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Sorry, all a big crosspost again. I know it's a tacky and lazy and all but for me it's better than having to write out two separate reviews for two different places, designed with two different audiences in mind...
In the last week I've seen all fourteen episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, an anime mini-series about a girl who on the first day of high school stands up when it comes her turn to introduce herself and announces, "Normal humans don't interest me. If anyone here is an alien, a time traveller, slider, or an esper, then come find me! That is all." She then gets sick of all the clubs in the school (that's right. She joins all of them temporarily) and decides to form her own: the SOS Brigade, otherwise know by its full title, the Save the World by Overloading it with Fun Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade. Dragged kicking and screaming along with her is the jaded, old-before-his-time Kyon, a boy who sits in front of her in class and narrates each episode. Haruhi is a possessed of limitless energy, a headful of megalomaniacal schemes and the attention span of a five-year old, and it's all Kyon can do to keep up with her, let alone keep her excesses in check.
I'm hesitant to say much more about the set up of the series, as what unfolds from here is continually surprising and open to more than one reading. You could view it all as the series seems to explicitly state, that Haruhi is central to everything that happens. It could be seen as the imaginary/actual adventures of a group of high school kids who are desperate to alleviate the boredom of their teenage years, and you could wonder for a long time where the dividing line between the imaginary/actual really is. Or you might come up with a reading whereby it's Kyon's desires, sublimated as they are beneath his perceptions of what a young man should believe and made al the stronger for their suppression, that are the driving force behind the crazy events that ensue.
It's packed with references to other shows. Yuki Nagato and Koizumi Itsuki seem to be channelling Evangelion's Rei Ayanami and Kaworu Nagisa respectively. The hapless Mikuru Asahina seems to be the can carrier for a planet-load of fanservice, carrying that strong and roll-your-eyes icky tradition to such abusive extremes that it becomes a commentary on the whole trope. References to Gunbuster are hilariously censored via pixellated visuals and blanked out subtitles. The bunny girl outfits bring to mind Daicon IV. The first/eleventh episode is a more-meta-than-meta wet dream of daft anime references and pastiches. I'm sure there's a ton more, but my knowledge of anime is sadly limited to only slightly more than a handful of Gainax series and a few movies. Please excuse the enthusiastic amateur.
I say first/eleventh, because the episodes are shown out of chronological order. The episode order you're given is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, but to watch it chronologically you have to switch it up to 2, 3, 5, 10, 13, 14, 4, 7, 6, 8, 1, 12, 11, 9 (each of those is a YouTube link in case you fancy joining in the fun). At the end of each episode is the standard Coming Next Week section, hilariously overdubbed with a blazing row between Haruhi and Kyon regarding which episode should come next. I've only seen it in the achronological order so I have no frame of reference for which is the more satisfying, but I imagine that many of the mysteries of the show will quickly become too apparent too soon if you watch it in a sensible manner. I'm willing to bet that ending on what should chronologically be episode six is the best way to see the series. It's an extremely funny device that leaves you guessing much more than you would otherwise, and serves to reinforce that this show is Kyon's account, and there are some things that he'll only tell you when he's good and ready.
On the subject of Kyon's narration. . . I'm not sure whether it's a property of the manner in which the series has been fansubbed, as all the subs are in white regardless of whether it's narration voiceover or dialogue. . . and the device used whereby some narration is at the top of the screen doesn't seem to be rigorously adhered to all cases. . . but I'm almost one-hundred percent certain that there are moments in which Haruhi responds to Kyon's after the fact voiceover that she couldn't possibly be hearing. I don't know whether I've added false memories to the mix, but I'm sure there are sections where Kyon is doing his Wonder Years/Scrubs routine and she bites back with some ascerbic or idiotic comment. I'm practically convinced that his mouth isn't animated for those sections, or that the back of his head is shown and the style of the dialogue makes you think it's narration only for it to receive a reply, or that they've mixed the narration differently in the sound design but still blurred the line between what is happening in the scene and what is diary-style commentary.
And that leads me back to the multiple readings behind the series. Haruhi and Kyon are inextricably linked as characters. That the anime can say as much explicitly but can still explore the theme so deep into its structure, techniques and subtext is a marvellous achievement seen only rarely in the televisual medium. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind would be one of the few other examples of the form being the content, as film technique is invented and reinvented in order to show the blurring of the boundaries between one person and another, or one person's conception of the other. But who here is doing the conceptualising and world creating? Is it Haruhi or Kyon? Or both? Who is running the show here?
What more do you need to know? It's beautifully animated in places (watch the drummer in the Culture Fair episode, or the scenes where Haruhi pulls Kyon around by the tie). It's extremely funny and one hundred percent character driven. It's a series of bonkers adventures with a philosophical conundrum at the their centre of everything that seems farcical. And it has the ending that it really needed to have. I guarantee that ten minutes from the end of the final episode you'll be screaming at the TV, shouting at Kyon, barking orders concerning what he so clearly needs to do. There's only one way back to the real world. |
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