Shameful Otaku Secret!

Come out from that rock

I’ve updated this post over time, to reflect re-watchings and other perspective alterations.

If you haven’t heard about it by now, you’re living under a larger rock than me.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is one of the most popular animes in recent years, and rightly so, it’s an absolute blast. It does give a nagging feeling that if you’re getting the joke, the joke might just be on you. But it’s a fun joke. Haruhi was also manufactured in a laboratory specifically to be loved by otaku.

Story

In this series, ostensibly a high school comedy, Kyon is a bored slacker who maligns the day he truly acknowledged to himself that aliens, superheroes, and anime robot pilots weren’t real. On his first day of high school, he winds up sitting in front of Haruhi Suzumiya, a hottie by any estimation — and perhaps the world’s youngest iconoclast. She announces boldly to the class that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with anyone who isn’t an alien, time traveler, or esper. Soon he somehow finds himself the first member of her new club, the “SOS Brigade.”

Of course, not all is as it seems, and the four members of the SOS Brigade turn out to be more than just dead-on anime stereotypes: There’s Yuki Nagato, the always-reading blue-haired Rei Ayanami fill-in (an android built by alien intelligence), Itsuki Koizumi, the mysterious transfer student of suspect sexual preferences (an esper), and the older and bustier Mikuru Asahina, doomed to a teary-eyed life of fulfilling Haruhi’s moe fantasies in humiliating cosplay outfits and psychologically scarring situations (also, from the future). And they’re all there for one reason: Haruhi. In fact, she made it happen, although she knows none of it. Through it all, Kyon wants to know — why him?

The ordering problem

It’s a great story, and one that was originally told on TV in an unconventional way. The episodes were shown out of order, with the “next episode” previews featuring Kyon and Haruhi arguing over what comes next. The American release DVDs, however, play everything in chronological order. This is a mixed bag: the story makes more sense in order, but the television order has a more standard narrative arc and anime style. In DVD order, the climax comes at episode 6, making the second half of the series a little flatter.

Characters

It’s not the story as much as the characters that make this such a lovable blast. The SOS Brigade are a fun bunch who poke fun at anime stereotypes but also take them a couple steps further. Haruhi herself is the star, of course, and the first of her kind that I can think of: she’s aggressive, domineering, severely ADHD, occasionally violent and openly perverted. But unlike other strong/loud tsundere female anime characters, she’s smart, good at everything, not overcompensating, and totally sane. She’s just the most bored person alive. And she’s not only somewhat believable, she’s charming.

Kyon drives the show, hilarious with his sarcastic running voice-over commentary. In a great inversion of a lazy animator technique, his mouth is often hidden for some key barbs, so you can’t be sure whether he’s narrating or actually speaking. He compares himself to Sisyphus as he fills the self-described role of the conscience of the SOS.

Animation

Kyoto Animation is the studio responsible for the unholy trinity of Key eroges-come-to-TV dramas (Air, Kanon ‘06, Clannad), as well as Fullmetal Panic! The Second Raid and Fumoffu. The difference between Haruhi and anything else of its kind is way more pronounced than the difference between The Second Raid and Gonzo’s original series. It’s hard to talk about the animation without mentioning the “Live Alive” episode. Be sure and turn your channel to Japanese if you’re watching the dub, for a movie-quality animation experince. There’s lip-synching, matching drum and guitar solos, and even realistic sweating. It’s no wonder this episode was the talk of the town even past the week it aired.

You’ll see fan service, but I can almost guarantee you it’s not what you’ll expect, and just as many times there’s a conceal-the-fanservice joke that even Pani Poni Dash! would be proud of.

Dub

This was a much-anticipated release, due to its huge popularity in Japan, so the English dub is loaded with a who’s-who of voice actors. As far as I know, Haruhi is the role that made Aya Hirano a seiyuu star. Of course the dub’s Wendee Lee delivers a typical female anime dub performance, i.e., kind of grating, so there’s no contest there. But one of the few dub actors that I’ve ever considered to be near the caliber of his Japanese counterparts, Crispin Freeman, delivers. He actually captures Tomokazu Sugita’s cynical agitation in the running Kyon commentary. Overall, the dub is far more passable than the average if you can get around Haruhi herself.

Music & Credits

The opening and closing music is fairly standard-fare J-Pop stuff about farting rainbows or hugging pandas or something, but it doesn’t annoy me. The incidental music is varied enough and keeps the energy up. The climactic sixth episode uses great space opera type stuff to give it an awesomely epic feel.

The closing animation is actually one of the show’s selling points. The characters all do a goofy dance, and though they’re in sync, their personalities all come through. Some stills and pans fill things out, but overall it’s the best piece of original animation for a closer I’ve ever seen. It’s also a dance phenomenon at conventions and such.

Episode Highlights

Episode Zero, shown first on both TV and the DVD, is a hilariously bad film (”The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina”) made by the SOS Brigade. It’s an unconventional episode not just because of the format, but because Haruhi, the film’s director, barely appears in the first episode of her own show. It’s brilliantly funny, but be warned: it’ll taint almost every subsequent anime viewing experience you have. Every time a writer “throws those moe situations at you,” every time a scene ends by panning up to the sky, every time you’re forced to begin a series by just accepting some elements of its plot… you’ll think of Haruhi. Episode Zero gains layers of meaning beyond the straight laughs as the series goes on, proof of just how well-written this show is.

Verdict

The bottom line here is fun — parodic, ironic, but sweet and totally non-cynical fun. Yes, it’s fun for people who know a little something about anime already, but that’s not to say newbs won’t enjoy it. You will get more out of it if you’re spotting more stuff, but it’s not like say, Project A-KO which requires an encyclopedia (and flew right the hell over my head).

Series two is apparently coming, but Kyoto is frustratingly making us wait until Fall while they finish slinging buckets of moe and tears around with the second half of Clannad.

- otou-san out!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 4:55 pm and is filed under comedy, sci-fi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.