Haruhi Suzumiya
涼宮ハルヒ
(Anime)
Supernatural by Nagaru Tanigawa
Era: 2000s
Rating: B
Plot: Entering high school, Kyon abandoned the idea of aliens, time travellers and espers and such things. Then he meets Haruhi Suzumiya, an odd girl with a goal in mind: find things like aliens, time travellers and espers, and she proposes to begin a club where she can indulge in her pursuits of not being bored, and eventually recruit Yuki Nagato, a bookish girl who came with the clubroom, Mikuru Asahina, a very shy girl who was gangpressed into joining due to her assets, and midterm transfer student Itsuki Koizumi. You're not going to believe what they are.
Length: 28 episodes (25m), 1 movie; spinoff 16+1 episodes, omake 25 episodes (under 5 minutes).
Thoughts: Well, for a start, this has to be one of the oddest first episides I've seen to an anime - what looks a very poorly upscaled and terrible school movie that keeps doing the bit until the very end of the first episode rather than just fading out into the OP. Anyway, I'm doing the whole thing in this post, starting with the two seasons of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The first episode wasn't some oddity as the episodes really are out of chronological order which makes understanding what's going on a bit of a challenge, with the character introductions on second and third episode, where Yuki tells Kyon she's an alien, then on fourth there's a baseball game with a new guy on the club, and something about the world ending if Haruhi is angry, and to prevent that from happening Yuki uses some powers that allow them to beat the other team, and on the fifth episode we pick up on the introductions again, where Kyon understandably thinks Yuki is pulling his leg until the other two, including the new guy, properly introduced as Itsuki, and Esper, confirm the reality-bearing ability of Haruhi. After that's out, it becomes less of an issue, and the second half if the first season rolls out to a perfectly fine ending, where all characters find their place in that world (B). Maybe unexpectedly, it got a second season three years later, and... You know how I've started about committing to the bit on the first episode? More than half of the second season is dedicated to a time loop in late August, the appropriately named "Endless Eight". Not in the "let's slash costs by reusing animation" because the animation is at least slightly different and lines were re-recorded. Can't imagine what was waiting three years for a new season, then for two months getting essentially the same episode, repeating over and over. Or greenlighting a second seasond for a popular show, and watch it play like this. Not sure about the intent of the effectiveness of doing it but: bold. Also kind of dumb. The show's premise is fun but it's not that deep, and the idea of repeating a timeloop in full, over and over again, with everyone forgetting what they're going through - except Nagato, who transcends time and is witness to the fifteen thousand times it already happened - and mostly playing exactly the same feels... pointless? You might say "that's exactly the point", but it doesn't exactly make it good - there's barely anything new to pick up from episode to episode. If it was *interesting* it could even be 12 episodes of the same thing repeating again and again, but like this... hard to defend, particularly 15 years on, when there's shows who deserve a second season but will never get it (D).
Rumour has it that it was mostly a cynical deployment of filler (this is a single chapter) to allow The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, running at an impressive 162 minutes, to become a movie rather than a a long arc, and doing the math it would allow them to make the story in around seven episodes, which tracks. Cynicism of "let's make this a movie instead" aside, I can see they would go in that direction, given than it's probably the most consequential arc of the stories, while not exactly original - one day Kyon wakes up and finds nobody remembers Haruhi, Mikuru doesn't know who he is and Yuki is really just a quiet girl from the literature club, and along finding out what happened, he must come to terms with how he feels about either world - does he prefer the quiet, more regular world where Haruhi is just a slightly weird girl he'd never meet, or the one with time travellers, aliens and espers? While it's a very long movie, you can well watch it in 23 minute chunks, and pretend it's a third season (B). From here, we also got The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki Chan, a 16+1 episode spinoff set in the alternate timeline where everyone is normal, and Yuki, a regular shy girl in the literature club who is constantly playing on her PS Vita, has a crush on Kyon, and is mostly like a regular romcom, and it allowed us to see these characters in a new, much funnier light, with only three episodes being more serious. Also reworks many scenes from the main show to work in this reality, and the results are frankly good, if you are looking for a funny romcom, it's worth a watch (B). The last entry in this post is The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya, a collection of 25 short episodes (clocking generally well under 5 minutes) contemporary to the second season with the characters in chibi form and their traits taken up a notch. Like many of these sort of omake material, it's not essential viewing, but it's funny and of it isn't it just moves fast enough so you aren't particularly bored by any of it (C).
Really trying to remember why it was on my to watch list but I'm drawing a complete blank. Maybe from Lucky Star, although it was added much later? Heeeeeeh, who cares. It was still an interesting watch, when it wasn't literally repeating itself.
Recommended to: fans of supernatural shows, I guess?
Plus:
Might be one the more interesting "supernatural slice of life" things to come out at around this time
It's a fun watch, the Yuki-centered spinoff in particular is a quite fun romcom.
Minus:
The slog of Endless Eight
Feels it has a bit too much fan-service for a show that really doesn't need it
