The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Plot:

A far from ordinary school story starts here!

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

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

Suzumiya Haruhi is a good-looking high school girl who has a clear head, naughty personality, and very egocentric thought. She has an unimaginably tremendous power to change the world, but she is totally unaware of her own power and so she is also unaware of the affect of her power on the outside world.

A delightfully strange, yet marvellously interesting story!

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

Information
Type: TV
Episodes: 14
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Apr 3, 2006 to Jul 3, 2006
Producers: Kyoto Animation, Lantis, Bandai EntertainmentL, Kadokawa Pictures USAL
Genres: Comedy, Mystery, Parody, School, Sci-Fi, Slice of Life
Duration: 23 min. per episode
Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older


The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya review


Story 10/10
We’ve seen the plotline for this series before, but not so much that it gets old or boring or unoriginal or etc. A general formula for the story would be: Person A lives in world => A gets bored with world => A drags B, C, D, and E in to her world and it gets better (for all of them) as they go.

Suzumiya Haruhi, East Junior High’s famous girl of ambiguous intentions, comes onto the stage of her namesake show as a mildly depressed and bored… person. Enter Kyon, the sarcastic protagonist to stand alongside Haruhi on her many dubious quests to find abnormal creatures. Following him will be a trio, to be saved for the “Characters” section of this thing of a review. Anyway, she (Haruhi) hopes and wants desperately for the existence of aliens, time travelers, espers, and dimensional sliders to put her world on the edge of its seat.

There are hints, or hardly even traces, of drama and romance in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. Kyon holds in his heart feelings for the female trio, but they’re all different and unique (his feelings are).

As for the episode order, there are those out there who didn’t like it (probably because it made them confused and feel bad), but I loved it. It somewhat emphasized on the queerness of the main characters Haruhi and Kyon.


Animation 9/10
Can't really say anything bad about the animations but they could still be better...
Drawings/artwrok are avarage and could have been done alot better... It aslo felt rather blurry, but maybe it was the fansubed version that was bad... Anyway... On to the sound...

Sound 10/10
Probably the most memorable thing in the whole series... Especially the preformace during the school festival. OP/ED is just a matter of taste as always, not everyone likes the same kind of music.


Characters 9/10
Strange how things turned out, but Haruhi got called on to be the main character to her own show, and she’s not an average every day main character. Haruhi is openly selfish, has convenient bouts of deafness (or just refuses to listen to others while she’s in monologue), and is also (considered by her peers) to be a superfreak. Many series before have used such a character, but, what, you ask, makes Haruhi different from all others? The people standing by to support her (though are main characters themselves) bring her eccentricities to light and life better than they could have been without them.

Kyon is, without a doubt, the voice of reason. He grew up glued to such thing as UFO specials on TV, and even secretly hopes that such extraterrestrial things exist. Sadly, however, as he puts it, the laws of physics were too well written.


Value / Enjoyment 8/10 and 9/10 respectively
When I first started watching Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, it was already on episode 10. That episode, which definitely is NOT the best point to start at, was strange for a clueless newb such as myself. After waiting a week to watch episode 11's first scene, I thought "Ah, finally we get to what the series is about." Soon after, I watched the series in as strange an order as it was already released in (meaning I watched the broadcast releases in the order I downloaded them, which was also abnormal).

After getting the whole series (alongside a few episodes of Ouran High School Host Club), my family and I took a vacation to the Philippines, where I had 0 home access to the internet whatsoever. Luckily, I had a laptop, a portable hard drive, and all 14 episodes of SHnY to keep me company. I watched and rewatched the episodes every day that I could, simply because I couldn't find anything else to do. Between Ouran and SHnY, I chose SHnY day in and day out simply because it was what I enjoyed more.

Because of all the small things done in such large manners (fully animating the concert performances, making people in the background move, the abnormal episode order), this quickly and suddenly became a series worth the time to watch and rewatch, no matter how many times you've watched it. In my case, with each new viewing, something got clearer and pulled more questions up with it.

After watching this series, I fell in love with Hirano Aya's music. She's very talented, as were those working both behind and in front of the scenes in "Haruhi".

Nagato Yuki, the super silent bookworm rooted to the SOS Brigade’s headquarters, is (without a doubt) an homage to Ayanami Rei from Shin Seiki Evangelion (for proof, look to Google). She will change as the series goes on, as evidenced in the book version of SHnY, but enjoyment of such knowledge as Nagato’s development I leave to your own discovery.

Next up is Koizumi Itsuki. Haruhi has a talent for “kissing her own ass,” as Kyon phrased it, and Koizumi just happens to be the one in the SOS Brigade stuck to wipe it beforehand. He is, as described in one of the other reviews, the Yes Man, who goes along with anything and everything that his leader whims.

Last, and definitely not least, would be Kyon’s lust interest Asahina Mikuru. As the big “moe” factor and mascot girl in SHnY, this submissive redhead is doomed to face Haruhi’s wrath… or at least, to jump into any getup Haruhi presents her with.

The supporting characters are unique as well. These people aren’t like the supporting characters in other series… not very much alike, at least. What makes them different? Who they are. Gracing the stage for the first time in Haruhi's mockery of a film were the Taniguchi and Kunikida duo, a social joke and lineless nice guy respectively, and Tsuruya-san, one of Asahina's friends whose energy is matched only by Haruhi. If they aren’t being laughed at, they’re the ones laughing, and even as supporting characters have their own roles to play.