In Preparation of the Disappearance - Mew comments on the Haruhi English Dub

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a slice-of-life/comedy/sci-fi/action/etc. Anime/Manga/Novel series that has garnered the attention of many people around the internet. Though the Novels are where the series truly began, the Anime series is more commonly recognized by the fanbase as a whole thanks in part to it's rather fluid animation, recognized voice actors on both Japanese and English fronts, and though this is probably not something to brag about, Endless Eight...

The story of Haruhi revolves around a girl named...Well, duh, Haruhi, who excels at pretty much every kind of thing you can think of, gets consistently awesome grades, and is gorgeous too boot. The problem with all of this? She's bored out of her wits, and to cure that she has formed a club in High School called the S.O.S. brigade, which revolves around finding Aliens, Time Travellers, Espers, and Sliders (Though the last gets no mention in the anime). To accomplish this goal, she recruits (And by recruit we mean, kidnap) fellow students Kyon, the straight man, Yuki Nagato, the emotionless literary club member, Mikuru Asahina, the sky yet well-endowed moe character, and Itsuki Koizumi, a gay transfer student. Funny story though...Turns out that Yuki is an alien, Mikuru is a Time Traveller, and Itsuki is an esper. Oh, and Haruhi is secretly god. Yep...It all makes sense, somehow...ANYWAYS!

The first season, covering the Melancholy, Boredom, Remote Island Syndrome, Adventures of Mikuru Asahina, and Mysterious Sign arcs from the Novel, was animated by KyoAni, and should you come across a fan of the series and ask them which of the two seasons are better, chances are they will speak of this one. Why, you may ask?

In the second season, KyoAni adapted the Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, Endless Eight, and Sighs arcs. There was also a heavy shift in the animation that made the characters look more like those moe blobs from K-ON!, a change which pretty much broke the fanbase in two...And that was only the beginning. Endless Eight, a series of eight episodes covering a two-week period in summer that was forced into a loop by Haruhi...Was a waste of time. For one, this event in the Novel AND Manga only took about two chapters to deal with. Two, there were barely any differences in the structure of the plot save for new animation and a couple minor line changes. Which leads into my third point. The fanbase was upset because they waited week after week for this to end, and once this was only halfway through, they realized that Endless Eight must mean that because there are eight episodes...Only for it to turn out that it meant an Endless August. Trollfaecs were made that day.

So, after this you can imagine that not very many people wanted to watch Haruhi, right? And they would never again, unless KyoAni did something truly spectacular...

That "truly spectacular" thing...Was a full-length, feature film named "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya". An adaptation of THE single most popular Haruhi story of all-time, which would be over two hours long AND would be animated in the original style from Season 1. So did this effort work out? The Japanese Fanbase seems to agree...Now all that's left is for it to come out in America and see how they did. In the mean time, I have watched the ENTIRE English Dub of the first two seasons to get ready for it.

This topic will mainly be used to share my thoughts for each of the arcs in the series. Oh, and if I feel like it, I will speak of the series' spin-off anime, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan.

For now though, this should work as an introduction for the topic.

SOK wrote:

Mewmaster wrote:

the Anime series is more commonly recognized by the fanbase as a whole thanks in part to it's rather fluid animation

FIRST SEASON, MIND YOU.