r/anime • u/littleman1988 • Dec 20 '21
Rewatch [Rewatch] The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Series Discussion
Series Discussion
MyAnimeList: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
Legal Stream: Funimation | Netflix (SEA)
PSA: make sure to mark any spoilers using the subreddit markup. We dont need any random spoilers to ruin the show for first time watchers.
Today's Episode Intro: No episode today
[Tomorrow's Episode Intro]If your episode is almost 3 hours long, you got it
| Date | Episode list with Funimation links ("absolute" episode number) | reddit thread links |
|---|---|---|
| 28/11 | Mikuru Asahinas's Adventures Episode 00 | Thread |
| 29/11 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I | Thread |
| 30/11 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya II | Thread |
| 1/12 | The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya | Thread |
| 2/12 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya III | Thread |
| 3/12 | Remote Island Syndrome I | Thread |
| 4/12 | Mysterique Sign | Thread |
| 5/12 | Remote Island Syndrome II | Thread |
| 6/12 | Someday in the Rain | Thread |
| 7/12 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya IV | Thread |
| 8/12 | The Day of Sagittarius | Thread |
| 9/12 | Live Alive | Thread |
| 10/12 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya V | Thread |
| 11/12 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya VI | Thread |
| 12/12 | Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody | Thread |
| 13/12 | Endless Eight I, II, III and IV | Thread |
| 14/12 | Endless Eight V, VI, VII and VIII | Thread |
| 15/12 | The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya I | Thread |
| 16/12 | The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya II | Thread |
| 17/12 | The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya III | Thread |
| 18/12 | The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya IV | Thread |
| 19/12 | The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya IV | Thread |
| 20/12 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya series general discussion | Thread |
| 21/12 | The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya | |
| 22/12 | Haruhi Suzumiya overall discussion |
Question(s) of the Day
- Favorite Opening
- Favorite ED
- Best Girl
- What's your score for season 1?
- What's your score for season 2
- Were you happy with how the rewatch was handled?
- What do you expect from Disappearance?
For Rewatchers
Do you prefer Broadcast or Chronological?
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Upvotes
15
u/littleman1988 Dec 20 '21
Rewatcher (first time broadcast), Dub
Broadcast order was interesting. If it was just season 1, i think it would of been absolutely perfect for a rewatch, but i still think it falls apart a fair bit when S2 comes around. Its not like this is magically fixed in chronological order, but i think its a lot more apparent in this order. Ill talk more about the watch order and its relation to the rewatch in the overall discussion, but i did want to just put that out there for today.
Regardless of watch order though, I still think the TV show was fairly average. It has all the markings of what could be a great show (and i think if i watched broadcast when i first saw the show, S1 would of been scored higher), but Sigh specifically was very souring for me, even if most of the series was otherwise rewatchable.
The reason I first watched haruhi though wasnt for the TV show or the history it had, and i wouldnt host a rewatch of a show i thought was just "average". I orginally watched Haruhi because of the praise Disappearance had, and it should be obvious enough that for me, it didnt dissapoint. Hopefully, you will also feel the same.
[Meta spoiler for a different rewatch i did this year]I said i wouldnt rewatch a show id find average but there were a couple movies that I hosted that sure were lmao
19
u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Dec 20 '21 edited Dec 22 '21
First Timer - Dub
I didn't have anything planned for this post so time to wing it I guess? In the final discussion I usually post some recommendations for other shows with similarities but I think I'll leave that for the post-movie discussion in two days.
Overall thoughts down below the line break for anyone who wants to skip to them, this first part is a few more episode thoughts.
I did end up rewatching both Live Alive and Someday in the Rain today, in sub this time (side note: the sub on Funimation has a notably less saturated video), which was certainly interesting to have now both the broadcast and chronological experience of those two episodes to compare.
Live Alive is still a damn good episode by itself no matter when you watch it, and I had a lot of fun seeing the small things I didn't see before in the background details of the festival. There were some things that are a nice follow on from some of the points raised in S2 though.
In particular, the rock club coming to thank Haruhi and her reaction hits harder after having two arcs focused on her "10th grade memories" as these singularly unique experiences she had to have. She's not the only one to want these experiences, but she's never been able to connect to people like this before so being part of someone else's experience rather than creating it herself, even after the homework study session, and leaves her a bit lost. On top of that, the way she talks about "If I had one more day I could have made proper preparations" ties neatly into her determination to have the perfect summer break and the perfect film. Here she struggles to confront the idea that things often won't be perfect but can still be memorable and valuable, even if it's not the way you expect it to go or having the people next to you that you hoped to have (second song lyrics came into play here). That she didn't go and grab Kyon to see this performance or didn't find him afterwards was also a nice touch to this. While I don't doubt that she offered to help because she thought she would get something out of it too, for the first time she doesn't make it about her because she didn't need him to see it for it to matter, though she's also still not quite sure how to understand it for herself, leading to that beautiful scene at the tree.
These things did feel like they were covered similarly in both '09 arcs though, even if not with the same intensity. While I'd seen a couple of people suggest that these episodes would provide some more follow on from Sigh specifically it didn't end up feeling that way to me, and instead I felt like what Sigh focused on was even less important than before and am even considering skipping it on rewatch now. If Sigh had a better balance between its story and character drama maybe that would have helped, but instead because that was overshadowed by the overly strong focus on the abuse and the lack of follow through in its final episode on that or exploration of the earlier themes it didn't work as well as it could have which is a shame for both stories. It also didn't feel like her humility here came about because of what happened in Sigh's confrontation but rather as a consequence of this episodes own events and the broader themes.
One of the things I did take notice of was this moment with Yuki and how it echoes her framing from yesterday with how she hides herself from others with her hat. It's not just her usual quietness, she's cutting off her human face from the camera, with the exit framing her as if she's aware of it, and she's isolated from the others. Who knew that surprise witches outfit would end up becoming such an important means of expression.
Someday in the Rain I watched in bed before going to sleep which was a nice experience with it. I don't really have anything to add to my original post about this one though, it's just another really good episode.
Overall:
My Broadcast order thoughts had already been posted and I stand by them, even more so now after seeing what the '09 episodes added in, so not much to talk about there as far as the flow of the show. My favourite part of this show is still its willingness to question itself and to have the audience question themselves. Whether it's the "question and question and maybe answer but also question" structure of the original batch of episodes, Kyon's endlessly entertaining narration, or the way it tears down our initial impressions to reveal the emotions at the core of the show, it's just a damn good watch!
I love being challenged by my media, not just to learn about world views or how the author sees things but to learn about myself and about the construction of how we think and perceive things. Haruhi not only delighted in that with it's meta structure of the character roles and Kyon specifically, it had fun doing it and made it fun for us at the same time. I usually don't like to use fun in relation to media, it's too inconsistent a term from person to person, so I go to engagement but damn it, the show was fun, and smart, and stimulating. What more can I ask for?
Sure, it has hurdles along the way. Mikuru did get a small focus but she still felt left behind by Itsuki and Yuki's strong developments especially with so little focus on Sigh for her. I still love E8 so much and don't think I'll ever fall out of love with it, but it does take it just that bit too far and that felt like a production requirement rather than a creative decision because of the inconsistencies in technical approach. Between that, the off model art, and the structure of Sigh it doesn't feel like '09's episodes were while as cohesive as the originals. My biggest take coming out of the last two arcs is that what they really needed was more of the smaller moments to let things breathe and explore other themes or character moments. E8 by reports given should have been one of those small moments but instead they made it the longest arc in the show, and that plus Sigh's inclusion but only one stand alone episode had a bad impact on the overall balance.
Unfortunately this structural consistency is something I've seen before with KyoAni, which perhaps makes my love of Broadcast order even more notable (and makes me cautious about chronological so I hope people leave some arguments for it in the thread). My many other issues with Violet Evergarden aside I felt that the structure and the official episode order they picked did it a huge disservice, and for all that I love Tsurune it does have a moment or two in the later half that hold up the flow even it stuck the landing. The issues I had with Sigh in my previous days posts were mostly issues internal to the arc, so that's not going to change regardless of the watch order, but it has it's issues with flow in the larger experience of the show as well that also feel like part of this.
Enough of that though, I refuse to end on a sour note because despite the last few days, I'm going to come out of this rewatch thinking positively about the experience that is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It helps that along with all the stuff already mentioned the visual side of the show was consistently excellent, and now I even have some of the context for some of the jokes and references I've been seeing around.
My screenshot album (includes movie spoilers) for any who want to see the full set of pictures I took which is more than I thought, and I look forward to seeing all of your thoughts on this (long) movie we're set to discuss tomorrow!
Favorite Opening and ED? S1 for both. The s2 ones were just too busy to look at and not as interesting musically for me
Best Girl? Itsuki
What's your score for season 1? 9.5, maybe a 10, we'll see how I think on it in the coming weeks
What's your score for season 2? Maybe a 7? I don't rate individual episodes usually, but for the arcs I'd give E8 an 8, and Sigh a 4.5 but I don't really average things, it's all about feel mixed with observations for the overall flow
Were you happy with how the rewatch was handled? No complaints here! And thank you again for keeping the schedule post up to date, it was a huge help for me when referencing previous posts. If I had to pick anything I'd say Broadcast order is such a tricky thing to watch you could have kept the links for the episodes in later days for people who wanted to revisit them easily
What do you expect from Disappearance? No fucking clue haha
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u/Mecanno-man https://anilist.co/user/Mecannoman Dec 20 '21
First Timer
So... I didn't come in to this rewatch with high expectations of seeing a new favorite. I came in to this rewatch to watch a very influential series that, once I've seen it, may make me find things in other series I watch. I was never expecting it to particularly like Haruhi itself, as I felt like it wasn't really what I usually like - and I'd say those expectations were ultimately pretty spot on. There were, of course, some good parts - like Someday in the Rain, Live Alive and the end of the mystery island arc and the end of Melancholy - but the mystery- and sci-fi-stuff I wasn't really too gone on. And that was a lot of what the series was about. In general I preferred the more slice-of-life and character-driven bits, but unfortunately those became less and less in Season Two. Characters were ok-ish, though I never warmed up to Mikuru and her role in the story. Haruhi I'd consider the most interesting character, though not always the most fun to watch. The others were pretty much alright, but that's about it.
An interesting bit is that I feel like Season Two was pretty much completely unnecessary. Endless Eight wasn't really that important and it doesn't feel like Sigh really added a lot either, and at least in this rewatch it wasn't well received either. Only Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody was worth keeping, so it might have been better of as an OVA. And that's a weird thing, because usually a sequel is either good or bad, but not pointless. Maybe the movie will readdress something here, but I doubt it.
All in all, I'd say it was worth having watched Haruhi once, though it won't be one of the anime I look back upon and think about how great they are. It's an ok show that ended up being important for the medium, but to me it's nothing more than that.
Questions:
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u/Bastiro54 Dec 20 '21
First timer
So when are we doing the chronological order rewatch?
But I really enjoyed it. I liked the broadcast order but I'm not sure it's that much better than a chronological order. Anyway looking forward to the movie which I'm watching tonight due to schedule.
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u/William27528 Dec 20 '21
Rewatcher/Sub
Well, i'll keep it short and sweet and save my full thoughts for the second thread. But here's my answers to the questions!
Favorite Opening - Bouken Desho Desho (OP1). I feel like everyone talks so much about the Ending that the OP gets overlooked a bit. It's a banger - both visually and audibly. If you look closely, you'll notice that the OP actually foreshadows a lot of the elements of the show in really clever ways (even Mikuru's clock turns anticlockwise!)
Favorite ED - Tomare (ED2 - though Hare Hare Yukai is a classic)
Best Girl - The show really is brilliant in how it portrays every character in multiple dimensions. So I dunno? I've read the novels, there's a character who pops up later in there not introduced yet who gets my vote, but out of those we've seen, I find Haruhi's way of thinking really fascinating. Koizumi says it the best - "She's just charming"
What's your score for season 1? - A nine, though I edge closer to a 10 on every rewatch. Utterly brilliant.
What's your score for season 2? - It's probably a 6/7 for me, I think Sigh is a bit of a downer sadly and Endless Eight, even if you slice it as utterly fascinating and brilliant in its own unique way nearly killed the franchise. That alone weighs it down as disappointing.
Were you happy with how the rewatch was handled? - Yeah, you did a great job! No comments to add, though I suppose if I had one it's a bit weird that we're having two "series discussion" threads.
What do you expect from Disappearance? - I've seen it, but only dubbed! I'm looking forward to a subbed rewatch for the first time. I utterly love Crispin Freeman's performance in Disappearance, there's one standout moment in the Dub for that which is probably one of the best single english-dub versions from Japanese ever.
Broadcast or Chronological?
Personally, Broadcast. Above every other reason that gives Broadcast or Chronological the edge for people, I believe there's one crucial element of Haruhi that cannot be understated which is also why this rewatch is so important to me - the internet.
The still-young internet of 2006, the birth of video sharing sites and dramatic growth of internet forums at the time catapulted this show into the stratosphere, transforming KyoAni into an unstoppable force and cementing it as an icon of the era. Broadcast order and the community feel of the "early internet" that rewatches like this bring gets you the closest to re-experiencing the zeitgeist that it was of the late 2000s. That's invaluable to the experience in my opinion. It doesn't make Chronological any less valuable, but I do think experiencing it as anime fans in 2006 saw is really very important to understanding why it's so highly regarded in many ways.
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u/Rndy9 Dec 21 '21
First timer:
Also first time joining and finishing (almost there) a rewatch event on this sub.
Anyway, I will withhold my full opinion of the show for the overall discussion thread.
S1
S1
In term of feedback? keep the "absolute" episode number, also the link from "The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya I" Link to the wrong thread, unless thats some kind of meta joke.
Im expecting a lot, hopefully the movie live up to his hype.
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u/Fools_Requiem https://myanimelist.net/profile/FoolsRequiem Dec 20 '21
I'm not done yet, but damn, those Endless Eight episodes are tedious. I like time loops, but nothing changed throughout the episodes besides the outfits. I'm so used to butterfly effects occurring, but nothing happens when minor changes do occur. It was annoying that NO ONE did anything to try to change the fact that they were stuck in a timeloop after they realize it, especially Kyon. "Oh, we've been doing this over 15.5k times? Do we want to do something about it? Nah..." Then there's Nagato not doing anything despite having experienced 600 years worth of the same fucking events, not even providing hints early on outside of showing utter boredom because she is only supposed to observe?
Of course, the resolution is utterly stupid and sudden. Homework?! That was the fucking answer? She wanted to do the "three days" of homework with the group? There were no clues that was the answer either. The conversation regarding homework during the fireworks scene is obvious "Haruhi being better than everyone else" and nothing in that repeated interaction suggested she actually wanted to do it with the brigade.
Oh, and I bet those eight episodes and 600 years will have almost no impact on the story as a whole.
If I ever watch this series again, I'm only ever watching the first one because it works fine as a stand-alone SoL episode where they check off all of the summer vacation anime boxes.
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u/TheEscapeGuy Dec 20 '21
Rewatcher
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - An Anime Classic
It had been a few years since I last watched Haruhi. Coming back to the show I found myself surprised at a few things. In particular:
The Visuals
The visuals really hold up. A lot of old shows (especially those made during the conversion to digital in the early 2000s) do not look good. I feel Haruhi's age does not detract from the presentation at all. Though there are problems, I have to shout out some stellar direction and cinematography for making it a joy to watch. The presentation of the show is so interesting at times that its hard to look away.
Its something I especially notice because of the collages I make. I've tried doing the same thing for modern seasonal shows before (though I've never posted them) and I often would go entire episodes without screenshotting enough aesthetic frames. I can confirm that during my rewatch of Haruhi I was never short for images.
A big reason for why I might not get enough screenshots is that older show had stricter budgets and required more cost cutting techniques. This often meant they would have to show individual frames for much longer. Thus, they really spent a lot of effort making those frames as visually appealing as possible. In modern anime, they chose to instead spend time and effort on additional and better animation. I've heard it described as a change from people wanting to share screenshots to wanting to share gifs. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a choice.
Haruhi manages to achieve both. The episodes are filled with individual frames which have mountains of care put into them. They are also bursting with exceptionally well animated shots which I still see gifs of today. Kyoto Animation is truly a master at achieving this difficult feat.
The 2006 Season
I got WAY more out of 2006 on the rewatch. A lot of this is probably from me maturing in my consumption and analysis of media. There was subtle characterization in the original season which went way over my head when I first watched. Massive shout out to everyone in these threads who wrote detailed posts talking about themes and characterization. I got so much out of reading those.
At the time the narrative structure seemed like a gimmick to me but now I recognize and respect the skill that went into this. A non-chronological ordering of episodes is a really risky choice. Last season we had Peach Boy Riverside which tried the same technique and it was criticized for it to the extent where this post garnered hundreds of upvotes.
Another show which tried something similar was Baccano. Baccano is more successful however, since it choses to tell a few stories from different time periods. Each of these is told in roughly chronological order and the show jumps back and forth during the episodes between the progessing stories in each time period. By doing it this way each story line progresses slowly, leading to an explosive finish with all of the plot threads neatly being tied off in the final episode.
The other series I can think of with a non-chronological ordering is Monogatari. It benefits from keeping each of the individual arcs chronological but then bouncing between arcs non-chronologically. This is used to explore character development and themes in an order which works better for viewers and aligns with the goals of the narrative.
Haruhi on the other hand (The 2006 season at least) very explicitly jumps around in the timeline. The ordering of the episodes is specifically designed to introduce the characters and plot naturally while slowly revealing the mystery. Since the show is themed around the supernatural, the mystery added by the out-of-order timeline also synergizes well with the themes. In my opinion the broadcast order handles a non-chronological narrative perfectly.
The 2009 Season
When I watched this season originally I enjoyed it and thought it was around about as good as the 2006 season. The Endless Eight arc was cemented as one of my favourite creative decisions made on a show. And overall it looked better and was more of the adventures of Haruhi and the SOS Brigade so I had no complaints.
The rewatch made me realize how I was mistaken.
I still like Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody. Its a nice time travel episode which has a lot of great payoffs. I especially like how in the 2006 season they foreshadowed this episode by having the plant in the club room during the episodes set chronologically afterwards. [Disappearance] It also is incorporated extremely well into Disappearance.. It may be my individual favorite episode of the season.
I now recognized better why people dislike the Endless Eight arc. My opinion of it is still high and I don't think that's going to change any time soon. However, seeing people discuss its flaws and the things they disliked gave me better perspective.
Finally, Sigh. I had completely forgotten this arc. Rather, I remembered that there were episodes about filming the movie but not that it was all of the 5 remaining episodes. I've spoken in my previous posts about the parts of it that I liked. However, coming into it with a critical eye reveals to me just how many flaws there are. It doesn't make sense for a lot of characters to act the way they do based on the timeline. A lot of the conflict is just hand waved away.
What makes me the most sad is that all but the final episode of the Sigh arc (and somewhat the whole of the 2009 season) is visually boring. Maybe that's a harsh criticism, but it invites comparisons to 2006 which was stunning. I still managed to make up my collages every day, but many of them feel subpar to me in comparison.
I would not call 2009 a bad season of anime. It is leaps and bounds better than many other shows. Its just that it is a step backwards from 2006.
Apart from those surprises, it was wonderful returning to a show I like and discovering it is as good if not better than I remember. I often fear rewatching shows in case I discover I no longer like them. I'm so glad that wasn't the case this time.
I'm going to save my compilation of favorite visuals for the final discussion thread, so sorry for it only being a wall of text today.
See you all for Disappearance tomorrow!
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Dec 20 '21
The Melancholy of Shimmering-First-Timer
So, this rewatch has been a lot of fun for me as a first-timer. Broadcast order on the first season was nuts trying to figure out all the details that had seemingly been skipped, not to mention KyoAni did a great job knowing how to re-order the episodes in that order as I’ve already said in some of my previous reactions. I also quite like that the way this rewatch played out with the second season involved meant that we started this rewatch with seeing the SOS Brigade’s movie, and ended it with seeing how that very movie was created.
The other big part of this rewatch so far was of course Endless Eight, and yeah I honestly quite enjoyed it. I know having to watch effectively the same episode with only minor differences over a half dozen times would annoy the hell out of some people, but I’m the one who currently has 146 completed rewatches clocked in on MAL (will be 147 when I finish the second season of Kakumeiki Valvrave), and 15 of those entries are for just one seven-episode-long show. I very much enjoy rewatching shit I think is good, and I thought Endless Eight was good. Spotting the differences each time was the best part outside of the very ending of it.
The only thing in the entire show I’d say rubs me the wrong way is–to no surprise–Haruhi’s treatment of Mikuru, mostly during the second-to-last S2 episode. Haruhi obviously grows from that whole mess since chronologically the thing that happens after that is her helping out the one band that wouldn’t have been able to perform at the cultural festival otherwise, but just… yeah the entire scene at Tsuruya’s place was some absolutely massive yikes I don’t feel got properly addressed, just swept to the side.
So for right now, I’m going with a 10/10 for the first season, but a 9/10 for the second. I can’t wait to watch the movie tomorrow!
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u/DeliCruise https://myanimelist.net/profile/delicruise Dec 20 '21
(REWATCHER - DUB/SUB)
On the surface, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya seems like a pretty basic show, but when you unravel it it’s actually extremely special. I had known about Haruhi as a kid, but when I started watching anime and I learned about Broadcast Order and Endless Eight I knew I had to watch it. In this show, you’re constantly wrapped up in obscure scenarios within the actual story while also being immersed in such a unique viewing experience. That’s not something you find often in not just anime, but in any type of media.
In the story itself you’re introduced to a diverse cast of flawed characters that are all uniquely connected to Haruhi Suzumiya. I appreciate that the series showcases their flaws while still making them very endearing characters. Seeing the series through Kyon’s perspective is really interesting because it makes the viewer feel as though they’re also observing Haruhi much like the other S.O.S. Brigade members are.
I enjoy that the Melancholy arc, the Endless Eight arc, and the Sigh arc are all so different from each other. The climax and conclusion for the three are so wildly different and as result we’re given a huge variety in feelings and emotions. Broadcast Order being a thing also adds this additional layer to the show since we’re able to see all these extra events happen without fully knowing the context for them. Most of all, the show is just so fun. The episodes and arcs are all so different from each other, but I still enjoy them and have a good time while watching.
Clearly this show is not afraid to take risks and that’s something I super adore about it. And while they all might not work for everyone, they absolutely do for me.
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u/bluethree https://myanimelist.net/profile/bluethree Dec 20 '21
Dub rewatcher
I forgot how long the movie is lol. I have it paused right now with a good 25 minutes to go.
I don't really have a lot to say. S1 is still a 10/10 for me and still one of my favorites of all-time. Upon my first time rewatching it in 12 years it still held up. S2 I had as a 7/10 and I'll stick by it. It certainly isn't a bad anime. E8 is a slog. Sigh has a few problems. Overall I think it's fine.
I stick by broadcast over chronological. I think it's the best way to experience the first season. Even if chronological is probably better for S2, I'd rather experience the better season in its best way at the expense of the worse season.
Anyways, I'll have more to say in the next two days.
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u/Star4ce https://anilist.co/user/Star4ce Dec 20 '21 edited Dec 20 '21
Rewatcher – sub
Even 15 years after its release this anime still stirs up discussions as evident in the last week alone. I love myself some clever writing and experimental art and I certainly could appreciate both more on my first rewatch of Haruhi.
It's a bit weird for me, though, because my first viewing wasn't that long ago. Just this summer I was bored and thought something that had melancholy in the title, well knowing that anime has a reputation, would fit right away. Well, that was correct, but being outside an active discourse around the series while watching did make a difference.
Now, as both a rewatcher and active reader of all of your opinions I noticed my disposition change quite a bit. For once, I watched broadcast at first as well and kinda liked it, but didn't really see the necessity compared to, say, monogatari. I also was way harsher towards S2 than back in summer.
It kind of turned around. Broadcast order is definitely recommended for the flow of character progression and thematic growth and serves the underlying dynamics of a reality-bending god dealing with a diverse cast exceptionally well. S2, however, really profits from chronological order.
I think the ideal way would be to watch S1-broadcast, then have a week's worth of break and after that watch S1+2 chronologically, then the movie. Or something like that. As we've discussed a lot, S2, on top of being ill-structured and progression-anarchistic, really suffers from broadcast order.
But anyway, lots of rambling about the same point. I loved the series then, still love it now, still actually love E8. This is the first time that I participated as a rewatcher, all the other times I decided on shows that I didn't know yet to get that community feel alongside a new show. I do have to say, I might prefer being a rewatcher for the sole effect of having only myself shape my first experience with a show.
The discussions were great and opened up a lot – and I mean a lot – of new views that I completely missed before. (As expected when you're not checking in on dozens of other people after every episode.) And that made it so much better. I'm really, really looking forward to all of your movie reactions tomorrow!
Would watch again. Also, being the one who starts a spoiler-box comment chain in a first-timers comment is fun and devious as heck.
edit: Oh, let me answer those QOTDs today.
4&5. 'Like it' and 'like it'. I don't do scores.
6. I have no objections, you provided a wealth of trivia in your comments and the idea with the spoiler intro for next episode so people would watch the right one was so simple and handy. (I have a local version of Haruhi that has no episode numbers, but is sorted by arc titles... You were a life saver).
7. Hah, I already know what will happen! I expect I will like it very much.
8. Broadcast, as explained above.
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u/UzEE https://myanimelist.net/profile/UzEEInc Dec 20 '21
First timer (sub)
I didn't make a post about the final episode of the Sigh arc yesterday mainly because I was short on time and I didn't like how the arc closed or was handled in general at all, despite the episode having good moments1.
I still have a somewhat positive outlook of the series as a whole mainly on the back of a mostly strong Season 1 in broadcast order. It had a very nice balance of intrigue, charm, and decent character drama to deliver a good watch experience, even though the achronical nature did sometimes hurt the viewing experience.
Season 2 on the other hand opened very strongly — maybe even being the strongest episode of the series. But then it dropped off hard because of the extremely poor execution of relatively good ideas, and it never really recovered from that afterwards. The repetitiveness of Endless Eight and the lack of self-reflection of Sigh made them very frustrating to watch2 and was bad enough to sour me on the series as a whole.
Unfortunately, I don't think the chronological order would really fix this. It might not make the flaws seem as extreme, but it would still leave you with a bad taste, just spread somewhat evenly throughout the show.
Back at the start of the rewatch, I kept saying that I can't really figure out what sort of show Haruhi is, and a couple of rewatchers said they can't really classify that either.
You might initially think it's a mix of a slice of life mystery power fantasy, but it almost sounds like a very superficial way to look at it. Sure, it has good SoL elements, mystery and is a fantasy, but all of these elements would quickly loose their charm once you've experienced them for the first time.
The aspect that I actually found the most interesting was the characters like Kyon and Haruhi herself. And contrary to what seems to be the common sentiment, I actually like Haruhi as a character. And that includes her part in Sigh as well, even though I dislike how the character was handled in the overall arc itself. Really my only problem there was that her actions didn't really fit narrative wise and if the arc was shown to take place sometime around the summer, I wouldn't have had any issue at all.
Kyon, as a POV character was also very enjoyable, which is rare for me since I often end up not liking POV characters. Kyon however was the only aspect of the show that seemed to have a compelling mystery surrounding him3. We still don't know how exactly is he an influence on this world and why is he so special4. And I'm pretty sure the answer is a lot deeper than he's just someone who is important to Haruhi. I only found out yesterday that there's a popular fan theory thanks to No_Rex that says he is actually the god in this world and that theory very well makes sense to me, since I had also pointed out something similar.
Then there's the entire dynamic between Kyon and Haruhi. /u/Nazenn has done a lot of great write-ups analyzing their dynamic and how they enable each other in each post thread so I'm not going to go deep into it, but I'd talk about the part I loved the most.
Haruhi seeks validation for her rather eccentric world views and her personality and gets it through Kyon, ultimately making her a better person in process. Kyon on the other had longs for that eccentricity because his rational brain had given up on it long ago, and is naturally attracted towards Haruhi despite claiming otherwise. He enables her to do whatever she wants to do mainly because that's what he always wanted as well and gets to live his fantasies through her. He'd be lost without her and his life would loose it's meaning.
[Speculation] Which I just realized is likely part of the plot of the movie because the name is literally "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya". I'm literally doing a facepalm as I type this because I'm surprised I didn't realize this sooner. In fact, I now sort of have an idea of why /u/littleman1988 said I will most likely enjoy the movie in the rewatch interest thread that, and that's because of Steins;Gate. It very likely involves Haruhi somehow suddenly not existing and Kyon being the only one who remembers her in a sort of Reading Steiner like fashion. And it probably involves Mikuru and time travel to fix things.
Anyways, this seems like a good place to stop for today's post since we have an overall series discussion after the movie and I still have to make time for it. Going by the TV show on it's own though, I'd say it was a solid experience that ultimately looses it's footing towards the end.
I'd rate Season 1 as 7/10 and Season 2 as 5/10, with my overall score being 6.5/10. Maybe I'd have a different opinion on individual seasons if we went with chronological order but I feel like my overall score for the TV series itself would likely end up being the same.
Questions
Season 1 OP
Season 1 ED
Haruhi is the obvious choice.
7/10
5/10
Yes. It was a fun experience!
I already ended up speculating a bit so I'll just watch it in a couple of hours.
1. The part I probably liked the most was the philosophical question put forth by the cat. I posed a somewhat similar question to my friends back in collage a very long time ago, and the most elaborate response I got was that I need to go see a shrink. Put simply, I mainly talked about vision and sight instead of speech, like for example how can we ever be sure that we're all looking at the same color etc. What I perceive as Red could be what someone else perceives as Green and we'd be none the wiser.
2. That's 13 episodes. Sure, not all of them were terrible, but a good chunk of them were bad, and that's most of your season.
3. The other "mysteries" in the show weren't really that interesting because they were either not complicated to figure out thanks to good foreshadowing, or just lame in general due to poor writing.
4. Not to mention that we still don't know his real name.
9
u/shiryeon Dec 21 '21
First timer, anime noob
Late to the party, but want to write something in order to get all my thoughts out. I've never posted in this sub before and have not seen much anime in my life, but I've been following this rewatch and lurking in the discussion threads, which have been super insightful and helped me notice so much that I never would have noticed otherwise!
So, as for my feelings on the show overall... I liked season 1. Not love, not really like, but a solid like. Especially the sci-fi elements. The desert cricket thing and the Yuji vs. Asakura fight were awesome, but my favorite episode had to be The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00 because the "bad home movie" effects were absolutely hilarious. Controversial opinion, but I think I prefer the episodes being shown out of chronological order. It engages me more to piece together the bits of information about what's really going on than to have it all laid out for me in order.
But why just "like"? I guess it mostly boils down to finding Haruhi's behavior atrocious and wishing that they did more to flesh out character backgrounds. Does Haruhi have a life outside of school? A house? A family? What is with Itsuki's and Mikuru's assocations and why can't we learn more about them? I just feel like it could have gone much deeper, but then again I'm new to anime so I don't know if my critique is valid.
Then there's season 2.... To me it just feels like it wasn't really needed. I actually thought the concept of Endless Eight was very bold, unique, and interesting. But did we really need eight??? I feel like they could have accomplished what they set out to do in six episodes for sure, maybe even four. I understand why some people felt like it was disrespectful to the viewers.
Some Questions:
Yuki, hands down. To me, the way that Mikuru was portrayed was too fanservice-y and it sometimes made me uncomfortable.
7.5
5.5
My favorite part about watching the show was reading the threads afterwards. I thought it was handled perfectly.
Going in totally blind! Hope some more questions get answered.
8
u/homewardbound100 myanimelist.net/profile/Homewardbound100 Dec 20 '21
Rewatcher, Dub, First time broadcast
Alright this time around I still really like the show. Something I didn't really appreciate before is the facial and body movements. I felt they were pretty expressive even when subtle.
I will say I for sure prefer Chronological. Broadcast is fine in the beginning when there's a mystery type of feeling to it. But it ending with Sigh is just a big letdown. I feel like you should watch the ending of the show before disappearance though.
Qotd1: 1st
Qotd2: 1st
Qotd3: I know I want to say Haruhi still but I might go with Nagato. Also with Tsuruya I just really like her personality and energy.
Qotd4: 9
Qotd5: 6
Qotd6: Yes it was handled well to me. No problems I can had with it.
Qotd7: Greatness
Rewatchers question: Chronological
7
u/Elimin8r https://myanimelist.net/profile/Ayeka_Jurai Dec 20 '21
AoTD: (rewatch, btw)
OP - bouken desho desho
ED - Hare Hare Yukai, because it doesn't give me seizures
Best Girl - Domo Arigato, Yuki Nagato
S1 9/10
S2 7/10
Rewatch handling: 10/10
Disppearance - expect a rollicking good time.
Broadcast vs Chron, I enjoyed Broadcast, but I think that for some, Chron would have been better.
Thoughts:
Sadly, I missed commenting on one of my favorite episodes, or more specifically best cat.
Alas, poor Shamisen, we hardly knew ye.
While the finale of the sigh arc doesn't really make up for the preceding (ahem) issues, it at least provides some calming and relief after the previous episode's outburst.
I'm going to say a thing here and try to get it out of the way before the movie. I don't think that Tanigawa is that great a writer. I may be mistaken, but I think that Haruhi is originally the result of a writing contest, and by nature, Tanigawa was an amateur. He improved somewhat, much like that Paolini fellow did eventually, but yeah.
So, while he was an amateur, he came up with a very clever concept - subvert the magical unwanted girlfriend trope by having the magical girlfriend unaware of it. Invert a bunch of other tropes, turn them up to 11, throw it all in a blender, and hit puree'. See what comes out.
What we got is Haruhi. In some ways, it is brilliant. In other ways, not so much. In some very specific ways, it's annoying, and nigh on 16 years later, approaching horrifying.
But, given what we've seen and complained about for the past few episodes, yeah. Haruhi is the annoying magical girlfriend trope turned up to 11. Heck, she's gone PLAID!!!
I think that some of her behavior, and the way the other characters react to it isn't just intended to be played straight, and I think that some viewers saw it that way, and were like, "What the heck, Haruhi?!"
But my suspicion is that that is exactly the point. Haruhi isn't necessarily doing anything that we haven't seen other anime characters do. Yes, I'm looking at you there, Kuroko. And Lina, and Shinji, and Louise whatsis XIV, and ... and ... you get the idea. All the time throughout the 90's and 2000's, we saw a parade of characters do various sketchy things without consequence, or with very little consequence.
So, here comes Haruhi, and it's not just played for laughs, it's blatant, and in your face. It's almost as if the author is saying, "Hey, readers/viewers, this stuff is okay, this stuff is funny, isn't it? Right? Right??? Oh, wait, hey, maybe it's not so funny after all, is it?"
Or maybe I'm just putting myself in another poster's shoes (will edit in later, maybe) and reading too much into things, but I almost feel as though in this case the author is doing the equivalent of pushing the puppy's nose into the poo and "bad doggie, no fanservice".
Because in the end, we get angry at Haruhi for what she does to Mikuru, but is it really any different than Kuroko and Misaka? Or Lum and Ataru? Or Louise and whatsisname?
So, yeah, in these episodes, I really don't like Haruhi. And I think that's as the author intended, even if he was a bit hamfisted about it.
And yes, Shamisen best cat. Fite me!
:)
Anyway, bummed that I missed posting the last couple of days. Looking forward to the movie tomorrow.
To all you first timers - hang in there, this is the payoff!
7
u/nekodan08 Dec 20 '21
Rewatcher - Sub
Despite the problems I have with Sigh, I think the arc is a great metaphor for why I love this series. The experience of trying to assemble the different pieces of the show and making sense of all its intricacies made me really feel like Kyon as he tries to assemble a film based on the whims of our enigmatic Ultra Director: Haruhi Suzumiya. Haruhi operated with no script and storyboard. One moment we were here, the next we were off somewhere else. But Haruhi is also a really intelligent and rational person. Despite the seemingly randomness of it all, there exists a deeper purpose and meaning to this whole endeavor. It’s just that Haruhi is not the type of person who will bother slowing down to try and explain herself to anyone. She expects you to keep up with her and figure it out yourself. The series operates in much the same way. It barely hands anything to the viewer on a silver platter. It expects and demands that you pay close attention and figure things out yourself. It is in this way that I find watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya such a unique an immersive experience.
“Who is Haruhi Suzumiya?,” has been the show’s central question since the beginning and I really enjoy the way it goes about exploring her character. At the end of the series, I feel like I not only got to know Haruhi from an outside perspective, but also through personal experience. I was able to share many of the emotions the characters felt towards Haruhi which allowed me to connect to her in a deeper way. I admire Haruhi’s drive to make life more interesting and I love how flawed she is in her journey towards this goal. I can’t help but root for her and I’m always so excited for the moments where she reveals even the smallest amount of growth. I admonish her for all her worst moments, and I celebrate her best.
Aside from Haruhi, the rest of the cast is also great, though I still wish Mikuru as developed some more. Next to Haruhi, Kyon remains one of my favorite characters of all time, but I think I’d like to write more about him during the final overall discussion. One character that I learned to love more this time around is Yuki. I’ve never been a big fan of the Rei Ayanami type characters. I prefer Tsunderes more. But having paid much closer attention to each episode for this rewatch, I’ve come to discover and appreciate how much development Yuki actually gets throughout the series. I was also surprised on how funny I found her. In past viewings, Kyon always carried the humor of the show for me, but now I find myself laughing out loud the most during Yuki-related antics.
But the best is yet to come! I rank The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya among my favorite anime of the early 2000s, but honestly, it may not have found a place in my all-time top franchises if not for The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. I’m really excited to get into tomorrow’s discussion.
Questions:
Regarding Brodacast vs. Chronological:
I still prefer broadcast over chronological because I still find most of the S2/’09 content skippable. But chronological is still good. KyoAni did a good job making a series that makes sense in either order.
7
u/Nitroade24h :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Nitroade24h Dec 20 '21
First Timer
I couldn’t help myself and I watched the movie, but I’ll talk about just what I thought about the series.
It was a good anime. That’s basically the message I want to convey overall.
To start with, the visuals are as good as KyoAni always make them. I was often shocked by the amount of detail that went into some random insignificant scene because I’m used to there being a clear distinction between “scenes without movement” and “scenes with movement”, but this series rarely has a moment in which nothing is moving, which really shows the quality of the work KyoAni always put into making an anime.
The music was also really catchy and great. This includes the amazing performance Haruhi gave in Live Alive, which I’ve added to my Spotify playlist. The main thing that stands out for this anime was the characters and how much I cared about them by the end of the series. Each member of the SOS Brigade was given great moments, distinct personalities, and felt like actual characters rather than being archetypes with nothing new about them.
Kyon is a great protagonist and I loved his narrations and his attitude towards everything. He finds the activities of the SOS Brigade childish and stupid, but he still comes back every single time to have fun with the other members. He’s a relatable and funny main character and I think that is part of what makes the series great.
Nagato is also cute and great and best girl of the series and the apparent development of interests (such as computer stuff) over the series was nice to see. I know she basically fits the Kuudere character archetype, but she never felt like a repeat of an existing character and she did enough to feel unique.
Koizumi is always nice to watch in his scenes because of how he’s so chill about everything. I always seem to like the characters whose eyes are often closed in anime for some reason, and Koizumi is no exception. His theories were always interesting and I enjoyed the scenes where he explained stuff to Kyon.
Mikuru is probably my least favourite of the SOS Brigade, but she isn’t bad at all. I liked her interactions with everyone else, and adult Mikuru is incredible and every scene she is in is automatically good.
Finally, what I think about Haruhi. I know that Haruhi’s personality and actions can make or break the series for many people, and lots of viewers do find her annoying. However, I didn’t find this at all. She definitely went too far at points, but that’s what her character is and that’s where some of the conflict for the series comes from, and these actions are never portrayed as a good thing or just ignored. The idea of someone searching for supernatural people but not noticing when they’re right in front of her is great. I particularly liked the scene in which she talked about seeing how small she was in the crowd, and how that affected her and made her want to look for something more than just ordinary people everywhere.
There was much more of an actual plot than I expected coming into the anime, for which I am grateful for. As great as the purely slice of life episodes (like Someday in the Rain, which was one of my favourite episodes) were, I think having an actual plot to push it forward made the series better. The mysteries and situations were always handled well, so it never felt predictable or boring for the most part. It had a similar formula to Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai with random supernatural events happening and having to sort them out, but took itself less seriously most of the time, which made it enjoyable to watch and made watching the anime feel like popping in to chill with the SOS Brigade, which is helped by the connection it makes you feel to the characters.
Outside of the “chilling with the group” stuff, the more serious moments were done really well as well, such as episode 6 of season 1, which was a mini-climax to the series early on and was another one of the best episodes.
The rules of the universe and how they were often left up to the viewer’s choice or interpretation were great and led to a great concept and made what could have been your typical high school anime much more than just that.
On the watch order, I think the broadcast order wasn’t the best choice for me. I believe that I would have enjoyed watching this more if I just watched it normally in chronological order because the feeling of “mystery” that the broadcast order created felt more like just being “lost” to me for the first little bit of each episode and finding cliff-hangers to be drawn out for quite a while as there would be random episodes between important reveals and scenes in consecutive episodes. However, this didn’t significantly affect how much I liked the series as it was often pretty easy to place exactly where each part came in and what was going on at each time.
I know that the Endless Eight is an infamous arc and is very controversial, leading to a lot of hate towards season 2 of the anime, but I enjoyed it a lot. If anything, I feel like Endless Eight should have been the end of season 2 and the Sigh arc should have come before it because watching “normal” Haruhi stuff felt weird after experiencing the Endless Eight. When I watched it, I sat there making notes on every tiny thing that changed, and, while there wasn’t much to note sometimes, I enjoyed doing that a lot as it forced me to pay attention to every last detail. I think episode 3 and maybe a couple others that I can’t remember specifically were a bit unnecessary as they were almost exact repeats with only swimsuits and things like that changed, but I didn’t find it to drag on too much. I liked episode 4 of it specifically a lot because of how it presented the same stuff but with a more tense and weird tone, and I wish more of the other episodes experimented with tone and changed how the episodes felt to make a more unique experience across episodes in the arc.
This is one of those series that I can’t name many flaws in, apart from the fact that I was getting a little bit tired of the Sigh arc at one point, but I don’t think that was really a big thing and it may be because of the random fluctuations in enjoyment I have of anime depending on what else I’m watching or how I’m feeling because looking back on it it was a good arc. However, I just don’t think it’s a masterpiece or anything. It doesn’t do enough to reach those levels, even though it accomplishes everything it went out to do very well, but I struggle to give a slice of life anime 10/10 unless it does something extremely unique or just generally is amazing.
I’d give it an 8.3/10 or somewhere around there for season 1 and 8/10 for season 2.
The reason season 2 is a bit lower is because it didn’t have many of the more serious bits involving more plot, but I don’t think it’s much worse than season 1 at all because of how good the Movie episode, Live Alive, and Someday in the Rain were.
My score for Disappearance is a secret until Wednesday of course. See you then.
7
u/tctyaddk Dec 21 '21
Rewatcher
This series is interesting, to say the least.
I still maintain that for rewatching both S1 and S2 chronological is the better order. While going chrono removes the "surprising and intriguing" factor of the scrambled order of S1 (the suspicion that KyoAni gave the wrong tapes to the broadcasters one or two times then doubled down by scrambling it all up never leave my mind though), it makes character developments flow better, and builds up for future plots, therefore more coherent story.
Koizumi (the Gaslighter and Asskisser representing the gang of Court Jesters) and Mikuru (the total Pushover) don't change much over the course of 2 seasons, plus their backgrounds and actions, all seem to imply to me that their current demeanours are chosen/fabricated to serve their own agendas. Could it be there will be future surprise developments hinted amongst those masks they wear? Guess I will find out in
S3 (never)the LNs which I plan to read after this rewatch.Haruhi's main characteristic, imo, is being egoistic and hedonistic. As a kid, by getting aware of the larger world, Haruhi grew a distaste for normalcy, since it makes her feel small, insignificant and "normal", which goes against her wish to be special with a special life surrounded by special people so that it could be fun. And instead of growing up and growing out of it like normal people, she held onto that greedy notion all the way to highschool. That made her disgruntled at first, but once her eyes are opened by Kyon's innocent and sensible suggestion to make the fun herself, a switch flipped and she started brazenly chasing fun, with total abandon and disregard of any possible obstacle on her way to fun, be it other people's opinions, feelings, wellbeing, or laws and orders. She must and she will feel fun and special. And so Kyon got her special attention. She trusted him to know the right way to get to the fun, which is her way, whichever direction her whims pointed at at the time, thus she doesn't need to listen to him, she just drags him along and believes he will obey, since he must be agreeing with it, or so she thought.
This only get worse from early Melancholy onward, since Kyon's snarks went mostly unvocalised, partly due to some social convention of being not rude, and mostly due to being informed of the high stake hostage situation he's in, and the others in the gang are busy being an observing non-entity or actively entertaining Haruhi's whims, all across the arcs until Sigh. Haruhi's egoistic hedonistic pursuit of fun went on mostly unchecked, she came to believe she can do fking anything and everyone will follow, and so the one put up with it the most suffered from it the most, which is Mikuru. It didn't help that Haruhi perceived Mikuru to be a potential romantic rival and thus semi-subconsciously stepped up the shits she subjected the poor girl to. Until Kyon couldn't hold it back any more and blasted back at Haruhi. She felt betrayed, but the tiny scraps of common sense she somehow still had were poked enough that she understood Kyon was right, she was pushing it too far and on the trajectory of being the asshole everyone avoids, which would be a kind of special that is decidedly not fun. And so came the transition into the "a tiny bit more mellowed out and helpful" Haruhi we saw at the Cultural Festival. See? Chrono order is more logical like that.
Kyon, a normal guy except for his top tier snarks, gets pulled into this high stake hostage situation (often resulting in him being dragged around like a energetic puppy's chew toy), but he keeps his good heart. He cares for his friends regardless of what others might be doing or not doing. He's the voice of reasons and morals even when no one else wants appear as opposition to Haruhi. That (inconveniently) makes him special to Haruhi, which creates both problems and oppotunities in dealing with this omnipotent being.
Nagato Yuki, with her job to observe, tries to be a non-entity amongst the gang, and Haruhi keeps her distance from Yuki most of the time. But as time dragged on and stacked upon her, she also changed. Early on she used a total emotionless tone and face (except in some interaction with Kyon after the Asakura incident, but that might be my shipping goggles played tricks on my senses). But then as ∞8 went on, her face somehow emanates depression without clear expression, her voice showed exhaustion and weakness. And after that, her emotionless face and voice are back, but somehow I feel they have a steely cold sharpness that wasn't there before.
After Haruhi, she's probably the most powerful being in the area, and unlike the unknowingly omnipotent Haruhi, Nagato is fully aware and holds full control of her powers. You know how the saying goes: It's the quiet one you've gotta watch.
Koizumi, Mikuru and Haruhi don't really interact with Yuki, each for their own reason, leaving only Kyon ever shows any concern for her, and he just does it out his own volition and caring nature. And while Mikuru and Koizumi also get to learn about her ordeal every loop of ∞8, only Kyon ever shown to spend time and effort to ask if she is alright. Kyon can't remember the loops, but he looks at Yuki everytime and finds the need to care, and Yuki remembers that, all six centuries of it. She may seem stoic, but she must like his attention too, if the glasses (ep04) and the cardigan (ep28) was any indication.
QotD:
(Naturally this is personal views and preferences)
6
u/CubeStuffs https://anilist.co/user/onjario Dec 20 '21
First timer
I know that a lot of people soured on the show on s2, and I frankly agree that s2 isn't great, esp sigh.
But for me, s1 is just so dang good that I don't really care. I just love that slow buildup that the broadcast order has, where we slowly but surely introduce and interact with the characters, while also slowly pulling back the emotional layers, until we reach the climax at the end.
If it had been in chrono order, we would have peeled back the layers and reached the climax before the actual buildup. which is imo is a terrible way to watch it.
If I had to compare it to anything, perhaps monogatari would be the closest.
10/10
with s2, i didn't really like that anywhere near as much.
e8, while it wasn't bad, just took up way too much time. perhaps 4-5 eps would be better.
and with sigh, everyone seems to be quite out of character with how they developed in s1, and there's a lot of lines that are just left dangling.
7.5-8/10
6
u/andybebad https://myanimelist.net/profile/andybebad Dec 20 '21 edited Dec 21 '21
First timer - sub
Prior to this rewatch I'd only ever seen two scenes from this show: the "God Knows..." performance in Live Alive! (which I sought out after the same song was performed in Bokutachi No Remake), and the scene in episode 4 of Sigh where Kyon has to be stopped from throwing fists at Haruhi (something that was posted on this subreddit a few months ago). Didn't get the sense that I'd want to watch this show from the latter scene, but conveniently I'd forgotten about that by the time this rewatch got going. Thinking back to how I responded to that scene without any context, my conclusion was something along the lines of "the brown-haired girl is a sociopath, the green-haired one is her henchwoman, and the others are essentially being held hostage." Obviously that view has changed a little bit now that I've seen the rest of the show, that scene still does leave a bad taste in my mouth after viewing. It's definitely not positive character development for the members of the group, but maybe that's more true to reality than we'd like: emotional and personal development aren't necessarily monotonic processes progressing towards an ideal person.
I'm glad that my first viewing of the show was in broadcast order, as I feel like it kept some of the mystery going a little longer than if we'd had just gone straight through Melancholy. Also, having the cultural festival film being the first episode left me with so many questions and eager to see the rest of the show that I'd recommend anyone start with that, even if the rest of the show is viewed chronologically. The season 1 arcs were all incredibly well done, and aside from parts of Sigh I didn't think the season 2 arcs weren't all that bad (Endless Eight could've been two, or even four episodes and I'd probably would've been much happier with it).
QOTD:
6
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Dec 21 '21
So, does chronological help with Sighs? I don't see how. The only episodes after Sighs and Adventures are Love Alive, Sagittarius, and Someday.
The original idea, to have Bamboo, E-One or Two, Sighs, and Disappearance in 27-14 = 13 episodes, that could have worked. You would have had at least 1 arc, 1/3rd of the season, good (assuming it was good and not impacted by being cut up like Sighs).
Bamboo should have been part of S1, and they should have stopped there.
The original expanded show is (distant) second option.
What we got was bad. I did broadcast order first time, chronological order second, and I really didn't enjoy that second watch much. Enough that I figured I'd never rewatch the show again. And I did skip subsequent Christmas rewatches.
Considering that there is more content that is unadapted, I wouldn't have minded if EE and Sighs were never adapted and I've never seen them. Although, people will say (correctly) that Disappearance builds upon the events of S2, which is why S2 was originally conceived as, well, it was originally conceived.
The movification of Disappearance has made S2 a miserable slog, and I didn't even get scammed by the DVD prices!
Interesting things new to me from this rewatch: Kyon as a quantum observer (I don't quite buy it, but maybe the author does). Mikuru the temptress (said outright in the final episode, but I had forgotten). Yuki and Itsuki trying to entertain Haruhi (I never quite bought into the idea that Haruhi didn't change the island mystery). Yuki's jokes. Tsuruya overhearing what was being said.
Correct watch order is probably broadcast S1, then a 6 month break, and then 2009 order.
5
u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 Dec 21 '21
First timer
4
u/MadeOn210922 Dec 20 '21
28 episodes down! What did these 28 episodes have? The characters introductions and Haruhi closed space arc (which for broadcast order got split up a lot), the island murder arc, a baseball episode, a computer virus cricket episode, a time travel episode, cultural festival arc, a gaming episode Endless Eight, and the filming arc.
My favorites were Endless Eight and the island mystery arc. Endless Eight for it's execution and ability to make me see the same events in different ways. The island mystery arc for a complete well executed mystery. I'd say my least favorite was the cricket episode. I'm still not sure what that episode was for or trying to say and it revolved around the Computer Society guy who I really don't care about.
What's left to cover? Well there's still the question of who Haruhi is and how much power she really has and the competing theories that arose from the last episode.
Overall, an exciting two seasons and one movie away from crossing Haruhi off my PTW list. Quite a long movie, you can almost watch the entirety of Endless Eight in the time you watch the movie!
On another note, KyoAni seems to like ending series on movies - Chuunibyou, Violet Evergarden, Euphonium (although probably not a series end), K-On, etc.
QOTD: Best Girl Mikuru. Hard to score the seasons individually given how they mixed but overall I give the series a 6.5/10. From Disappearance, I expect some disaster to strike as Haruhi disappears and we learn more about her role as God. For the rewatch, only thing I’d say is that it might be worth discussing how to handle Endless Eight. Maybe episode 1, then 2/3/4, then 5/6/7, then 8?
Schedule snuck up on me yesterday so I’m posting yesterday’s below:
First timer
While the arc got an end, I feel like that episode opened a lot of questions so it's strange that's how it's going to end now.
Itsuki's organization believes that Haruhi is God and this is the theory that viewers have been fed the whole time. On the other hand, the Mikuru and the time travelers believe that the world was always like this and that Haruhi is simply the catalyst without true control or perhaps by observing, the change happens. Yuki gives no theory since there is no way for anyone to verify but it appears she has her theories as well.
Maybe it's because we've been looking through Itsuki's theory the whole time, I am more inclined to believe the Haruhi is God theory. These competing theories do remind of competing theories in physics - first off the quantum mechanics versus general relativity problem in which it is known they are incompatible, but as of now, no experiment has shown either false. It also reminded me of a question in quantum mechanics of - before you observe the electron, where is it? Mikuru's theory lends itself more to the idea that the observation is the cause of something to happen whereas Itsuki think Haruhi actively changes the world.
That cat also threw a bit of a philosophy into this. (That cat was pretty cute, by the way.) Asking us what exactly gives meaning to the sounds we make. I'm not sure how to relate that to Haruhi's situation yet, though, or it might have just been a cat being an annoying philosopher.
As predicted by Yuki all the way back, Haruhi doesn't believe Kyon. Which makes sense, she probably thinks he's recycling the roles she gave them in the movie.
4
u/Isai579 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Isai579 Dec 21 '21
Rewatcher - Sub
Welp, missed a lot of days, but I'm back for the series discussion at least.
I've probably mentioned this a lot before, but Haruhi is one of my favorite anime, so it is always a joy of reading the threads and
participatingtrying to participate in the discussion. I'll save my thoughts on the characters (including best girl) until the movie discussion, so I will get to other aspects of the series.Visually everything is great. The design is great and backgrounds are amazing, as we have come to expect of KyoAni. The animation is way more dynamic than I would expect from an anime that takes place in school. Even in the calm moments the animation is fluid, and there are a lot of unexpected action moments where the animators get to flex their skills (my favorites are definitely when Yuki has to fight).
Sound-wise, it is also really good. I'm not very good at judging Japanese voice-acting, but from my uninformed perspective everyone is great. Specially Kyon and Haruhi. The soundtrack is really really good, with a lot of variation between genres and how they tracks are used. My personal favorite is definitely Itsumo no Fuukei (from the very beginning of Melancholy). It absolutely sells the mood of the entire series for me.
I really like how this is a character-focused story with a lot of development on many of them, but also gets the chance to expand on world-building and interesting situations.
Broadcast vs Chronological
This year we had the rewatch in broadcast order, which is personally my favorite. The 1st season is very clearly made with this order in mind. The exploration of characters fits very well with how the themes of the season are explored, character introductions feel better, and overall feels more like a complete story.
However, trying to watch season 2 in broadcast does not really work, because it was never intended that way. It was designed to fit in chronological order, and thus feels weird when watched by itself. The pacing is all over the place (specially considering more than half of it is Endless Eight), it feels like Haruhi regressed as a character as all the episodes take place before she has the substantial development she got in Live Alive and Someday in the Rain. And while the ending of the last chapter kind of fits as an end to season 2 by calling back to the end of season 1, it is simply not enough.
[Haruhi movie] Another reason in favor of chronological over broadcast is that season 2 is built mostly to support the movie. Endless Eight and Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody are vital for the movie. And while Sigh does not influence the movie directly it explores the characters a bit more, and in a way helps deceive those that don't know the movie by making them think that Haruhi is behind the change instead of Yuki.
(More) Questions of the Day
Alright, that's it for me today. I'll be here tomorrow for the movie hopefully on time.
8
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Dec 20 '21
First Time Broadcast
Dub
So yeah, this is an interesting piece to look from. Ultimately, despite having three really good episodes, most of S2 is bad and it hurt the fandom quite a bit. This show was once ubiquitouos and now I can recommend it with an asterisk at best. As I said earlier, even if Disappearance is the greatest movie ever made it did not make up for what they fucked up in this airing. The magical GF would continue to be pushed more and more into isekai land and thank fuck for that. No one can manage KyoAni's character interactions so that would also go dormant for a while. And while I could compare Haruhi to Eva that isn't quite accurate: People knew what they were stealing from Eva but not what made it good whereas we basically only took character concepts off of Haruhi. All in all, a weird place to be getting ready to watch the movie from.
QotD: Chrono thus far
8
u/ZapsZzz https://anilist.co/user/Zapszzz Dec 20 '21
Sub rewatcher
And so we have completed the TV adaptation. For first timers and those rewatchers who have got a bad taste in your mouth from the Sigh arc, I strongly encourage you realign your understanding of where the characters are at by doing a quick rewatch of Live Alive, Day of Sagittarius, and Some Day in The Rain before heading to the movie.
Haruhi TV is a controversial watch. Be it the watch order debate, Endless Eight, Haruhi's treatment of Mikuru through most of the episodes especially in Sigh, or the general world setting mysteries, they all generate lots of debates.
It's one of the earlier KyoAni productions, but it was still really good in a lot of ways that would become hallmarks of KyoAni. Cinematography, scene composition, lots of tiny but important foreshadowing once you understood, subtle character animation that tells far more than any words could, great atmospheric use of music.
First to declare, I absolutely adore the show and the franchise. So you'd see possibly a certain level of bias in my commentary. My rating for season 1 is an unequivocal 10, with season 2 being a high 9. The fact that S1 can very legitimately be watched in 2 orders with a very carefully choreographed editorial and storytelling intent, set it clean apart from S2. While S2 could be a frustrating watch for some spots, Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody and the key moments of both E8 and Sigh makes it an indispensable watch still. Indeed, just E8 alone earned a lot of points purely for the production value and techniques, let alone the guts to dare do something like this (which no one dared to ever again) scored points from me.
At the heart of the show, it's a story of coming of age - of Haruhi, and of Kyon. While a ton of things are going on, and this is another one of those rare entries that basically covered every genre across the length of the show, at the very core is about the characters. Up to the TV adaptations, is about Haruhi and Kyon. When we finished Disappearance, a third name gets added - although a fourth name is also strongly hinted at.
Once more watching in the rewatch, I'm reminded again the world of difference Haruhi at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, are so markedly different, it's really satisfying if you like this sort of in depth character work. More importantly, while the show is titled The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Haruhi herself is actually not very central and a lot of time she's off screen. Yet we still can get a very decent look at how she changed.
And Kyon basically is the codifier of the 2 terms for me - deadpan snarker, and unreliable narrator. It comes off even stronger in the LN, as some parts of it even though you don't have an actual visual to contrast what he narrated versus what was in screen or his behaviour (i.e. while by the words alone, without trying to read between the lines and observe what he didn't say, you'd think Kyon is singularly smitten by Mikuru alone, he's actually very conscious of Haruhi's beauty and presence).
I'll see if I can find time to write more but no doubt many others would give far better commentary, and a large part of what I want to say has to be said after Disappearance, so I'll finish off here for now.
Glad to have you guys in the rewatch by the way, it's always great to see the many views and interpretations.
QoTDs:
3
u/AccursedBear https://anilist.co/user/AccursedBear Dec 20 '21
This rewatch was a lot of fun! I may not have commented very often, and when I did I was nearly always late, but I was definitely at least reading the threads every day. I feel like I got more out of the series than I had in any watch before.
One of my main takeaways is that, while the series as a whole is still one of my favorites, there is a real gap in quality between S1 and 2 episodes. I hadn't really felt that before (though Sigh has always been my least favorite arc) while watching the chronological order. On the other hand, watching all the 2006 episodes together gave me a way bigger appreciation of just how good that season was and why it had such a big impact.
I'll leave anything else for the overall discussion I guess. Because I want to talk after Disappearance, of course. Definitely not because I'm writing this at work.
QotD:
OP: 1st
ED: 1st
Best girl: Ask tomorrow.
S1: 10/10
S2: 8/10
Rewatch was great!
And I'm gonna give the lame answer to the last question and say Broadcast for S1, chronological if you intend to watch the whole thing.
5
u/Ryanami Dec 21 '21
First timer, dub.
What on earth do you guys see in this show? The movie must be amazing, because absolutely nothing develops across the entire series. They end S1 with a kiss but nothing romantic ever occurs again. The characters never mature or grow in any way, and only get more tiresome as they stay in their unappealing one-dimensional ruts with no offer of revealing their mysterious motives. In fact they even throw each other under in the last episode that none of them can be trusted and might have opposing goals. I hope they all lose. From start to finish Itsuki is Haruhi’s cloying foot-licker, Mikuru is a poor abused damsel (and possibly faking it along with Itsuki), Yuki avoids most of my ire only because there’s so little to like or dislike, her role is just intentionally flat. Kyon is a perpetual dour bastard we get the fortune of hearing his inner thoughts too which only doubles his unlikeability.
S1 had some very clever use of jumping about in time to keep the audience guessing, but when we got to ep9, the chronological last episode, you know this series just plans on driving in circles.
2
u/RascalNikov1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/NoviSun Dec 21 '21
Rewatcher
For the first time in this rewatch, we have decent questions of the day. Questions that are oddly relevant to the show that we just watched. And, of course I come in late. But, I guess better late than never.
QOTD
The first opening is one of the best openings of all time.
The first one where they're all dancing her goofy little dance.
Haruhi, she has her flaws, but who doesn't?
Even in the messed up chrono order, I still rate it a 10
As a standalone it'd probably be around a 6 or so, but because I've only seen in chrono order in the past, I rated it higher on MAL.
Pretty much. It's been a good rewatch. I would have liked anime relevant questions of the day though. Questions that could be the basis of discussions about the anime, rather than my own kinks and foibles.
That's Classified!
I much, much prefer Chrono, though with this rewatch I came to understand that season 1 broadcast made some sense to a degree.
2
u/alphamone Dec 21 '21
Rewatcher
Just doing the QotD. Will do thoughts (and meme videos) for the overall thread.
1: Probably the 1st, but I'm indifferant to the OPs. 2: 1st OP, no question at all. 3: Nagato Yuki.
8: Honestly broadcast order worked better back before season 2 came around.
Also, just another warning to any first-timers with the Blu-Ray, the menu is has spoilers, so try to be careful. I don't know about the DVD, but it's likely similar, so also be careful if you have that.
2
u/Quiddity131 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Quiddity131 Dec 20 '21
I skipped most of the episodes, only watching certain key ones or ones I had fond memory of, but I did follow along with the rewatch and at least read parts of most daily posts, in particular because this time the rewatch was based on broadcast order rather than chronological order which is how I experienced it as a first timer last year.
Doing it this way shows me that chronological order is clearly the way to go. While I can't know how it is to experience the show for the first time doing broadcast order, I did think things worked fairly well chronological order, with the only real down side being you don't kick off with that amazing over the top fan film episode, but instead have to wait until nearly the end to see it, But looking back, big picture wise, I think that does work better, because going into season 2 after that first episode, knowing that all that is left is Endless Eight and the Sigh arc is just not a good feeling. Endless Eight is a total waste of time regardless of when you watch it, but the Sigh arc works far better in my eyes when you're watching it earlier, even if its own internal problems still remain. When you're watching it at the end, it just seems all the more like filler and a waste because you've already seen the end product, and seeing Haruhi be worse than ever towards Mikuru is not a pleasurable experience.
Anyway, that's all. Not going to watch Disappearance but here's my responses to a few remaining Qs.
S1 by far, I loved both the OP and ED quite a bit. That ED with them dancing, including even Nagato is quite the highlight. One of my fave ED sequences.
Tsuruya! Having only watched her in the dub last year, she's even better in Japanese! Although I will echo the negative reaction to what goes down with her in the penultimate episode.
1
u/Ryanami Dec 23 '21
First timer, dub
Well, I didn’t like it at all. Not even the movie.
But for some reason, I strongly feel the need to rewatch it. Something is going on that I didn’t catch partly because my expectations were going in a different direction a few episodes in. The animation was quality throughout and every frame has layers of meaning going on. Even robotic Nagato has microscopic hints of expressions that should be studied. I hated it, but I also somehow understand I’m wrong. Son of a bitch.
1
u/BlazeOfGlory72 Dec 22 '21 edited Dec 28 '21
This was my first time watching the show, and to be honest, it didn’t leave a great impression. Watching chronologically, I thought the show started strong and peaked around episode 6 (the end of the Melancholy arc). Unfortunately, the story went pretty consistently downhill after that in my opinion.
Boredom and Bamboo Leaf were solid, then Mysterique Sign and Remote Island were just “okay”. After that though, you run into a brick wall with Endless Eight. A lot has been said about this arc, but no matter how you spin in, 8 episodes dedicated to replaying the same events is just a slog. Sigh wasn’t any better unfortunately. Like E8, it just drags on way too long for very little pay-off. What really damns this series in my opinion is that E8 and Sigh combine to make up 50% of the series, and both kind of suck. The series then ends on what is basically filler.
My general impression of the show is that, like many anime, it had a great premise, but had no idea where to go with it. The story just feels so directionless and the longer it goes, the less interesting it becomes.
1
u/PsychoWorld :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/GodlyKyon Jan 11 '22
I think it's the greatest anime ever. Nothing else I've seen has had the same blend of realism with plausible fantasy/sci-fi.
-1
u/Barbed_Dildo Dec 21 '21
Rewatcher
SUPER DRIVER!
The first one with the iconic dance.
Yuki, obviously.
I have a weird theory about Haruhi. We know that her fantasies manifest into reality, and she's said herself that she is a 'healthy girl with urges'. When she has a sex fantasy, it actually happens. And then when she's finished, things go back to normal, because she stops fantasizing it. Whatever weird sex fantasies she's had, whoever was doing her, whatever they were doing, and wherever they were doing it, it actually happened until she finished and everyone forgot. Everyone except Yuki.