melancholy of haruhi suzumiya 2009 10, the sigh of haruhi suzumiya 1
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Tagged: haruhi suzumiya
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It was one hell of a crappy movie.
Amen. It was.
There’s something just odd about watching Haruhi Suzumiya nowadays. Maybe I’m still working the aftertaste of Endless Eight out of my mouth, but something else ain’t right. Maybe it’s the constant back and forth jumping in the narrative (now we’re back before Live Alive)… we get now to see how Mikuru 00 was made, except we know how it turned out. We know what happens at the cultural festival. We know what specials went into the DVD release of Mikuru 00. I dunno… something’s not right. It’s one thing to skip around the narrative during a single season, but to go back three years later? It feels anticlimactic… we waited three years for more Haruhi Suzumiya, and we got Endless Eight and Sighs. Thanks, guys. Maybe the next arc should be The Audacity of Haruhi Suzumiya.
I watched this episode… and visions of other anime dominated my head. The track scene? Well, we just got done with a Bakemonogatari featuring jealous lesbian track stars.
But, most of all… hearing Mikuru anticipate her waitress outfit… well… let’s get started, shall we?
sos brigade awesomeness index
It’s become a norm!… thank you K-On! for describing Mikuru’s epic “I don’t know what kind of costume I’ll be wearing, but I’m sort of looking forward to it” and the epic blush that got a “The blushing Asahina-san seems to be totally used to cosplaying at this point.” I just wish Mikuru’s homeroom teacher was Sawa-chan.
The new norm… enjoyed Kyon checking out Mikuru and wondering what outfit Haruhi will make her wear for this movie… would this be anticipated costume rape? Or mental costume rape? But if Mikuru agrees to wear the costume, then it isn’t costume raping… *shudder*… maybe I don’t like this new norm after all. I definitely miss the old Haruhi and old Mikuru who would leave their underwear strewn across the classroom in a high calorie costume rape.
Clumsy meido… I’m not a big fan of clumsy meido. I prefer the more got-it-together meido like Maria, Matsurika, and Tachibana. Nonetheless, I feel there’s always room for clumsy meido… especially clumsy and easy meido.
You’re face is too close… ah good times, good times. Seeing Kyon recoil in horror at Itsuki’s visage never gets old.
Basara… they look almost as ridiculous as a typical Basara episode! Needs more horses with flaming tailpipes to complete the effect. Kyon and Itsuki will take care of the uncomfortable bromance requirement… oh, it’s not just bromance that Itsuki seeks?
Haruyon… can get get Haruhi to race against Senjougahara? I feel like that could be the Ali/Frasier of crazy anime haremette track and field. At the very least, we can ogle at them in their gym shorts.
(Wait, did I say that out loud? Doh.)
Heat one… runners Haurhi, Senjougahara, Sawa-chan, and Usain Bolt. Like you wouldn’t be glued to your TV set.
Kyon… because I just know he’s not checking out Mikuru’s ass. What’s wrong with this guy? Koyomi would definitely be taking inventory of her assets by now.
Super famous… “I’m going to make you super famous!” I hope Haruhi makes Mikuru famous the same way Ray J made Kim Kardashian famous.
(Has cowering Mikuru redeemed 15,532 repeats of Endless Eight? No. But are we on the road to redemption? Yes. Mikuru has to cower at least 15,531 more times.)
15,531… okay, 15,530 times left. Loved Mikuru cowering at the thought that her body would be used, once again, to barter for electronics. Whereas Horo can only get fruit, Mikuru scores HD camcorders, laptops, and Core i7s (okay, maybe Athlon64s based on when this was originally written).
(I could definitely go for a Mikuru Cowering Channel. I would definitely flip over at least twice a day to check out Mikuru cowering. Definitely much better television than whatever Spike TV has on, Rocky marathons exempted, of course.)
“Don’t say ‘God'”… “What are you aiming for in the end?” Isn’t it obvious, Kyon? She wants to be the next star director at Sunrise Ltd.
Director Haruhi… I imagine that the planning process for Mikuru 00 is no different than the planning process of Code Geass R2. Basically, making stuff up as they go along without any real organization. The only difference is that Haruhi has yet to secure a larger budget for her enterprise– though may I suggest an unholy alliance with Pizza Hut? Ghostory already sold out that way.
“Sou“… Yuki Nagato’s one line. Which is probably still more than what Aya Hirano recorded for six episodes of Endless Eight. Though I’m sure if most of my readers can take a pill that made them forget about the previous eight episodes of Haruhi Suzumiya, they would. But, in the meantime, alcohol works pretty well.
Growl~… just fantastic. Haruhi looks like she’s scolding a dog when she told Mikuru to shut up. I’m positive that something has happened, in private, between Haruhi and Mikuru… especially considering how utterly submissive Mikuru is to Haruhi.
(I don’t think Mikuru is a bad actress. She’s playing the part of a ditzy high school student very well.)
Light music club… I wonder if a future chapter of Haruhi Suzumiya involves Kyon and Mikuru traveling back in the past to whack the guitarist’s knees and to poison the vocalist’s lunch.
(I think Kyoto should do a ENOZ spin-off… it’ll be like K-On! but with the ENOZ girls and in the Haruhi Suzumiya universe. They could even interact with the SOS Brigade more. Unlike Afternoon Tea Time, these are actual competent girls without hilariously apt lyrics like “my love is a stapler.” Like you wouldn’t watch that.)
Kyoto Animation… definitely not the clear #1 choice for animation production quality, but their sound and BGM work has evolved. Still, I would have loved to watch Haruhi on a semi-decent HD feed.
“Every time she smiles like that, I go into disaster recovery mode”… highly enjoyed that line. For better or worse, Haruhi wears her emotions on her sleeves. It’s when she doesn’t that you know you really fucked up.
22 Responses to “melancholy of haruhi suzumiya 2009 10, the sigh of haruhi suzumiya 1”
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Usain Bolt wouldn’t take it seriously, he’d be looking left and right and hitting on Haruhi and Hitagi… then get absolutely clobbered by Nagato in the second lane.
I don’t think people should be thinking of this as Season 2 of Haruhi… it’s more like “completing Season 1.” Unfortunately, Season 1 was better without it, since the added stuff seems really filler-ish, turning what was an incredible 14 episode series into a merely “good” 24 episode series… Feels like most of their comedy went and got wasted on Haruhi-tan.
Holy Jesus on a stick. I thought K-ON-ifying Endless Eight was part of the joke, but it’s even more K-ON-ified afterwards. Fuck you, Kyo Ani, fuck you. Have we thought of an analogy/meme for their inexplicably glorious downfall yet?
Didn’t Yuki also say “fortune-telling”? As always, her ridiculous competence is awesome, even leaving Haruhi at a momentary loss for words.
I think those other two musicians in that shot were in Live a Live too- the crappy folk duo, not the proto-DMC complete with Pig of Capitalism.
Anyway, why settle for a track meet when we could have a whole Laff-o-lympics?
I felt the same way watching this. Something seemed off. It had a flavor of “sameness” to it. And not like the Endless Eight insanity, but like, “Hey, we’ve seen all this in other episodes, just not this particular story.” Maybe because all the gags were kind of predictable. Maybe because they’re all the same old gags from three years ago, so they’re not as fun anymore? Or maybe because the fan-service gags are so noticeably absent, it makes the rest of the show seem stale? At any rate, this one didn’t really grab my interest, since we know the final product. Hopefully it will improve.
One thing I noticed when I first started watching the new season is the way KyoAni’s animation style has changed over the years. It seems like Haruhi 2006 had a style that was similar to that of Kanon, with a very pristine and idealized look, but now that I see the animation for Haruhi 2009, it seems like Haruhi-chan and K-On! influenced KyoAni’s artwork and made it more fluid and stylized.
For me, two things contributed to the sense of “offness” in this episode: first, the character designs (esp. Mikuru) seem like they are drifting towards more of a K-ON style (which is not in itself a bad thing necessarily, but I found it very distracting). Second, Haruhi’s smiling face is too normal. In previous episodes, when she is giddy about something she’ll smile, but it has a crooked deviousness to it that was missing from several shots this time.
The lack of suspense (for those of us who went ahead and read the novels) may be a contributing factor, though it wouldn’t be the only one (the Harry Potter movies are pretty good even after reading the books, after all). It might be that since we’re familiar with the story, we’re spending more time picking out faults than we would if we didn’t know what was going on.
We totally need a spin-off series focusing on one of the other few classmates and their day-to-day interactions, or lack thereof, with Haruhi. A typical day could involve seeing Kyon get dragged in/out of the classroom, having homeroom interrupted by “that wierd girl” speaking very loudly to her lackey, followed by awkward silences, while talk of that “SOS club”s activities are kept as a light topic for discussion during their absence.
Speaking of Light Music Club, Jason, didn’t you notice that shot with Haruhi, Mikuru and Kyon on the train and how we get to see some Mio and Yui lookalikes next to them? :)
Refreshing. It’s nice to see the SOS-dan do something new for the first time in two months.
I’d have split my sides laughing if instead of slating a late night movie Haruhi started on a rant about two episodes of a program that were on being almost identical. Still wouldn’t be enough for forgiveness though.
There really is a lot more focus on the BGM this season, it was noticeable in Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody too.
Yeah, true meaning of the word filler, ie fill in the gaps from the 1st series. Is it better to have simply an “ok” episode, or one that provoked a reaction, even if was mostly frustration …?
Yawn… wake me up when they animate Disappearance as had been originally speculated… what? two years ago? Three years ago? I didn’t wait this long to see storylines I’ve already seen.
In the meantime, I’ve gone back and started watching the other show from that summer which had a Haruhi in it, and found it much more entertaining.
As far as the feeling of something being off, and perhaps this is what people are meaning when they say Haruhi has been K-ONified, The art style/character expressions have all gone through a serious overhaul, and Haruhi is by far the most obvious, with her mouth and eyes now looking like Strongbad’s Japanese Cartoon skit as her grin and eyebrows now hit an intensity that is truly over 9– well, you get the idea.
I’m totally disappointed that Disappearance isn’t going to be animated until likely season 3, judging by the number of chapters that chronologically take place in between now and then. (But maybe I’m wrong; The novels are as out-of-order as the original airing of season 1, damn this is confusing. Tanigawa likely also writes his material with about as much forethought as Sunrise’s CGR2. Likely why he can’t seem to finish volume 12, and is making us wait until it’s good. Tanigawa is the Bungie of authors.)
That being said, I’m glad to see Itsuki is still a magnificently camp bastard as ever. I know I shouldn’t gar for him so much, but I can’t help it.
Also glad to see that this blog is still following Haruhi after the E8 disaster, considering D. Mirage seems to have dropped it.
Since I’ve been lurking for the last three years and this is my first official post, I have to ask this to settle my n00bly confusion. Is “Darry” of Derailed the same as Jason of BlogSuki? I wasn’t present for the namechange, so I R confuzzled.
Darry is from Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann.
D. Mirage didn’t blog episode 2 either that I saw, and that one was totally legit, so I don’t know if E8 was the reason.
Can’t get the smell of burnt expectations out of this room, ugh.
Remember kiddos, it’s only alcoholism if it causes problems. Well, problems that you wouldn’t normally otherwise have. At least that’s what I tell myself every evening around six o’clock anyway.*
*Must be <local legal age> or older. Please drink responsibly.
In the sense that the entire internet and everything it references is just a self-perpetuating simulation developed by Kogarashi while at MIT, we are all both Jason and Darry. But within the bounds of the sim as accessable by this variable: yes, both Derailed by Darry and blog好ã (among others) are titles for the same blog written by the one known as “jason”.
Well, again i was dissapointed. If the endless eight thing never happened i would have put this down as an enjoyable episode (2 episodes seeing as it’s a 2-parter) bit of a filler. But they really needed to have a stonkly good epsiode at this point to lift up the druge we felt for living through E8
But now they go back again a retell the same damn story AGAIN!!!
Is it the same story? No. The story we’ve seen was Haruhi’s B grade plot of a movie. What we are about to see is the trails and tribulations of the SOS-dan in keeping her wild imagination and godlike powers in check while she makes this B grade movie. Totally different thing.
.
Basically was we saw was the show within the show…now we get to see the real show that was going on around the show within the show.
The fun starts when the filming does. Meantime…. I found this awfully meh. Though I got a kick out of Mikuru’s panic when she thought she was going to be sacrificed for more gear and Kyon jumped in, demanding to know what Haruhi was up to.
Actually, every time Haruhi smiles like that, I cringe.
Too much K-ON resemblance.
Goddammit KyoAni, what the fuck did you do? Why didn’t you animate new stuff before KON, when you still had good artwork? Why the hell did you pick KON up in the first place? You make us wait three years for this shit? Alright, Clannad was spectacular, Lucky Star got you money, but why the hell did you pick up this series? Why couldn’t you of made new material, then KON? You went and ruined your artwork; now, instead of being remembered for godly Haruhi s1 and Clannad, you will be remembered for moe moe shit and trolling. Good job, good job.
Mikuru cowering set to 85%. Standing by for full power “moe moe kyun” destroyer mode.
*sigh*