Twelve Thingies: Do your homework.
Part of the 12 Anime Moments of 2009, and the horse it rode in on.
2009 was a big year for anime for one solid reason: Haruhi returned. Long baited, teased, and ridiculed, fans of the 2000s’ biggest series were finally rewarded for their patience. Turns out, they weren’t rewarded all that well, but at least we got the wonderfully entertaining Haruhi-chan and Nyoron Churuya-san.
Of the things that made the return noteworthy — drops in animation quality, the near-punching of the titular (anti-)heroine, or the introduction of the book series’ central time-travel themes — one stands above: Endless Eight. Is it another troll on the fans? They certainly have reason to think that way after their treatment by Vengeful God Kadokawa. Is it a failed attempt to be clever? Who knows. It’s almost avant-garde when you think about it. No one’s ever done anything like it. But in the end, I think it was brilliant. Not just the fact that it was done, but in its execution.
See, by the close of Endless Eight (which did, in fact have an end, and that’s what makes it a ripoff), viewers were micro-focused on changes in outfits, slight variations on the dialog, and Kyon’s minute advances. So when the brain-snapping end finally came, the force of your fist in the air was enough to raise you out of your seat.
Was it, in combination with the “Sighs of Haruhi Suzumiya” story, enough to gain back the goodwill lost during the most experimental anime arc of the century? Doesn’t seem that way. Maybe the movie version of Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, one of the most well-liked stories, will fix that. Hard to say. But love Endless Eight or hate it, at least it gave us this moment.
I’m of two minds: the experience of watching it was rather terrible, but the idea of it is brilliant.
It’s something that I would love to get away with. I don’t think they got away with it — as you said, the goodwill has disappeared.
I’m somehow fond of Endless Eight too, even if it did tar the franchise. That strange feeling of absent-mindedly working through yet another episode probably was more inescapably 2009 than the highpoints of many a decent series. As for the execution, I was a touch disappointed in some of the attempts to vary the direction and soundtrack and felt those games could potentially have been made more interesting than they were.