Forum

yuna49 wrote:

dm wrote:

I think the odd order of the first season, and the fact that we were viewing it weekly had a big impact. The odd order and internal mysteries made the series a puzzle, and as a result dominated discussion forums I was on while we waited a week for the next episode. (emphasis added)

Not too surprising for ANN to overlook, but the fact that torrents were becoming more common had to have played a role in Haruhi's success outside Japan.

I know it was definitely the point where many people I knew started watching the newest anime seasonally, one way or another: it often started when they saw a Haruhi clip on YouTube, wondered where this show subtitled in English they couldn't buy anywhere or see on TV came from, and were introduced to torrents.

Or, once strung together clips that made up a full episode were taken down, they searched for and found other streaming sites. Among those options, a little site that didn't mind keeping up full fansubbed episodes called Crunchyroll started the same year.

I suppose that's all more "how Haruhi introduced people to watching all their anime online". But the fact that it was the newest, hottest thing, and it was just there, and you could see it now maybe contributed to making it an even bigger deal.

Did it really lose momentum/popularity because the author went on hiatus or because Haruhi'a VA got into a scandal??

Kind of miss when series that weren’t just mainstream Shounen could become big hits. It feels like there are more anime fans today then when Haruhi made it big but the popular series feel much narrower

Of course mainstream Shounen was always popular don’t get me wrong. But would a series like Haruhi become a big hit today? Or would it just be talked about for a season then forgotten? That’s what I feel about most series today.

Haruhi came out when I was in college, and I remember the campus' anime club obsessing over it, and there being ads up for 'roleplaying groups' and other stuff for it. I can't say Haruhi was the first time I saw anime being popular in public, since there was also an anime club at my high school who loved the then-Adult Swim lineups like Fullmetal Alchemist, Trigun, and Inuyasha Although I guess to be fair an anime that wasn't dubbed and on TV being popular was a much rarer sight, so Haruhi was the first non-Toonami/Adult Swim anime I saw people liking in public.

For me, I think Haruhi was the start of the light novel boom outside Japan. Yeah, it took around a decade (and also SAO). But IMO, it really was the whole Haruhi phenomenon that actually lit the spark.

I really get it when you say the novels feel underwhelming compared to the anime. Especially when all main characters can be quite grating. But yeah, there was just something the novels had that made it work.

In a very personal opinion, it IS about timing, Haruhi came during my early years of college days. Having been freed from pressuring stuff like university entrance test and all the preparation and having given a taste of "adult freedom" (minus the responsibility), Haruhiism fits with my view back then. Do what you want to do, be what you want to be, we are living in "the now" (Bouken Deshou Deshou literally became my anthem of life). I'm not a social person but I made friends and did try new things (of course all of those are still weebs related but at least I'm no longer a loner) because of Haruhi. I even participate in the time capsule project (I wonder how its going now). Of course after decade has passed, I realize some (if not most) of all the weebs things I did in the name of Haruhiism is cringy but I never regret it Laughing

I think every generation has their own golden era, understanding this made me more tolerable every time I see young anime fan did something cringy (there's still a limit of course).

I think part of it may have been the quality of KyoAni's animation --- not just the foreground was in motion, but the background as well (I remember a scene in the computer clubroom with some characters having a conversation in the foreground, and Haruhi was energetically moving around in the background --- presumably talking to someone, but her conversation wasn't part of the scene, it was just mimetic character development for Haruhi.

The commenters talking about how they didn't like Haruhi, so they weren't interested in the series, at one point in the novels Kyon loses patience with Haruhi himself (I think over her treatment of Mikuru). So even Tanigawa recognized how grating she could be.

The Endless Eight killed the excitement I had for the series. I still like it and the characters. But it wasn't the same for me.

The Endless Eight may have been avant garde. Some fans probably love it for that. For me, they wasted two thirds of the second season to play around.

The movie "Groundhog Day" was 101 minutes long. Episode of Haruhi Suzumiya is 24 minutes on average. If you watch Groundhog Day two times, you've equaled the run time of the Endless Eight episodes.

At the time, I felt it was due to cost saving measures or a finger to impossible to please fans. Now I think it was just a gimmick. One that wasted or shorted the second season.

I still like the series, and would like to know what the future holds for the gang, but not enough to read the light novels. For me, due to it's age, Haruhi Suzumiya is strictly anime only.

Quote:

...at one point in the novels Kyon loses patience with Haruhi himself (I think over her treatment of Mikuru)

Mid-way through episode 23, The Sigh of Haruhi Suzimya IV, while Haruhi is directing a bedroom scene for their movie, she starts hitting Mikuru for not being sexy enough. Kyon loses it and raises his hand to Haruhi but Koizumi stops him in time while Mikuru defuses the situation.

Earlier in this episode, Tsuruya and Haruhi conspired to slip Mikuru a drink - 'to open up her acting range.' For me, that is when Haruhi crossed over the line - I don't know how it was portrayed in the novels but for me it didn't fit in with the overall character of Haruhi in general. Actually, come to think of it - that is my main complaint with the series.

On another note, the spinoff series, the Disappearance of Nagato Yuki, is a really sweet romance story with a much more wholesome characterization of Tsurya (who seemed like a nice girl prior to that incident in the main series).

my favorite anime was done justice in this article. thank you very much for the wonderful piece <3

joeydoa wrote:

Earlier in this episode, Tsuruya and Haruhi conspired to slip Mikuru a drink - 'to open up her acting range.' For me, that is when Haruhi crossed over the line - I don't know how it was portrayed in the novels but for me it didn't fit in with the overall character of Haruhi in general. Actually, come to think of it - that is my main complaint with the series.

I tend to think it did fit with Haruhi's character, which is probably why it made a lot of viewers uncomfortable. Like, that's how she'd been treating Mikuru for the entire show up to that point. It's a completely one-sided, criminally abusive relationship from the very beginning. I felt like the "line crossed" in Sigh was more like a "hey audience, just so we're clear, it's really effed up how Haruhi treats Mikuru" moment.

To be clear, I think this is a perfectly valid reason to dislike the show. I just think they crossed the line in the very first episode.

I've had a mixed experience with the Haruhi franchise as a whole over the years. I remember watching the broadcast order back when it first came out. At the time I thought it was pretty clever and funny and I liked the animation and music and Kyon's dead pan narration but I didn't get absolutely hooked on it like it seemed like everyone else did. Back then I also wasn't as actively involved with anime fandom as I am nowadays so Haruhi became one of those shows I saw once and liked well enough and then moved on from. I think it was a combination of the whole Endless Eight thing and I started to be more critical of Haruhi's antics though I've since softened on the show more and moe anime in general over the years. I still have yet to fully see all of the show and the movie and one of these days I'll go back and it a proper full watch through. I at least want to watch the movie sometime as I always heard it being given such high praise even from fans that have long given up on the series as a whole. Even if I never became the biggest Haruhi Suzumiya fan, I appreciate it for it trying to do something so unique and radical at the time and that will likely never again be recreated with that level of success for what it did and the Hare Hare Yukai and God Knows will always be legendary.

Pixel_Crusher wrote:

Okay...

To this day, I still blame this series for "killing" the potential for more anime like "Cowboy Bebop" and "The Big O". Instead, it helped over-saturate the anime market with the moe aesthetic and ecchi.

It helped revitalize the anime industry like Eva did back in the day? Yes, but a what cost? The effects last to this very day...

spoiler[Sorry, I just miss the mid to late 90s that much.]

This post looks like the one i would've write year or two ago, when i became a big 90's anime fanatic.

Right now... i still prefer 90's anime, and also 80's and 00's anime way more than 10's anime.
But i can't deny how nostalgic i am to Haruhi Suzumiya, and i definitely prefer it to the modern Moe shows! Anime hyper

icomeanon6 wrote:

joeydoa wrote:

Earlier in this episode, Tsuruya and Haruhi conspired to slip Mikuru a drink - 'to open up her acting range.' For me, that is when Haruhi crossed over the line - I don't know how it was portrayed in the novels but for me it didn't fit in with the overall character of Haruhi in general. Actually, come to think of it - that is my main complaint with the series.

I tend to think it did fit with Haruhi's character, which is probably why it made a lot of viewers uncomfortable. Like, that's how she'd been treating Mikuru for the entire show up to that point. It's a completely one-sided, criminally abusive relationship from the very beginning. I felt like the "line crossed" in Sigh was more like a "hey audience, just so we're clear, it's really effed up how Haruhi treats Mikuru" moment.

To be clear, I think this is a perfectly valid reason to dislike the show. I just think they crossed the line in the very first episode.

Which I find hilarious as per the nature of the show, we know things about Mikuru that most of the cast don't know and Kyon refuses to consider. 1 It's Mikuru's job and 2 We know she comes through everything perfectly fine.

Mikuru is her own boss and if she's fine with it then who's to say what she can't do it?
I suppose you could argue Mikuru is endangering Mikuru unnecessarily but seeing how it's stable time loop, I don't think she'd care. Also, I don't think she wants to be fired or wiped from existence.

It's complicated situation, one you have to think about, especially after Itsuki points out to Kyon in Sigh that Mikuru is exploiting Haruhi's abuse to make Kyon more likely to take Mikuru's side.

I love Sigh, sad that it doesn't get the recognition it deserves thanks to 8 of 8.
Koizumi: Take my side.
Mikuru: Take my side.
Yuki: I'm on your side.

Edit: I'm honestly glad to talk about a show that has more actual depth than just its premise. Themes and complex characters, I haven't gotten around to talking about plots yet. Or the humor or the action.

Day of Sagittarius III, that is its own post.

LuScr wrote:

Haruhi's hallmark was being, simultaneously, a straight sci-fi series and a self-aware metacomedy. It was full of absurdist elements--and it used a deadpan snarker narrator to highlight them--but even as it did so, the plot itself was played straight and taken seriously.

And that melding continued with all the various gimmicks and ways that the producers interacted with (and trolled) the fanbase--the out-of-order episodes, the website, the new episodes being dropped in after a rebroadcast of the original season, the Endless Eight debacle (of which no discussion is complete without the Downfall meme), and so forth.

The overall fan experience was unlike anything seen before or since.

These are are comments so far that I most strongly agree with.

This series had, by far, the highest forum page count of any anime title on this site until SAO came along and was one of those once-or-twice-in-a-decade series which becomes a legitimate phenomenon. Part of that was KyoAni's stellar technical effort, and some of that was unquestionably the gimmickry and a perfect storm on timing, and it did tap in a bit to the rising moe trend. (I would argue against it helping to popularize that trend, however; the trend was already popular at that point.)

However, one aspect that I don't think has gotten enough attention in this thread is that it was the first true "meta" series to hit big. Unless I'm forgetting something obvious, series before it weren't as self-aware of what they were as Melancholy was. That kind of thing has been so commonplace these days (especially in isekai series) that it can be hard to appreciate how fresh that was at the time.

And yeah, the ENOZ performance is still, to this day, my standard-setter for in-series musical performances. The animation is stellar, the infectious energy is hard to match, and Aya Hirano knocked it out of the park on the performance. (English voice Wendee Lee, who was never much known for her singing, also did a surprisingly impressive job.) Some of the Carole and Tuesday performances come close, but even they can't match it on animation, and most idol shows could only dream of hitting that hard. I still go back and watch that scene at least once or twice a year.

BlueAlf wrote:

For me, I think Haruhi was the start of the light novel boom outside Japan.

This is also, I think, a fair statement. At the very least the novels were on the leading edge of the light novel boom that would take over in the 2010s.