melancholy of haruhi suzumiya 3
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There’s no club in the world that I want to join more than Haruhi’s SOS Brigade.
(Haruhi is the first spring 2006 show to crack The 好ã‘s top ten series list.)
Kyon is the luckiest guy in the world. After Haruhi establishes the SOS Brigade, they get to work by assimilating their surroundings. Deciding that they need a computer, Haruhi procures one in a classic moment that seemed to be ripped-off from Great Teacher Onizuka (How many times was Onizuka blackmailed with photos of him and some girl? Three? Four? Fifty-eight?). Haruhi uses Mikuru’s, uh, charms to capture scandalous photos of the computer club honcho assaulting her… without Mikuru’s permission or advance knowledge of course. Needless to say, Haruhi scores one decked-out Athlon64 box. Meanwhile, Kyon is standing there looking disgusted but secretly enjoying the scene. He comforts Mikuru that he’ll save her next time… what a gentlemen!
After getting their computer, LAN (no wi-fi?), and 21 inch LCD monitor, Haruhi is all set for World of Warcraft Haruhi’s next goal is to spread the word of the SOS Brigade, only no one beyond her seems to have any clue what it means to be in the SOS Brigade beyond blackmailing people into coughing up their Athlon64s.
I have no clue why any of the club members are there… it’s the exact opposite of the Genshiken club room. There’s no purpose. Aside from Haruhi’s outbursts, no one does anything. They don’t have a common thread like they’re otakus or bookworms (though I think this will change). They just seem to sit there and stare at each other wondering what new explosive idea Haruhi will come with next. Honestly, that’s my type of club… I always wanted to be in a club where I stared at a hawt girl like Mikuru all the time without having to participate in an actual club activity, but, alas, I was in Science Olympiad and ended up memorizing rock compositions.
Haruhi’s next brilliant idea is that she wanted to promote the club, and she printed up flyers kinda explaining what the club did yet didn’t really say anything, in other words, a George W. Bush speech. That’s actually a good idea. She then expanded on this good idea by having her and Mikuru dress up like bunny girls and pass these flyers out in public. Not so good of an idea… unless you’re in Kyon’s position and get to see Haruhi pulling an imitation of Mahoraba‘s Saki on poor Mikuru. At least we know a bit more of Haruhi’s personality: she likes hawt costumes.
(Damn. This club is like a million times better than Science Olympiad. I feel so shafted. We didn’t even have any hawt girls let alone hawt girls stripping themselves to put on bunny outfits. Though, we had an abundance of pocket protectors, TI-85 graphing calculators, and the entire TekWar novel collection. No, not even close. OTL.)
Kyon is kind hypocritical as even though he doesn’t stay in the room and watch Haruhi and Mikuru change, but he does return to revel in the fact their underwear is still body temperature nyaa. Man, if only that cat from PPD would have shown up… I would have stopped watching anime because nothing could have topped it. Not even Tsukumo and Eri’s San Fran tea shop. Predictably, the powers that be aren’t exactly approving of two students dressed up like Playboy Playmates at the front gate, which is the exact opposite of this H-title I saw once. Haruhi gets mad since her club is getting boring; Mikuru is too ashamed to go to school. I don’t blame her… if what happened to Nadia in American Pie was a 10 out of 10 on the embarrasment scale, this would be at least a 7.
The episode tapers off as Yuki covertly invites Kyon for tea, where she tells him the secret: Yuki and Haruhi aren’t human. Maybe there’s something to Haruhi’s esper and alien proclaimation after all. ADVENTURE desho desho!
The SOS Brigade Awesomeness Index
UP Haruhi… you gotta admit, she knows what she wants and isn’t scared/shy/intimidated of anything. And, um, is that just the HD, or did she always had those? She’s also beyond cute too, like her victory dance after the computer club caves in or how she playfully locked Kyon and Mikuru in before handing out the bunny costumes. She also exudes a more sophisticed sexuality (if such a thing can exist when someone is wearing a bunny outfit) when she gets dragged back into the school and chewed out due to the bunny outfit incident, only she’s still in her bunny outfit and is giving out Sharon Stone-type vibes. Plus, she’s always using her hands. Extremely active. Toss in an OP/ED that I must have watched twenty times the past week, I think I’m in love.
UP Mikuru… wow, I thought I was pleased with her bunny outfit in episode one. She’s the doormat beyond doormats… she’s like Shinji Ikari only she’s female, even more submissive, and with big breasts. Even though she was completely used to get the computer, she’s still in the club. She also seemed completely resigned to her fate, even saying, “Will I be forced to do something like that again?” and “If I’m ruined for marriage, will you take me?” and “This was probably an inevitability on this time plane.” This doesn’t seem like a girl with a lot of self-confidence… or a girl from our space-time.
DOWN Yuki… I was hoping for more. She seems to be standard fare mystery girl, and she gets left out on all the cosplay fun. As Kyon correctly pointed out, we would have liked to see her in a bunny costume as well. Still, Yuki drops the bomb that she and Haruhi are “aliens”… what this means and how it plays out, I’m dying for more.
UP a.f.k…. because I always miss something when I try to watch this without subs…
UP HDTV… but I wish they’d use the HDTV raws. (BTW, stumbling onto the HDTV raws for Haruhi, I felt like Iran after they stumbled across enriched uranium. Very giddy.)
UP odds… after seeing this episode, I feel much better that Haruhi won’t go Otome on us. The odds of that have gone up to at least 100 to 1. On the other hand, the odds that it’ll eventually take a delicous H-turn has decreased to 25 to 1. How many H-titles have you seen about a timid girl getting “punished” for going out in a bunny outfit? Wait, don’t answer that.
UP Kyon… even though the club has no purpose, even though the club president is a powder keg, even though he’s been made an accessory of blackmail and theft, even though his name is now linked to the crazy club president, even though it’s by all accounts a waste of time, he still shows up at the clubroom everyday. Why? He just doesn’t want to miss that Haruhi is up to. Same here, I’m looking forward to the next episode just because I don’t want to miss a thing that Haruhi is up to.
23 Responses to “melancholy of haruhi suzumiya 3”
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Since Mikuru-ran isn’t of our temporal plane she might have to fulfill a predestination paradox where by she becomes her own Grandma (Like Fry of Futurama this would explain alot of things…). Indeed Kyon is a luck bastard he could marry Asahina under the guise of being honorable and not a loli-con.
I wonder what Haruhi really is since she isn’t human. I have to admit I like her ruthless and merciless tactics to get what she wants. Still I feel sorry for our poor combat waitress from the future. SInce its baseball next week I think she will be spared a bit from Haruhi’s grand plans to expliot her moe potential.
You shouldn’t be allowed to mention that episode of Futurama without using the term “past-nastification”.
My mistake. I do indeed recall the nasty in the past-y, good times good times. If only that thrice accursed FOX would let someone else fund more seasons.
-Fry (narrating): Leela cried for her lost love as Fry lay dead under the heavy bookcase. The big brain laughed in triumph. “Hahaha.” Then, for no reason, he left Earth forever. The End.
Fry: There. Now he’s trapped in a book I wrote, a crummy world of plotholes and spelling errors (aka the GSD script).
The Big Brain: The Big Brain am winning again. I am the greetest. Muhahaha. Now I am leaving Earth for no raisin.
I’d pay good money to get Yuki in a bunny suit. I too am curious as to what Yuki is actually will end up doing in this series. Her role really isn’t defined yet, but I’m hoping she becomes quite interesting and entertaining… she’s apparantly an alien, so there is hope! :P
As for the Science Olympiad, I feel your pain. Not hawt girls when I was in it years ago. But I can make a mean mousetrap car and can measure stuff without the assistance of any sort of scales. :)
> Toss in an OP/ED that I must have watched twenty times the past week, I think I’m in love.
The Gundam version of the ED (torrent by Quantum Raws) was pretty sweet too.
I seriously laughed out loud with the computer society scene. I saw it coming all the way but the pure win of the execution from Haruhi was beyond anything I could have dreamed of. Poor computer saps didn’t know what hit em.
SOS Brigade reminds me of the Borgs: Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated.
If Haruhi learns a just a bit of subtlity, like of which Shuurei of Saiunkoku Monogatari exudes, she may take over the world.
Man, this episode is a complete blast. But i felt the Yuki scene abit too… boring. She should have gone Haruhi-style and rape Kyon or something. Lol.
>>There’s no club in the world that I want to join more than Haruhi’s SOS Brigade.
Me too. It wins so hard. I’d be going there everyday even if they didn’t have activities plannned (like they plan activities anyways :P).
There’s no club in the world that I want to join more than Haruhi’s SOS Brigade.
I have a soft spot for The English Gentlemen Club and The Society for the Exploration of Mars
I suppose this is where I mention that we did indeed have hot girls on my High School math team? Unfortunatly the girl I had the hots for liked really geeky guys and I was also captain of the football team.
She must have calculated the potential life-time earning of the male around her.
Haruhi is the greatest, i want the novels!
and about the Science Olympiad, i feel your pain, im in it now and there are no girls, PERIOD, though we did manage to sneak into the chemistry stores and “borrow” and fair bit of sodium and HCL, whoo was that a explosion.
If you see anything marked HF, stay as far away as possible.
Oh my oh my…I have no words for this show…it’s…omega in quite every sense. There weren’t any “classic” anime gags, but I laughed so hard at the total, gigantic insanity that pervades Harui Suzumiya. Kyon as the storytelling voice is also a very nice touch. Let’s dwell more into the absurd ^_^ …
Truley one the best hits for 2006. Haruhi has just a class act on her. I want to see where this anime gem goes from here. Hehe i got the novels. Pure brilliance. ^^
I was in Science Olympiad too! I did Rocks and Minerals too!!!! How totally awesome! (I mean, I really sucked at it, but hey, we went to states!)
*Spoiler (But you’ll find out in like, the next to episodes anyways)*
Haruhi is a god-like entity that came into being three years ago. Actually, so did the world and everyone it it, because SHE created it. Everyone in the club save Haruhi and Kyon (who, as it is stressed, is an ordinary human) belong to their own seperate organizations made up of their own kind (aliens, time-travelers, and espers, oh my!).
These organizations all have a common goal, to observe Haruhi and keep her powers in check (i.e. completely dormant), adopting the “let the sleeping dog lie” analogy. The conflict of the series is that Haruhi becomes aware of her powers, and becomes disatisfied (which probobly means too bored) with the world, she could change the entire plane of existence, causing total chaos and what not. So essentially, Haruhi is both the protagonist AND the antagonist! GENIUS!
Try http://www.youtube.com register there and have a blast by the way this is my username.=)
http://www.youtube.com has every vidio!!!=)
I wish I could rewind it till june
It premiered on april 2 06 till july 2 06
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
(Suzumiya Haruhi no YÅ«utsu)
Genre Comedy, Philosophical, Postmodern, Psychological, Science Fiction, Seinen, Supernatural
Light novel
Authored by Nagaru Tanigawa
Artist Noizi Ito
Publisher Kadokawa Shoten
Kadokawa Media (Taiwan)
DaiwonCI (Korea)
Publish date June 6, 2003
No. of volumes 8
Manga
Authored by Mizuno Makoto (art)
Publisher Kadokawa Shoten
Serialized in Shounen Ace
Original run May 2004 – December 2004
No. of volumes 1
Manga
Authored by Gaku Tsugano (art)
Publisher Kadokawa Shoten
Serialized in Shounen Ace
Original run November 2005 –
No. of volumes 2
TV anime
Directed by Hiroshi Yamamoto
Studio Kyoto Animation
Network Various Japanese Broadcast Networks
Original run April 2, 2006 – July 2, 2006
No. of episodes 14
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya ( Suzumiya Haruhi no YÅ«utsu?) is the first of eight volumes in the Suzumiya Haruhi series written by Japanese author Nagaru Tanigawa and illustrated by Japanese artist Noizi Ito.
The Haruhi Suzumiya story initially appeared in The Sneaker, a seinen novel magazine by the Japanese publishing company Kadokawa Shoten. Since then, the story has spanned a range of media, all having been based on their preceding novels. Two separate manga series were created, though the first was discontinued shortly after it started production. The second is still currently running in Japan.
An anime sharing the same title of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was later created, though elements from other books of the novel series appear in the anime as well. It started airing in Japan on April 2, 2006 and contained 14 episodes. Though the anime series has no license overseas, numerous fansubs have been released. It is also known that Kadokawa Shoten has received various offers from companies in regards to licensing the anime, manga, and novels.
The latest incarnation of the Haruhi Suzumiya series is a radio drama based on the anime version which was released on July 5, 2006 by Lantis.
Plot
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 a first year in high school who has just recently been able to leave his fantasies of mysterious organizations, time travelers and fierce battles with aliens behind him along with required school. However, when he chooses to speak to one eccentric girl on the first day of high school, he unwittingly sets off a chain of events which drags him into situations entirely different from the real world in which he had convinced himself he was a part of. This turns his world nearly upside down as he is drawn further into a world eerily like the fantasies he had just managed to outgrow. At first it is unknown to Kyon that Haruhi Suzumiya, a fellow first year student, is at the center of it all.
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”. However, as the story progresses it is revealed that each of these supposedly “helpless victims” has a specific reason to be there.
Characters
SOS Brigade members
Haruhi Suzumiya ( Suzumiya Haruhi)?, (SeiyÅ« – Aya Hirano)
Haruhi Suzumiya is a girl in her first year of high school, as well as the title character and main focus of the anime series. She is characterized by her classmates as being eccentric, beautiful and unpredictable. She is very athletic, and her grades are described as “better than others”. Her social life is non-existent – she detests small talk and is viewed by others in her class as a deviant. She appears to be interested only in aliens, people with supernatural powers (espers), time travelers and dimensional travelers (sliders), with no desire to mingle with normal humans, even going so far as to found the SOS brigade to try to meet and play with them.
Haruhi demonstrates on many occasions that she is very talented in many different areas, in spite of a lack of commitment or long-term interest in any pursuit. Before she formed the SOS Brigade, she joined every single club in her high school to find out if they were worth her time or not. She ended up quitting every single one only after a couple of days because they were not interesting enough for her. However, many of the clubs wanted her to stay, especially the athletic clubs since she is a natural at sports and physical activities. She also can play a number of complicated chords on an electrical guitar after only an hour of practice. She also had thirty minutes to spare during an exam, which she spent sleeping, much to Kyon’s irritation.
Haruhi is the cause of an incident approximately three years ago before she entered high school, subsequently drawing the attention of three interested groups: the data entity aliens, a future human civilization with advanced time traveling technology, and a group of ‘Espers’ who spontaneously developed powers during the incident. They were drawn to Haruhi, correspondingly, by an off-the-scale data spike, inability to time travel to any date before the incident, and an inherent knowledge of the origin of their new powers. Depending on who one asks, Haruhi is herself explained as a crack in the space-time continuum, the first technological singularity to be spontaneously born in the universe or even a god. The “Agency”, to which Koizumi belongs, believes that Haruhi gifted particular individuals, the ‘Espers’, with supernatural powers to control ‘closed space’. Ironically, Haruhi remains the only member of the SOS Brigade that is unaware of the fact that these factions exist and are drawn to her.
Kyon (SeiyÅ« – Tomokazu Sugita)
Kyon is one of Haruhi’s companions, and the second founding member of the SOS Brigade. As a result, his name and reputation has since become inextricably entangled with Haruhi’s. He is also the only “normal” human in a club otherwise filled with aliens, espers and time travelers. This is a cause of curiosity and concern amongst many parties, since Haruhi is “not interested in ordinary humans.” The name Kyon is actually a nickname bestowed upon him by his aunt. His sister is responsible for spreading its use to his schoolmates, much to the chagrin of Kyon, who misses being called Onii-chan (Lit. “older brother”). His real name remains unknown.
A cynical and somewhat apathetic high school student, Kyon is the sole voice of reason in the SOS Brigade, sometimes having to reel Haruhi in when she gets too out of hand or too unreasonable. This task, much to his irritation, falls squarely on his shoulders since the other members passively go along with Haruhi’s plans. Although he believes that Haruhi does not listen to his complaints once she has made up her mind, Kyon is actually the only peer who can mitigate the worst in her behavior.
Although the title of the series implies that Haruhi Suzumiya is the main character, the story is actually told from Kyon’s point of view, and he narrates each episode, often commenting sarcastically on the various absurdities related to Haruhi and her various club activities. However, Haruhi is either oblivious to Kyon’s commentary or blissfully ignores that there are any problems at all. In addition, it is often unclear whether he is narrating, thinking to himself, or speaking out loud, which adds to the deliberate confusion (one of the main themes of the anime).
Yuki Nagato ( Nagato Yuki) (SeiyÅ« – Minori Chihara)
The only member of the club not recruited by Haruhi, Yuki Nagato was originally the lone remaining member of the Literary Club, but became a part of the SOS Brigade when Haruhi forcibly took over the club room. Yuki is emotionless, succinct and taciturn. Yuki avoids speaking at all unless she is prompted to do so by a question directed at her or because her duties require it. In addition to a love of books and knowledge, she also enjoys working with computer software.
Yuki is not a typical human, but a “humanoid interface” or artificial human sent by the Integrated Data Entity to investigate the cause of the explosion of data that occured three years ago which far exceeded anything they had observed. She is capable of manipulating data, which can have an effect upon the physical world itself, an ability that Kyon refers to as “bogus magic.” As a result, Yuki can do such things as creating baseball bats that always strike homeruns or arrange for a student to mysteriously transfer out the high school. She finds it difficult to empathize with humans, and often defers to Kyon’s better judgement where it regards ethical problems she has little understanding of.
She used to wear glasses, but stopped after Kyon told her that she looked better without them. She is also referred to by Haruhi as the “SOS Brigade’s indispensible silent character.”
Mikuru Asahina (Asahina Mikuru), (SeiyÅ« – Yuko Goto)
Mikuru Asahina is a shy and timid girl with a childish naïveté, who is also considered to be cute by many of the characters. She was “voluntarily arrested” by Haruhi when she was daydreaming in a second-year class room. Mikuru was then forced to leave the Calligraphy Club to join the SOS Brigade instead. Mikuru is also aware that Kyon regards her with affection and is afraid of causing any jealousy in Haruhi that might cause her to become unstable and bring an end to the current order of the universe.
The primary reason for Haruhi wanting Mikuru to join was in her belief that an attractive girl needs to be around for anything extraordinary to happen. In addition to this, the stronger-willed Haruhi uses Mikuru’s sex appeal to promote SOS Brigade activities and often forces Mikuru into various costumes; such as bunny-girl, maid or nurse costumes. Mikuru is also arbitrarily required by Haruhi to wear a specific costume while in the SOS Brigade’s club room.
Mikuru is actually a time traveler sent by the future human society to investigate the cause of the turmoil in the space-time continuum three years ago which prevents them from time traveling any further back than that point. An adult Mikuru, possessing more self-confidence than her younger self, also travels back in time and makes a brief appearance in episode 10 to give Kyon a message. Mikuru likens her time traveling to adding another frame into a sequence of animation, meaning that history is not noticeably affected by her movement through time. Regardless, Mikuru is quite tightlipped when it comes to providing exclusive information (as well as her actual age).
Itsuki Koizumi (Koizumi Itsuki), (SeiyÅ« – Daisuke Ono)
Itsuki Koizumi was the last member to join the SOS Brigade, recruited for being a “mysterious transfer student” by Haruhi’s standards. Itsuki was sent to observe and protect Haruhi and the rest of humanity. Due to both his position and personality, he is constantly smiling and nonchalantly accepts any and all of Haruhi’s quirks or schemes. He willingly goes along with Haruhi’s plans and actively does what he must to keep Haruhi entertained so that she does not get bored and destroy the universe. Itsuki is also prone to giving long and detailed explanations, complete with exaggerated hand gestures.
Koizumi actually possesses supernatural powers and is also a member in a secret association which he simply refers to as “The Agency” ( Lit. “The Organization”). The members of this society consist of special humans known as espers who gained unique ESP-like powers three years ago. Since then, they have been actively protecting humanity by fighting giant beings known as Shinjin (Lit. “godlike person”) within the closed spaces generated by Haruhi.
Schoolmates
RyÅko Asakura ( Asakura RyÅko) (SeiyÅ« – Natsuko Kuwatani)
At first, RyÅko appears to be a compassionate and hard-working high school girl who is particularly concerned about Haruhi and how she has distanced herself from the rest of her classmates. One of Kyon’s friends, Taniguchi, places her in the top three girls in the school with a grade of AA+: indicative of her pleasant personality, beauty, athleticism and intelligence.
However, it turns out that she is Yuki’s backup, and as such, is also another “humanoid interface”. Much like Yuki, she finds it difficult to empathize with humans, but is able to blend in well enough to be considered likeable. At first she cheerfully supports Kyon’s reaching out to Haruhi, often encouraging him to “open her up to the class,” but later tries to kill him with a combat knife in the hopes of catalyzing an observable reaction from Haruhi. Her efforts are stopped when she is defeated and removed from the physical world by Yuki, with a cover-up of her moving to Canada.
Tsuruya (SeiyÅ« – Yuki Matsuoka)
Tsuruya is the hyperactive friend of Mikuru (from the current time plane) notable for her prominent tooth and loud voice. Not much is required to elicit long fits of unrestrained, intense laughter from her. Her knowledge of the SOS Brigade comes almost exclusively from Mikuru.
Her most noticeable features are her ankle-length hair and a small fang-like tooth which is usually seen when she is laughing or smiling. It is due to this tooth that she has an idiosyncratic speech pattern where she mispeaks words by leaving out syllables, as seen in episode 9.
Though not an actual member of the SOS Brigade, she does play a minor role in Mikuru Asahina’s Adventure – Episode 00 and serves on their baseball team in episode four. She also has a small appearance in the ninth and twelfth episodes of the anime, but otherwise appears relatively sparingly throughout the series.
Taniguchi (SeiyÅ« – Minoru Shiraishi) and Kunikida (SeiyÅ« – Megumi Matsumoto)
Taniguchi and Kunikida are classmates and Kyon’s friends. Taniguchi went to the same junior high school as Haruhi. Both of them played very small parts in Mikuru Asahina’s Adventure – Episode 00, with neither having many lines to say. They are friends and are almost always seen together.
Taniguchi is comically lascivious; he gave a ‘score’ of attractiveness to each first-year girl based upon his tastes and preferences. Since he knew Haruhi from back in junior high, he is Kyon’s original source of information about her before Kyon started talking with her.
Kunikida is much quieter than Taniguchi with the latter doing most of the talking when the two are around. Kunikida is a down-to-Earth person, much like Kyon.
The Computer Society President ( KonpyÅ«ta KenkyÅ«kai BuchÅ) (SeiyÅ« – Nobuyuki Kobushi)
The President, much like Kyon and his sister, is never given a name other than “Computer Society President” or variations upon that term (all that is known of his name is the first syllable: “ya”). He and his club have had the misfortune of being next-door to the SOS Brigade, having been blackmailed by Haruhi for both a computer and an internet connection. He hasn’t yet forgiven this, and checks the SOS Brigade website to see if they are putting the computer to use, making him the primary cause of their hit counter’s steady rise.
He has a passion for computers and has, with the other four members of the Computer Society, developed their own basic sci-fi strategy game called The Day of Sagittarius III. He later challenges the SOS Brigade to a rigged contest using their game, betting four of his club’s laptops in an attempt to reclaim the originally pilfered computer. In spite of their cheating, SOS brigade won this contest due to Yuki’s overwhelming facility with computers. Despite the loss of four additional laptops, the President was at least overjoyed at having discovered a genius computer hacker that would participate in his club’s activities.
There was once a girl who claimed to be his girlfriend, but it turns out he did not have one. This appears to be a plan Yuki made to alleviate some of Haruhi’s recent boredom.
Other characters
Kyon’s Sister ( Kyon no imÅto) (SeiyÅ« – Sayaka Aoki)
Not much is revealed about Kyon’s fifth-grade sister. Much like her brother, her real name is not given; the other characters simply refer to the eleven-year-old as Kyon’s (Younger) Sister or Little Sis (ImÅto-chan). She has relatively few speaking lines, though she does appear in The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina – Episode 00.
She is carefree, happy, and playful, once hiding herself in Kyon’s bag to sneak going on vacation with him. She seems to get along well with all of the SOS Brigade, especially with Mikuru, sharing a sister-like relationship with her.
She is responsible for spreading her brother’s nickname. After hearing an aunt call him “Kyon”, she adopted the nickname as well. When Kyon’s friends visited his home and overheard his sister call him by that nickname, they started using it as well.
Shamisen (SeiyÅ« – Kenichi Ogata)
A stray cat whom Kyon was forced to adopt by Haruhi. During the filming of The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina, Haruhi alters reality causing Shamisen to temporarily gain the ability to speak. Kyon’s sister gives him the nickname, Shami, and spends the most time with him at home.
SOS Brigade
Final version of the SOS Brigade logo
The SOS Brigade (SOS EsuÅesu dan) is a club that Haruhi started shortly after entering high school. The club name is actually an acronym of: Haruhi Suzumiya’s Brigade to greatly enliven the world ( Sekai wo Ooini moriagerutame no Suzumiya Haruhi no dan). An alternative adaptation into English can be given as Save the world by Overloading it with Fun: Haruhi Suzumiya’s Brigade, in order to retain the acronym. Haruhi initially received the club idea when Kyon lectured her about how meaningful of inventions throughout history were created by geniuses: that meaningful changes in the world were wrought by a limited number of lucky individuals. He later goes on to say that ordinary people should simply live out ordinary lives. Inspired by this speech, Haruhi decides to create a club to address the woeful lack of aliens, time travelers and espers in her life.
This is the club that Haruhi Suzumiya starts with four initial members: Kyon, Yuki, Mikuru and herself. It gains a fifth when Itsuki joins later. In the beginning, it is unsure what the club actually does until Haruhi reveals that their main purpose is to find aliens, time travelers and espers and have fun with them. Normally, they should be an Association instead of a Brigade, but they were one short of the minimum five required. Now that they do have enough members, however, the Brigade hangs in limbo between being dissolved and being acknowledged as a full association; this is mostly due to the student council’s unwillingness to deal with Haruhi.
Initially, Haruhi didn’t have a clubroom to use, so she borrowed the Literary Club’s room. All the members had graduated the previous year, leaving Yuki as the sole occupant.
The goal of the SOS Brigade is to “Bring More Excitement to the World,” though the only known contribution the club has produced is a film intended for the High School cultural festival entitled Episode 00: The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina starring Mikuru, Yuki, and Itsuki as the main characters, filmed and narrated by Kyon and directed by Haruhi. The movie itself was thrown together during an all-nighter by Kyon and, as a result, is poorly edited and nearly incoherent. The movie itself is a meta-fictional parody of anime cliches.
Affiliations
There are three organizations who have taken an interest in Haruhi and the SOS Brigade, which ties all three of them together. Each has their own reasons, most of which stem from one single incident three years prior to the storyline. Each has managed, half through coincidence and half through design, to have a representative within the SOS Brigade.
The Agency
Translations have used “The Agency”, however the term used in the anime is the meaning “The Organization”
Three years prior to the storyline, a seemingly random selection of people in the world were given abilities that could only be described as those of ‘Espers’; they were able to enter new Sealed Realities, which they could instinctively feel and of which they were given innate knowledge. These select few banded together, numbering ten in total. They managed to single out the epicenter, the source of their powers, Haruhi, and now seek to protect and appease Haruhi without letting her know of their existence. They fear that if anything were to happen to her, or if she were to become displeased with the world, that she could simply wipe it and start it over. Itsuki Koizumi is their member in the SOS Brigade, there to prevent that from happening. This trend of thought often leads to seemingly harmless situations becoming something on which the fate of the world hinges.
A Shinjin in a Sealed Reality
“Sealed Realities”, or “Closed Spaces”, are odd occurrences in the cross-dimensional faultlines catalyzed by Haruhi Suzumiya, a sort of practice round for godly powers. Though they are normally impossible to enter, those people like Itsuki Koizumi and others in “The Agency” have the ability to both enter and to sense the creation of these places. Within a Sealed Reality, the powers of members of “The Agency” are made apparent; they may take the form of a large red ball of energy in which they are capable of red laser-like attacks and flight. “The Agency” uses these abilities to hunt the Shinjin, in order to keep the Shinjin from spreading the Sealed Realities over the world.
From the inside, if one were to try to leave the confines of a closed space, they would find a forcefield – impenetrable except by espers; that resistance marks the boundaries of that dimension. The world within the Sealed Reality is almost identical to a corresponding area of the world, but is grey and devoid of people.
When Haruhi’s frustration reaches a certain point, it manifests itself in a large monster, a Shinjin, contained within a Sealed Reality, where it wreaks havoc harmlessly, unbound by the laws of physics. The more a Shinjin destroys in the Sealed Reality, the more it grows, enveloping, and eventually replacing the world, if left unchecked. When the Shinjin is destroyed, so is the Sealed Reality.
The Integrated Data Entity
The Integrated Data Entity, also known as the Data Integration Thought Entity, was born from the sea of data which covers the entire universe. Data life forms such as itself possess no physical body but for their lack of mass they make up in high levels of intelligence. It has been observed to magnify in size in accord with the expansion of the universe.
Nonphysical data has always existed throughout the universe ever since its creation. As this nonphysical data accumulated, over time the data gained consciousness and continued to evolve by obtaining more data until it met its own evolutionary dead end. This Integrated Data Entity took a particular interest in humans over any of the other sentient creatures in the universe because of their unprecedented ability to seek and obtain data, or knowledge.
A humanoid interface, Yuki Nagato, encountered a subspecies of Data Entity, in the form of a ‘Cave Cricket’.
While Data Entities have eternally existed in their completed form, humans, like all other organic creatures, primordially were incomplete. Until humanity had acquired this unique ability, the Data Entities believed that organic life forms was incapable of evolving past a certain plateau of development, and certainly would never be able to make use of nonphysical data. While sentience in organic beings was commonplace for the entities to observe, the human race was the only one that evolved at a rapid rate with an unknown climactic potential.
Three years prior to the storyline, an extraordinary explosion of data came from one of the islands of Japan. At the source of this odd, rapid rate of data creation, they found Haruhi Suzumiya. In order to observe this phenomenon first hand and in the hope that they could find a way to break through their own evolutionary dead end, they created a number of “humanoid interfaces”. Two of these humanoid interfaces, Yuki Nagato and RyÅko Asakura, introduced themselves to Kyon. Yuki indirectly became a member of the SOS Brigade, effectively filling the “necessary silent character” requirement in the words of Haruhi. Humanoid interfaces possess some limited power over the physical world by means of using programs to alter areas.
There are conflicting voices within the Data Entity. The dominant mindset wishes to simply leave Haruhi in her normal state of mind and provide minimal interference to observe her in her natural habitat. Others wish to provoke her, attempting to obtain a reaction from her; the goal being to motivate Haruhi to gather information and data faster, regardless of the possible negative consequences.
The Future Humans
Time travelers from an unspecified time in the future were surprised to find, like the other two groups, that a ground-shaking incident had occurred three years before the storyline began centering around Haruhi Suzumiya. From their perspective, a timequake had occured, fissuring the time-space continuum in such a manner that time travelers were rendered incapable of traveling further back in time than that event. In the novels, it is explained that three years before the storyline begins Haruhi actually remade the world, adding espers, aliens and time travelers. This is the reason there is no time before.
In order to investigate how and why this event occured, they sent their very own time agent Mikuru Asahina to observe Haruhi. However, she could not bring anything more advanced back with her, such as a weapon, because it would be too dangerous. This society tends not to give much information away in terms of future happenings possibly due to a temperal contamination and change in history. In effect, nearly anything that pertains to the future is dubbed “classified information”.
Media
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is presented in a range of several different media including the light novel series, two manga series and lastly an anime adaptation.
Light novel
Main article: Suzumiya Haruhi (series)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya light novel, written by Nagaru Tanigawa and illustrated by Noizi Ito, was first published by Kadokawa Shoten on June 6, 2003, and is the basis for the bulk of the anime incarnation. This is only the first novel in the Suzumiya Haruhi series which currently has eight volumes, and is still running in Japan.
The novel contains a prologue, seven chapters, and an epilogue.
Manga
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya second manga adaptation volume 1 cover
There are two manga adaptations of the Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series, both having been published by Kadokawa Shoten. The first one, illustrated by Mizuno Makoto, ran from May 2004 to December 2004 and the second, illustrated by Gaku Tsugano, started in November 2005 and is still in production, with the first two volumes currently released. Their target age group is younger than the original novels to expand the series’s fan base.
Both manga adaptations were published in Shounen Ace, but the earlier one was cancelled after the first volume. The reasons for this stem from the fact that the manga was considerably different from the novel and had little input from the original author. In addition, the mangaka was producing a related side H dÅjin at the same time, which unsettled the publishing company. They canceled the manga, denying its existence. =)