The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2 Plot:

A far from ordinary school story begins here!

This is a story of Suzumiya Haruhi, who upon enrolling at school announces: "I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, beings from the future, or espers, come see me. That is all!"

Naturally, any normal person would think "What the...?", but Haruhi is dead serious. Things get crazy when everyone realizes just how serious she is about it all and establishes the SOS Dan.

Suzumiya Haruhi is a good-looking high school girl with a clear head, naughty personality and a very egocentric way of thinking. She has the unimaginable power to change the world, but is completely unaware of this power, and so she is also unaware of the effect her power has on the outside world.

A delightfully strange, yet marvellously interesting story!

Alternative Titles
English: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2009)
Japanese: 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱

Information
Type: TV
Episodes: 14
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: May 21, 2009 to Sep 10, 2009
Producers: Kyoto Animation, Kadokawa Shoten, Bandai EntertainmentL
Genres: Comedy, Mystery, Parody, Romance, School, Sci-Fi, Slice of Life
Duration: 24 min. per episode
Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older


The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2 review


Story 6/10
Haruhi is a character-driven show. Interesting stuff happening to Haruhi and her inner circle is it's story. In fact, it is explicitly being told by one of the characters that, even though there are various organisations fighting their own passionate battles around Haruhi, all of it has no meaning to Haruhi herself.However, when the character development is as sad as it is, this line sounds less like a good story element and more like a cop-out.
The remaining two arcs had very little interesting stuff happening to the characters. Sure, the basic story elemets are there, but the space between them is filled with nothing but boredom.



Character Development 2/10
Pretty much every minute or two of episode 8 signifies some sort of development, for at least one of the main characters. That's how it should be for a Haruhi show.During the other 13 episodes i only seem to recall two such events - one with Kyon standing up to Haruhi in episode 19 (Endless Eight arc final), and one with Kyon / Koizumi in episode 24 (Sighs arc final). Everything else was just every character doing their usual routines, which we have already seen so many times in season one episodes - which were actually reaired as well.That kind of character development strikes me as seriously lame. Where is further development of Nagato's human emotions? Where is Mikuru dealing with being torn between secrecy and obvious affection for Kyon? Why the hell it took Kyon 8 episodes of absolutely nothing happening to grow a friggin' backbone? I guess we do get to see high-and-mighty Koizumi in a broken crying-for-help state, but why in the world did they decide for the actual breaking to happen off-screen? And what's the point of the side characters? Just to be there and look pretty for the camera? The ultimate ruling looks like this. There were no new characters introduced, and there were virtually no new developments for existing ones for the majority of the new content. That's a fail. The only upside is a good in-character implementation of original character designs.


Sound 7/10
The sound is average, which means highly disappointing. In 2006, we got Hare Hare Yukai, Bouken Desho Desho?, God Knows, and Lost My Music. All excellent pieces of J-pop. Even the background pieces are memorable. But in 2009, all we get are Tomare!, Super Driver, and a couple new background pieces that are extremely meh. Tomare! and Super Driver are still fairly good J-pop songs, but when you think of how Hare Hare Yukai, Bouken Desho Desho?, God Knows, and Lost My Music were done so well three years before, they don’t stand a candle.


Animation 6/10
The execution of visual side of things is on a very professional level. The pictures are flowing, the attention to detail is on a good level. From backgrounds to facial expressions - everything is polished to a good degree. The technical side of things is beyond reproach. The characters are drawn with great care. The moods of every single shot are all captured perfectly.
Seriously, the animators did a bloody good job.
The problem is, the task they were given was incredibly simple.They were animating a series of talking heads, which default to a maximum of two facial expressions. The amount of action was even less than in Haruhi season one, where it was next to none to begin with. In fact, looking back at it, i realise that they drew everything so well because they didn't really have a whole lot to draw.
It can be argued that it's the horrible story holding back the animators, but that's simply not true. Because there are shows out there with stories even more horrible, which are still pretty awesome to watch ( *cough* Lucky Star *cough* ). Why are they awesome to watch? Well, because the guy, who was telling the animators what to do, actually stopped for a bit and considered how the picture stands on it's own.
You see, the picture needs to entice, to inspire, to draw you in and to keep you entertained. An ideal animation does not need sound or plot to hold your attention and interest. Most of Haruhi s2's animation does not even begin to approach that.In short, the pictures were moving and pretty, but they also were boring as hell. So 100% marks for technical execution, 20% marks for artistic vision.


Enjoyment 2/10
I had my hopes up very high as i saw Kyon and Mikuru emerge from their 3 year stassis, as Kyon pondered the meaning of him stepping on some past butterflies.
At this point, i expected season two to be at least as good as season one was.Boy, was I in for a disappointment.