melancholy of haruhi suzumiya 2009 13, the sigh of haruhi suzumiya 4
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We will absolutely make this movie a success.
The last 13 episodes of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya consisted of 3 story arcs, one lasting 1 episode, 8 episodes, and 4 episodes. All three arcs finished were resolved with Kyon saying one line to Haruhi: “Here, let me help you [with the prank].” “I need to finishing doing my homework!” “We will absolutely make this movie a success.” And that’s basically what the Haruhi franchise boils down to… Kyon saying one-liners to Haruhi. Compared to the first season that had over half a dozen arcs resolved via Kyon kissing Haruhi, Haruhi performing in Afternoon Tea Time in a bunny outfit, Haruhi defeating the Computer Club at Eve Online, Imouto knocking in 4 RBIs in a baseball game, Kyon and Itsuki teaming up to defeat Beatrice at Lone Island Syndrome, Itsuki and Yuki teaming up to defeat the sandworms of Arrakis, and, finally, Kyon walking Haruhi home after the filming of the Mikuru 00 DVD specials.
In other words, Kyoto and Kadokawa are milking this franchise by elongating source material that probably shouldn’t be elongated to squeeze in more episodes. It’s talent dilution at its worst, almost like the NHL adding teams in Atlanta, Florida, and Phoenix. Even worse, these stories were rejected the first time around… they’re not the “A” stories. Sighs and Endless Eight both occurred within the time frame of the first season, but they were (rightfully) passed up for more interesting scenarios that didn’t involve Kyon resolving things with magical one liners outside of “Haruhi, will you have a threesome with me, Itsuki, and 4 bottles of whipped cream?” For me, Haruhi now just isn’t compelling. The combination of the “B” source material and the extra length that it occupies… not a good thing. I’d watch 4 episodes of Suruga Monkey (but we only got 3)… but did Sighs really need 4 episodes?
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Too bad she didn’t get a chance to direct Code Geass R2… “That kind of thing will get through to the viewer even if we don’t show it.” Haruhi is a genius for not including plot or explanation scenes and just focusing on action, fanservice, and unintentional train wreck. How is she not involved in the Code Geass franchise is beyond me. It’s just such a logical pairing, like peanut butter and jelly, John Test and rock piano music, and Zetsubou-sensei and nooses.
Drunk Mikuru… and if Sunrise isn’t hiring for a director, Haruhi could always go into pr0n directing. She would be the Jack Horner to Mikuru’s Amber Waves and Itsuki’s Dirk Diggler.
(Imagine Itsuki in Dirk’s place for the Boogie Night’s scene when Dirk has hit rock bottom and is offering random men a chance to see his, uh, prowess for a nominal fee in a truck in some shady parking lot at night. Did you just scream and feel the will to live slowly drift away from you? Good. If you didn’t, let’s file that under “signs you might be a non-traditional male.”)
Caught ponytailing… I liked the subtle Kyon walks in while Haruhi is imagining herself with a ponytail scene… it’s obviously because she remembers the fragment of the dream where Kyon says that her ponytail was criminal, and she desperately wants to be on Kyon’s good side… but can’t exactly show or say it. I like these subtle scenes. 15,532 more and Haruhi Suzumiya would be back in business.
Emo facial distortion… loved the fight between Haruhi and Kyon because, if anything, it woke me up. I was literally falling asleep like Mikuru after some sake/milk. There’s a lot going on in this scene… there’s Haruhi almost drugging and raping Mikuru… there’s Kyon blowing up at Haruhi to the point where he wasn’t just going to slap her but pull a Chris Brown/Rihanna… there’s Haruhi frustrated and tossing up a monster emo facial distortion… there’s Yuki not blinking, moving, or breathing in the back… there’s Itsuki overpowering Kyon so Kyon couldn’t Mike Tyson Haruhi… there’s LOL FANG-TAN not laughing int eh background… just a tremendous scene that woke me up and made me wonder, wait, since when were drug rape and domestic violence part of Haruhi Suzumiya? I just want to go back to the old Haruhi… the one who was crazy but wasn’t crazy to potentially serve jail time.
“Your face isn’t close enough”… wait? Did I cross the vanilla sky? Am I in bizarro world? Where am I?
Alcohol… somehow I get this impression that Mikuru Prime can drink like a fucking camel and not get drunk. But… until then… did like two ounces of sake get Mikuru drunk? This has to be some sort of record, right? Or was this a milk/sake/roofie/smoked cheese cocktail that LOL FANG-TAN whipped up?
K-On!… why I was expecting a cut-away to a bowl of rice?
“What did you… inject into me this time?”… no comment. Too easy.
Melancholy Haruhi… is about as fun as an episode of Aoi Hana crossed with Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. I kid, I kid. I mean about as much fun as Endless Eight.
Moe… yes, that was a very moe scene. Wait, what the heck?
Itsuki… when Itsuki protested that kissing Mikuru “was a bit too much for me,” that was just reason #15,532 that Itsuki’s manifest destiny is to move to San Francisco and wear Victorian dresses for the Castro Halloween parties. What hot-blooded traditional male wouldn’t want to smooch a drunk Mikuru? Or what hot-blooded traditional male wouldn’t need animal tranquilizers and a crowbar to get them off of Mikuru at that point?
(But we now know Kyon’s tipping point– when the flamiest guy in school gets to score with the hawtest chix0r in school… my tipping point? When my iPhone runs out of battery. OTL.)
LOL FANG-TAN… I like how she is so LOLy and FANGy. I really want to see her on some ponytails now.
(Like how she was inspecting the camcorder and wondering if there were funny Mikuru clips on it… I’m sure Taniguchi was wondering if there were any nakkid Mikuru clips on it. Itsuki was probably wondering about battery life.)
LOL FANG-TAN… God’s in Her Heaven, LOL FANG-TAN Is Wiping Down Mikuru’s Wet Body, All’s Right With the World.
36 Responses to “melancholy of haruhi suzumiya 2009 13, the sigh of haruhi suzumiya 4”
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at least i have chicken
Oh God. Is it over.. Good.
There was never a second season.
There’s actually one more new episode left – so Sighs is getting FIVE episodes. ^_^;
Anyway, some great jokes here! I especially liked your apt NHL comparison, as I’m a big NHL fan.
I liked this episode (and this year) a bit more than you did, but Endless Eight was very bad, at least from a fan’s perspective.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one, Jason. Haruhi’s emo facial distortion makes her look rather constipated.
@Air: You wish. 1st season was 14 eps. 2nd season is also 14 eps. You’re going to need to watch one more ep before you flashy-thing yourself again.
psycho b!tch alert, where is that pimp back-hand, kyon?
Heh, I was wondering if you’d spot the ponytail gag. Kyon, on the other hand, totally missed his cue. Haruhi’s selective obliviousness must have rubbed off on him.
Sigh(s) could probably have been done in less episodes, but they’re clearly TRYING to pad out the material…
This is still a rerun, as most people seem to be missing.
hol
that tv is displaying shana
i liked kyon standing up and willing to get physical for mikuru against haruhi’s immature selfishness though the fist did take me off guard, slap would have been better
also liked him realizing that despite haruhi being selfish, she is trying to do something fun instead of just complaining all the time how boring life is etc, unlike most people, and confronting her after that, cooling the situation with his “we’ll definitely make this movie a success” line
can’t stop adding to my comments..
what happened this ep is basically why kyon’s my favorite male character in anime, he’s kind but human, stands up for what he believes in and can have a lot of cute dispositions
I’m pretty sure the person who decided what arcs would be used in HaruhiS2 will step forward, admit that they really screwed up on this one, and then lay out promises that FALL 2010 we’ll be getting the Haruhi S2 that we all thought was coming back in 07.
I’m just glad we didn’t end up waiting 5 years for the next part, like all those Inuyasha fan(girl)s.
To Tsuruya and Mikuru, I can only say this… as they were the redeeming part of this episode, along with Nagato-biting-Mikuru-joy.
ALL HAIL OPPAI! ALL HAIL OPPAI!
You should’ve posted the expression on Kyon’s face after he told Haruhi that “we’ll make this movie a success!” That scene was funny.
“… but did Sighs really need 4 episodes?”
No, it needed five.
Personally, I think that the only reason (and I’m not saying this isn’t a damn valid reason, mind you) that people are so bitter is that Endless Eight took up too much time. Sighs in itself isn’t the best arc, sure, but we’ve had our memorable moments, like Mikuru Beam spam, and this episode which all in all was rather solid as well. It’s just that coming off after E8, it just makes all the bad elements seem worse, and all the average elements seem bad. The fact that people desperately want Disappearance – which they may or may not get because who knows besides God and KyoAni – doesn’t help matters any either.
This episode was the best of the second season and the fight between Haruhi and Kyon the standout scene. Why can’t drug rape and domestic violence be part of Haruhi Suzumiya? All the comedy, depression, silliness, melancholy, fanservice and serious drama is all sourced from the light novels after all.
This will end with Haruhi burning down Kyon’s house.
“The fact that people desperately want Disappearance”
Disappearance isn’t even that fantastic, really. It’s an incredibly well-written story, but it’s probably not what a lot of viewers are really expecting out of Haruhi. It’s easily the least Haruhi-like story out of the lot.
I’m just trying to hold on till Disappearance. I can watch 8 episodes of disappearance. Maybe even the weird crap that came after that. Just gotta keep faith, right? RIGHT?
Melancholy had seven chapters plus the prologue and epilogue, Sighs had five. If OpenOffice is correct, they’re both about 55,000 words long, and work out to 9200 words/ep for Melancholy and 11,000/ep for Sighs. So in terms of pure word-count, Sighs seems to actually be MORE compressed.
This, of course, doesn’t address the question of redundancy after already having seen The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00, which hinted at a lot of this (including Haruhi’s powers and the eventual solution), nor the fact that it’s still more of an “interlude” story than Melancholy is. And, of course, there’s still the sour taste from Endless Eight and the question of how many years it’ll be before we get to see Disappearance.
Wonder how many episodes book 7 will be…
I, personally, do not care much for Disappearance. It plays an important role in setting up the real storyline of the series, but otherwise, besides being exceptionally well-written, it isn’t that exciting. Also, unlike the other novels, more of Disappearance is Kyon monolouging, and thus by would only need about 4, maybe 5 episodes to animate (as long as they fit in the Lovecraft reference, I’ll be fine)
My favorite story, however, is Intrigues. It’s the most plot-heavy book of all, and Tsuruya starts to play an exceptionally larger role as well. Since it’s the longest book in the series, it’ll probably need 6-8 episodes to animate. That, along with the close stories Snow Mountain Syndrome and Melancholy of Asahina Mikuru, basically should make a strong second season along with Disappearance. Third season would probably include leftover short stories, the introduction of the Student President, and the intro of Sasaki as well.
They still need to introduce the cat; I thought they’d still need two more.
As for Sighs, I think Grahf has a valid point – if Endless Eight wasn’t so Endless and wasn’t Eight, then we would overlook what Sighs is not doing and instead be congratulating what Sighs is doing. This still falls under Melancholy; hopes of a season two that isn’t called Melancholy is not dashed yet (a hopeless fanboy’s point of view).
To those who say Disappearance isn’t that great – I will disagree, on the sole point that it was in Disappearance where things start to unwind. Character development for Yuki… perhaps that’s why I like Disappearance. Disappearance also leads into Snow Mountain Syndrome, another one I would love to see continued on from Disappearance.
Agree with you wholeheartedly. Season 1 of Haruhi did a spectacular job of making Haruhi’s well… “Haruhi-ness” so lovable. Season 2… not so much :/. Really not digging the whole “stretching it for all it’s worth” dealie, either. Honestly, I didn’t even think they’d cover this arc since episode 00 was enough for me.
I’ve enjoyed the new eps (because I’m easy that way), but they’ve felt like missed opportunities, which I’ve said before. This episode was no exception. Having not read any of the novels, I don’t know how much liberties are taken with the stories, but I felt like there have been times where expansion on some of the ideas would have been interesting. (And expansion other than more Itsuki monologue-ing.) As it is, I kind of feel like this ‘season’ has been like the last two episodes of Evangelion: a great way to leave a bad taste in your mouth after an amazing meal.
The best episode so far. Some great Kyon scenes and actual tension when Kyon stands up to Haruhi, and good accompanying BGM too.
But I’m still not happy with the amount of effort they’re putting into the animation. In the first episode of last season Mikuru was soaked though after climbing out of the pond. This time around it looks like she’s been walking through some light rain. They’re using a lot more still images too. Did the animation team burn themselves out with Clannad?
Disappearance should work well for adaptation. Kyon’s properly thrown off balance, rather than defaulting to the snarky business as normal position he takes throughout most of the stories. The pacing is very good, the characters are similar to, but not the same as the ones we’ve seen before, and and there’s a dramatic ending – all of which should be great components for an animated version…though to be honest if it does get shown as part of this season it will probably be tarred with the same brush as the rest of the episodes.
Fire the guys who suggested and approved Endless Eight, get Yutaka Yamamoto back, or some other competent director, put the A art team on it, and lose the BS marketing, then come back with a bang sometime next year.
All I can say is, the last 4 episodes have been, at least, solid. However, KyoAni’s got some shaping up to do before TMoHS season 2 comes even CLOSE to being as interesting as season 1. Hopefully the sub-par arc material is just keeping us in line for a stellar Disappearances.
Never thought I’ve see the day I’ll be disappointed to see Haruhi as the latest post in this site.
Jason’s probably OD’ed from the latest episode of Bakemonogatari.
Loved the reference to Evangelion episode 3. “Center on the target, pull the switch”, indeed.
= = They dedicated the entire next episode to a cat hunt? Albeit a special cat…
I was completely expecting drunken Mikuru to puke all over Kyon’s crotch, actually.
normally, I get a bit bummed out when shows end, but I just can’t wait for this show to be over.
Consider this. Every shot in the movie that Yuki has a cat on her shoulder will be filmed during the next episode. There were alot of shots with a cat on Yuki’s shoulder.
Oh Itsuki you’re so fine
You’re so fine you blow my mind
Hey Itsuki
Hey Itsuki
The cat is coming! I was irked in the first season when they had the talking cat in Mikuru 00 and then promptly never mentioned it again and I took it as a Sunrise class forgotten plot point.
On the D&D scale, Haruhi would be chaotic evil…
And, in the end, “A cat is fine too”.
All three arcs finished were resolved with Kyon saying one line to Haruhi: “Here, let me help you [with the prank].†“I need to finishing doing my homework!†“We will absolutely make this movie a success.†And that’s basically what the Haruhi franchise boils down to… Kyon saying one-liners to Haruhi.
The ONLY one-liner that will ever count is “Haruhi….I LOVE you…will you MARRY me!”
Anything else is just shadow-boxing and emotional fascism.
“I just want to go back to the old Haruhi… the one who was crazy but wasn’t crazy to potentially serve jail time.”
When was this? I’m pretty sure you’d have to go further than Mikuru claims is possible in order for this to be true. Then again, I guess it depends on if you follow anime continuity (which is cut for the purpose of being unable to show some scenes on television) or if you go with the novel continuity. Cause I’m pretty sure attempted rape (of Mikuru) is a felony. Even if you go with the anime, then there’s the whole blackmail thing.