The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

RetroRainbow

Anyone seen it yet?
I loved it.
A fourteen episode anime, taken from the light novels of the same name.

Taken from wikipedia...
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya follows the high school life of Haruhi Suzumiya and those who are caught up in her antics. While Haruhi is the central character to the plot, the story is told from the point of view of Kyon, one of Haruhi's classmates.

Kyon is an ordinary freshman high school student who only recently given up his fantasies of espers, time travelers, aliens etc. as he left middle school. When he chooses to speak to one eccentric girl by the name of Haruhi Suzumiya, he unwittingly sets off a chain of events which drag him into surreal situations; he is drawn further into a world eerily like the fantasies he had just managed to outgrow, with Haruhi Suzumiya at its center.

Searching for a group that interests her, Haruhi joins and quits every club in school finding only dissatisfaction. Kyon makes a snide remark about her actions and accidentally provides Haruhi the inspiration to create a club of her own. To help start the club, Haruhi forcefully drafts Kyon, who only stays in the club to protect (or try to protect) other helpless victims of Haruhi's "voluntary arrests". As the story progresses, Kyon finds that each of these supposedly "helpless victims" has a specific reason to be there.

Except for Kyon, the students in the club are secret agents of various organizations who are sent to observe Haruhi. They gradually explain that Haruhi has superhuman control over every aspect of the universe - an ability which she is unaware of. Whenever Haruhi becomes bored or otherwise dissatisfied with reality, she unconsciously creates a new universe - one more to her liking - and attempts to switch over. This leads to the destruction of the current universe. To prevent this, the members of Haruhi's club spend their time trying to keep their god-like leader entertained, hold her powers in check, and maintain the illusion of a normal life.

The series never clarifies whether the club members gathered around Haruhi by their own free will, were drawn together by her subconscious, or were simply created out of thin air for Haruhi's amusement. The question of their origin is a motif.

monkeyfudge

Yep. It's a brilliant series.

I love the opening episode with the badly made film.

They haven't adapted all of the manga yet, have they?

RetroRainbow

Someone else loves it! :eek:
-does a little dance-
Nope, only the first volume, some of the second, and the third.

They're apparently making a second series- so huzzah! ^^

DingChavez

I thought it was terrible. None of the characters were anything special.

The time traveler has a really annoying voice and I think the Esper guy might be the dullest character that ever existed. Eveyone doing as Haruhi says without arguement was stupid and made the characters even worse.

The way they mixed up the eps in a lame way to make it less boring, too bad it didn't work at all. When I first watched it I was like "meh" and didn't think much about it.

But in retrospect it was a real crap series. It's supposed to be a comedy I don't think I smiled once. And in the "serious" moments there was no sense of urgency at all. Haruhi is going to think away the world. GOOD, maybe she can think up a better anime...with blackjack....and hookers.

The only thing it has going for it is that band performance.

Yeah...I didn't like it. >_>

K.O.Kiki

Quiet, you! Respect Oharuhi-sama!

Oh, and respect Kyoto Animation's superior animation, too. That's something that series had going for it -- no bloody cardboard cut-out people, thank Oharuhi-sama.
Kyon was a brilliant, sarcastic b*stard; which was another thing which was just simply brilliant.
And, personally, I found Mikuru's high-pitched voice just the right side of cute.
And how did you not understand their giving in to Haruhi? They did what she asked because

• They had nothing better to do
• She'd inadvertedly make the world implode if she was bored

And seriously -- recap through the episodes again. The final episode is the logical end to the series; you won't find a better one.

Also, guys c'mon -- it didn't start as a manga, it was adapted from a series of novels...

*note: reading AoMM is addicting

ps: I realise that some people find that SHnY is not for them. Those people are DEAD WRONG

RetroRainbow

I agree. ^^

I was a bit put off by 'The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina: Episode 00', but then I got the fact that it was supposed to be like that, and I started enjoying it.

When I read the 'The Sighs of Haruhi Suzumiya', it was interesting to see how they went about producing the whole thing.

I felt sorry for poor ole Kyon- did you hear 'Kentai Life Returns' from his character C.D? XD

Yep, the concert was amazing. Love 'God Knows'.
Kyon's face as Haruhi was going on stage was the funniest part of the whole episode.


And if anyone is interested, you can read the novels here.

http://www.baka-tsuki.net/project/index.php?title=Suzumiya_Haruhi

L31mr0d

Just watching through this series at the moment and i'm loving it... I personally find all the characters excellent. I think i'm at around episode 7 atm (or if I was to believe Haruhi Suzumiya, episode 9 :rolleyes:) I love the balance of confusion, comedy and risque.

The episode where they are playing baseball was a real "wth is going on!!!" I've since then learnt to watch the preview for the next episode at the end of the credits as it sorta explains that the next episode will be disjointed. I'm guessing this is furthering Haruhi control over even the order the episodes are played in.

I also like Mikurus voice and think it suits her character well... I thought it was going down a hentai-esque route at first, having the brooding, quiet type (Nagato) the energetic, wild type (Haruhi) and then the shy, innocent type (Mikuru) and putting them in risque scenes between each other and the male students but then Nagato opens her mouth and out spews a complete curve ball to the storyline. I loved at the end of it how Kyon just goes "I have no idea what you're talking about".

Its interesting as I have no idea what the next episode will be about or even if it will continue on from the cliffhanger in the previous episode.

rgt320q

Finished watching it last night, great stuff. Roll on season 2.

robby^5

Cant wait for season 2! I'm hoping that following on from Lucky Star & Clannad, KyoAni will do a 24 episode season, maybe two volumes in one season?

thefinalstage

robby^5 wrote: »

Cant wait for season 2! I'm hoping that following on from Lucky Star & Clannad, KyoAni will do a 24 episode season, maybe two volumes in one season?

Whats the story for the second half? Is she finally going to turn the world into a hell hole?

robby^5

I havent read them myself, but out of interest read some reviews and other stuff to get an idea of whats coming up such as

kyon going back in time and meeting a younger haruhi, helping her paint alien symbols around her old school, this explains why haruhi thaught she knew kyon when they met again in high school

I'd love to read the books, but I dunno might spoil the anime for me! I love it ever so much

corkstudent

DingChavez wrote: »

I thought it was terrible. None of the characters were anything special.

The time traveler has a really annoying voice and I think the Esper guy might be the dullest character that ever existed. Eveyone doing as Haruhi says without arguement was stupid and made the characters even worse.

The way they mixed up the eps in a lame way to make it less boring, too bad it didn't work at all. When I first watched it I was like "meh" and didn't think much about it.

But in retrospect it was a real crap series. It's supposed to be a comedy I don't think I smiled once. And in the "serious" moments there was no sense of urgency at all. Haruhi is going to think away the world. GOOD, maybe she can think up a better anime...with blackjack....and hookers.

The only thing it has going for it is that band performance.

Yeah...I didn't like it. >_>

Obviously I have nothing against someone having different taste in animu to me, but I find with a lot of things people simply have stupid reasons for not liking it. This is an example of that.

People generally like to be cool hating on the "Anime of the moment", though it's mostly Gurren Lagann at the moment.

sme

I quite liked this, it was something different. The first episode was excellent, i hadn't a clue what was happening. It was a very good opening to the series. The rest of the series didn't live up to this, i found myself getting bored, although it did pick up when yuki was more involved in the story.
I don't know if i'd watch another series of this, i was happy the way the first ended.

Moneymaker

DingChavez wrote: »

I thought it was terrible. None of the characters were anything special.

The time traveler has a really annoying voice and I think the Esper guy might be the dullest character that ever existed. Eveyone doing as Haruhi says without arguement was stupid and made the characters even worse.

The way they mixed up the eps in a lame way to make it less boring, too bad it didn't work at all. When I first watched it I was like "meh" and didn't think much about it.

But in retrospect it was a real crap series. It's supposed to be a comedy I don't think I smiled once. And in the "serious" moments there was no sense of urgency at all. Haruhi is going to think away the world. GOOD, maybe she can think up a better anime...with blackjack....and hookers.

The only thing it has going for it is that band performance.

Yeah...I didn't like it. >_>

You're the only person ive ever seen hate on it.

I personally think its a truly awesome show. It seems like a generic high school anime, but it manages to be so much more. I'm well and truly a Haruhist.

rejkin

is there any particular order in which to watch the episodes?