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timepiececlockSee this reference list of the order of episodes I was watching, from the DVD, not the original broadcast order:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Melancholy_of_Haruhi_Suzumiya_episodes
My viewing experience of this show benefits a lot from having seen Fooly Cooly (FLCL) before hand. The two series have strong similarities, and at moments this feels like a sequel to that series in spirit. It has many of the same elements, and reaches similar conclusions. I don't want to get into a long discussion which one is better (FLCL), but rather appreciate both for being smart satires on the tropes of anime/manga, using space aliens, magic, and absurdity as metaphors for adolescence. A direct character to character comparison wouldn't be appropriate, since both Haruhi and Kyon, separately, embody different elements of Naota and different elements of Haruko. Haruhi is both Naota (creating wrinkles) and Haruka (smoothing out the wrinkles). Kyon is both Naota (dealing with an insane new life) and Haruko (being the adult to Haruhi.) Although Melancholy is slower and smoother than FLCL, I think it's better to see FLCL first, and experience the insanity of that for the wonderful experience it is, thent to watch this show, which takes the same idea of meta but uses it in a slower, more mundane way. The kids are older so their reactions to events (and the problems Haruhi creates) are of a different nature than the 12 year old boy in FLCL.
Basically, I loved this show and I want a second season. I liked the dialogue best-- it seems anime series based on novels always excel in certain ways, and I feel like the anime writers lifted whole speeches and extended discussions straight from a book, because most anime doesn't give this much time and attention to regular discussion. The conversations are smooth and sound natural; I also have to applaud the dub writers/translators for that as well. I have to say, I feel like this show (again, like FLCL) is one that makes a lot more sense and is a lot funnier if you're already used to anime, if you know the cliches and the narrative conventions. I wouldn't recommend this to a newbie; I'd go for something like Trigun or Cowboy Bebop or FMA.
I wouldn't say this show is perfect or flawless: the Mikiru stuff was never funny and I could have done without that entirely, or at least with half as much, since exploitation was never a part of my anime fan experience like it apparently is for most fanboys. And if you wanted you could probably pick apart all the ways the pacing or plot go belly-up or break out of structure. All that being said, I completely understand why it's so popular, and I'm not at all immune to the appeal. I love meta, it's why I adored FLCL and Princess Tutu, and it's why I loved this series too.
Episode 3, when everyone is suddenly confessing their "real" identities, is pretty funny while not having that many explicit jokes. I just couldn't stop cracking up every time Nagato, Mikiru, or the boy started on a monologue of "I'm actually a ____ from the ______ sent here to monitor Haruhi Suzumiya, not an ordinary human at all." It was the "Just FYI..." methodical aspect of it.
Episode 5, I think, is the one that explains what "happened" 3 years ago: Haruhi became conscious of the universe. This explains but doesn't justify her extreme behavior and the easy way she objectifies people as things. It also gives a very simple explanation of why she's warping the world around her. She believes she's a normal human being, and is unsatisfied with it, and you have the conflict of: tell her she's an omnipotent being and see what chaos she wiillfully creates, or let her continue believing she's normal and clean up the mess when she creates chaos SUBCONSCIOUSLY.
Episode 6 was one of my favorites, I liked Itsuki's explanation outside the window; his "you really don't know?" was right on key--Kyon *does* know, but he just doesn't want to admit it because he doesn't want to change the way things are now. I expected the kiss from the beginning; if I were in his place I'd have tried it a lot earlier in the scenario, but I supposed when you're there at teh whim of someone'se subconcious you have to respect the dramatic factors so you get the right emotional context. Although, if I were in their place (and if I didn't think the person next to me was controlling it), I'd just try going back to sleep again. You slept when you came in, you can sleep as a way out.
Haruhi's protests to Kyon show a lot about her own view, mostly that she's desperately lonely and thought she'd found someone similar. And Kyon is similar to her, very similar, but he just has a better barometer for socially acceptable behavior, and doesn't take his thinking to the extreme that Haruhi does.
It felt like the end of the series, and I understand why they might have aired them out of chronological order. If this is the last episode you see, you're tempted to believe something significant and major changed between Haruhi and Kyon. But it doesn't, really. There is a change, particularly on Haruhi's side as she seems to be more aware Kyon and gets jealous more easily, though it appears she doesn't know how to react to or handle the feelings she has for him. Kyon's position doesn't really change; he's been interested in Haruhi from the beginning despite all his whining and complaining, and while he was able to confront that attraction to a degree (in his flashback sequence of wondering how he "defines" her place in his life), but it's not the surprise to him that it is to Haruhi. And he recognizes the attraction he has (and the affection he rarely admits, since in Kyon's personality affection and attraction are very different), but he doesn't feel like he's fallen over in love or anything, so things pretty much resume the awkward status quo of before. He is still attracted to Mikiru and to a lesser degree Nakago (though I think that goes away over the course of the episodes) and, more importantly, he likes the status quo.
Kyon bitches a lot to himself but in reality, with the except of his life being in danger from the other alien girl, Haruhi has brought positive, exciting experiences. The exact scenario Kyon was wishing for in his opening monologue. On top of that, he's the focus of a pretty and interesting girl's attention, either directly or indirectly. He acts long-suffering, but I don't buy it. Kyon likes the chaos Haruhi brings and he likes the status quo of the club: he gets to flirt with or be attracted to two girls without having to choose between them, and both of them give him attention as well. If he didn't like the brigade and Haruhi, if it really was his "daily hell", he wouldn't be there.
A lot of the next few episodes were entertaining for the normal reasons. We get more crazyness, we get more weirdness. I liked the baseball episode and the video game duel episode. The "remote island mystery" episode, particularly the scene in the cave wioth Haruhi and Kyon, had the odd but interesting visual direction, very much parallel to the scene in episode 2 with Kyon in Nagato's apartment.
We saw more gradual shippy stuff for Haruhi and Kyon; I like that they keep it subtle and don't overdo it, because we already know how these two feel even if they haven't totally sorted it out yet. Haruhi is somewhere between secret obsession and love, if it's possible for her to love someone. I say "obsession" because "like" doesn't seem strong enough but "love" isn't right either. Kyon's view of the world is distorted, but the way Haruhi constantly seeks Kyon's attention and tries to impress him tell the viewers what's going on, even if Kyon doesn't see it. And Kyon's convinced himself that he's just attracted to Haruhi in a superficial way and is her friend, when I'm pretty sure (and Itsuki is pretty sure) that Kyon is in love. I think his reaction to the music performance, while it could be taken a lot of different ways, told me that he's totally in love and just hasn't admitted it to himself yet. Like I said: Kyon likes the status quo. He relishes his new life.
The finale episode, with the club members goofing off and Kyon in the rain, was a quiet ending. For a minute I thought we were going to be denied an emotional payoff, but it was there: at the very end, and in a very understated way, it was there. This was one of many examples of how the show works well from a single character's POV: the writers do an excellent job of showing us what Haruhi is thinking at times, even if Kyon doesn't quite comprehend what he's seeing.
I can't wait for next season!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Melancholy_of_Haruhi_Suzumiya_episodes
My viewing experience of this show benefits a lot from having seen Fooly Cooly (FLCL) before hand. The two series have strong similarities, and at moments this feels like a sequel to that series in spirit. It has many of the same elements, and reaches similar conclusions. I don't want to get into a long discussion which one is better (FLCL), but rather appreciate both for being smart satires on the tropes of anime/manga, using space aliens, magic, and absurdity as metaphors for adolescence. A direct character to character comparison wouldn't be appropriate, since both Haruhi and Kyon, separately, embody different elements of Naota and different elements of Haruko. Haruhi is both Naota (creating wrinkles) and Haruka (smoothing out the wrinkles). Kyon is both Naota (dealing with an insane new life) and Haruko (being the adult to Haruhi.) Although Melancholy is slower and smoother than FLCL, I think it's better to see FLCL first, and experience the insanity of that for the wonderful experience it is, thent to watch this show, which takes the same idea of meta but uses it in a slower, more mundane way. The kids are older so their reactions to events (and the problems Haruhi creates) are of a different nature than the 12 year old boy in FLCL.
Basically, I loved this show and I want a second season. I liked the dialogue best-- it seems anime series based on novels always excel in certain ways, and I feel like the anime writers lifted whole speeches and extended discussions straight from a book, because most anime doesn't give this much time and attention to regular discussion. The conversations are smooth and sound natural; I also have to applaud the dub writers/translators for that as well. I have to say, I feel like this show (again, like FLCL) is one that makes a lot more sense and is a lot funnier if you're already used to anime, if you know the cliches and the narrative conventions. I wouldn't recommend this to a newbie; I'd go for something like Trigun or Cowboy Bebop or FMA.
I wouldn't say this show is perfect or flawless: the Mikiru stuff was never funny and I could have done without that entirely, or at least with half as much, since exploitation was never a part of my anime fan experience like it apparently is for most fanboys. And if you wanted you could probably pick apart all the ways the pacing or plot go belly-up or break out of structure. All that being said, I completely understand why it's so popular, and I'm not at all immune to the appeal. I love meta, it's why I adored FLCL and Princess Tutu, and it's why I loved this series too.
Episode 3, when everyone is suddenly confessing their "real" identities, is pretty funny while not having that many explicit jokes. I just couldn't stop cracking up every time Nagato, Mikiru, or the boy started on a monologue of "I'm actually a ____ from the ______ sent here to monitor Haruhi Suzumiya, not an ordinary human at all." It was the "Just FYI..." methodical aspect of it.
Episode 5, I think, is the one that explains what "happened" 3 years ago: Haruhi became conscious of the universe. This explains but doesn't justify her extreme behavior and the easy way she objectifies people as things. It also gives a very simple explanation of why she's warping the world around her. She believes she's a normal human being, and is unsatisfied with it, and you have the conflict of: tell her she's an omnipotent being and see what chaos she wiillfully creates, or let her continue believing she's normal and clean up the mess when she creates chaos SUBCONSCIOUSLY.
Episode 6 was one of my favorites, I liked Itsuki's explanation outside the window; his "you really don't know?" was right on key--Kyon *does* know, but he just doesn't want to admit it because he doesn't want to change the way things are now. I expected the kiss from the beginning; if I were in his place I'd have tried it a lot earlier in the scenario, but I supposed when you're there at teh whim of someone'se subconcious you have to respect the dramatic factors so you get the right emotional context. Although, if I were in their place (and if I didn't think the person next to me was controlling it), I'd just try going back to sleep again. You slept when you came in, you can sleep as a way out.
Haruhi's protests to Kyon show a lot about her own view, mostly that she's desperately lonely and thought she'd found someone similar. And Kyon is similar to her, very similar, but he just has a better barometer for socially acceptable behavior, and doesn't take his thinking to the extreme that Haruhi does.
It felt like the end of the series, and I understand why they might have aired them out of chronological order. If this is the last episode you see, you're tempted to believe something significant and major changed between Haruhi and Kyon. But it doesn't, really. There is a change, particularly on Haruhi's side as she seems to be more aware Kyon and gets jealous more easily, though it appears she doesn't know how to react to or handle the feelings she has for him. Kyon's position doesn't really change; he's been interested in Haruhi from the beginning despite all his whining and complaining, and while he was able to confront that attraction to a degree (in his flashback sequence of wondering how he "defines" her place in his life), but it's not the surprise to him that it is to Haruhi. And he recognizes the attraction he has (and the affection he rarely admits, since in Kyon's personality affection and attraction are very different), but he doesn't feel like he's fallen over in love or anything, so things pretty much resume the awkward status quo of before. He is still attracted to Mikiru and to a lesser degree Nakago (though I think that goes away over the course of the episodes) and, more importantly, he likes the status quo.
Kyon bitches a lot to himself but in reality, with the except of his life being in danger from the other alien girl, Haruhi has brought positive, exciting experiences. The exact scenario Kyon was wishing for in his opening monologue. On top of that, he's the focus of a pretty and interesting girl's attention, either directly or indirectly. He acts long-suffering, but I don't buy it. Kyon likes the chaos Haruhi brings and he likes the status quo of the club: he gets to flirt with or be attracted to two girls without having to choose between them, and both of them give him attention as well. If he didn't like the brigade and Haruhi, if it really was his "daily hell", he wouldn't be there.
A lot of the next few episodes were entertaining for the normal reasons. We get more crazyness, we get more weirdness. I liked the baseball episode and the video game duel episode. The "remote island mystery" episode, particularly the scene in the cave wioth Haruhi and Kyon, had the odd but interesting visual direction, very much parallel to the scene in episode 2 with Kyon in Nagato's apartment.
We saw more gradual shippy stuff for Haruhi and Kyon; I like that they keep it subtle and don't overdo it, because we already know how these two feel even if they haven't totally sorted it out yet. Haruhi is somewhere between secret obsession and love, if it's possible for her to love someone. I say "obsession" because "like" doesn't seem strong enough but "love" isn't right either. Kyon's view of the world is distorted, but the way Haruhi constantly seeks Kyon's attention and tries to impress him tell the viewers what's going on, even if Kyon doesn't see it. And Kyon's convinced himself that he's just attracted to Haruhi in a superficial way and is her friend, when I'm pretty sure (and Itsuki is pretty sure) that Kyon is in love. I think his reaction to the music performance, while it could be taken a lot of different ways, told me that he's totally in love and just hasn't admitted it to himself yet. Like I said: Kyon likes the status quo. He relishes his new life.
The finale episode, with the club members goofing off and Kyon in the rain, was a quiet ending. For a minute I thought we were going to be denied an emotional payoff, but it was there: at the very end, and in a very understated way, it was there. This was one of many examples of how the show works well from a single character's POV: the writers do an excellent job of showing us what Haruhi is thinking at times, even if Kyon doesn't quite comprehend what he's seeing.
I can't wait for next season!
