaru with illustrations by Ito Noizi. This fifth volume was originally released in Japan in 2004 and in English in 2011.
Click here to read the synopsis of the fourth volume, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. This series is 20 years old at this point, but spoilers follow.
The first story in this volume returns us to the end of Summer and the SOS Brigade members are living up their best lives as high school students...all at the direction and scheduling mastery of Haruhi. Haruhi realizes that their days of carefree living are almost done so she wants to experience as much as possible. They go to the pool, work a part time job, hunt bugs, go to a Bon festival, watch fireworks, and all sorts of other stereotypical youthful events. As the summer break comes to a close she isn't sure they have done everything they wanted to do. Unfortunately, the other members begin to realize through dejavu and Yuki's computer nature that they have been repeating the final two weeks of summer over fifteen thousand times. Doing the same activities, with some amount of variation, every single time, having their memories reset in the process. Yet each time Haruhi is not satisfied and the loop begins again. If only they could learn from their past failures they could find the solution to their trap.
The second story takes place after the school festival and the computer club challenges the Brigade to a club versus club battle using their home made computer game. Haruhi eagerly accepts their challenge and the club has a week to learn how to play the game. The computer club is hoping to win back their best computer, which Haruhi had forcefully taken at the beginning of the year. Kyon isn't exactly concerned with winning and lays down some ground rules for Nagato to keep things within the realms of reality instead of a repeat of their baseball tournament. He expressly forbids her from using any sort of magic or super powers to help them win. But will they even stand a chance against a group of computer nerds playing the game they developed?
The third, final and longest story, is the first segment of the light novel series that was not covered by the anime. We find the SOS Brigade going on the planned winter get away adventure following Christmas. The Agency, which Koziumi is a member of, once again agrees to facilitate a mystery for Haruhi and the Brigade as they did over the Summer on a remote island. This time the mystery is known to be a game by the members of the Brigade and is being hosted in a winter getaway owned by Tsuruya's family. During an afternoon of skiing the Brigade finds themselves isolated from the others during a freak blizzard. After stumbling around the mountain, blinded, they come across a strange abandoned mansion. After entering it, seeking shelter from the cold, they begin to suspect something is supernatural about their current situation. But who could be behind the blizzard and strange building? Is Haruhi distorting reality again, wanting to fulfill her snowy mountain mystery dreams from the Summer? Is The Agency's planned activity really more mysterious and complex than they realized? Is the Data Mind flexing its abilities in response to Kyon's declaration of war against it to protect Nagato? Is there a new threat making an appearance?
This volume once again presents a series of unrelated tales of Brigade hi-jinks. The first story is the foundation for the despised Endless Eight arc of the second season of the TV series, episodes 12 through 19, though the story is really only episode 19. Unlike the TV show where each episode was a slight variation on telling the two week loop cycle, the short story shows them in the final iteration of the trap. I really enjoyed the way KyoAni chose to do 8 almost identical episodes to enhance the tension of the story and to throw the viewers for another loop of abnormality. I was wondering how the story was originally handled and it feels far less impactful than how the anime handled it. Part of that may be from me being so familiar with the plot and ending, but there is something about being forced to repeat the story that makes the desire to resolve their predicament more impactful. The second part, Day of Sagittarius, covers episode 11/13 of the original series and is pretty much exactly as it was in the anime. Not much more to say about this one, but this is one of the more entertaining one shot episodes/stories in the series.
The final part, the first story that is not in the anime, wasn't exactly the most enjoyable. Out of all of the stories in the anime, I have never liked the Summer remote island mystery arc. While not exactly a carbon copy of that story, this one was pretty much the cold weather variation of that segment. The resolution of their situation was strange and convoluted, with absolutely no foreshadowing. Outside of what may have set the Brigade up for their isolation experience, this story didn't appear to do anything to move the narrative of the series forward. For the first story I was not familiar with, this was quite disappointing. Moving forward though, with the exception of one more segment, everything else will be new territory from here on out!!
Next up, The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya.
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