I love the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, (I'm talking about the anime only by the way). There are some things about it though that kind of made me wonder if I "got it" or not. It could be that what I point out are aspects that are open to interpretation rather than something I missed I don't know really hence why I'm writing this post. There are also some spoilers here by the way so don't read this if you haven't seen both seasons of the anime series and the film "The disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya".
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| The members of the SOS brigade |
Ok so the first thing I want to talk about is Haruhi herself, I'm not majorly fond of her.
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| Haruhi: Am I missing something that should help me like her more, I don't think I have a massive amount of empathy for her either |
I don't hate her it's just that she doesn't interest me as much as the other members of the brigade. Really I'm interested in their reactions to what Haruhi does rather than Haruhi's actions themselves. Especially those reactions of the real star of the show, the cynical Kyon, that is pretty much a given so I won't talk about him at all. In the series I didn't think much of Haruhi other than as a catalyst for the creation of a plot. I just feel that the creators wanted me to be more intrigued with her than I actually am. I did like her in the film though but I think I'll talk about that more later on.
Next I'm going to talk about "fan-favourite" Nagato
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| Nagato being kickass in her witch costume |
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She interests me because you just don't know how she's feeling, you can only guess. She's the stereotypical quiet female, shutting herself up in a way rei clones often do. Whenever she's on-screen I'm dying to know what she's feeling, she endures a lot throughout the series which I guess is a cue for me to start talking about the film.
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| The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya |
The movie has a really different tone to the TV series which makes me love it all the more and helps provide a different perspective of the characters. I reckon this can be applied mostly to Nagato, especially as she's the one who is responsible for the events that occur in the film. In the changed universe I still don't understand why Nagato herself changed so much on the outside, I mean I thought that only the events changed and not the characters' personalities. I do believe that the alternate Nagato represents what the usual Nagato is feeling deep inside herself but it's just...I...well. I dunno I guess I'll have to watch the film and the series over and over again to understand it. Anyway I felt that Nagato's character in the film is fantastic both the alternate one and the usual one, though as I said before I personally feel that inside there may not be that much difference between the two in terms of what they're feeling. The Interactions between her and Kyon were heartbreaking in my opinion. I felt really sorry for her and partly felt that I didn't want Kyon to push that button because of Nagato's feelings towards him.
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| This scene from the film on the rooftop was particularly emotional |
But what about Haruhi in the film? Well I liked her a lot more than in the series, trouble is I don't know why. If you agree with me could you say why in the comments or on the anime uk forum (more on this later). Hmm I said earlier that I'd talk about it more but I haven't have I
Anyway lets move onto a different character in the series: Koizume
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| Itsuki Koizumi |
I like him he's a chilled out dude with paranormal esper powers...awesome. He's the one who explains what's going on in the crazy world of Haruhi with regard her powers so we rely on him quite a bit from that perspective. However I find he's not really that interesting from an emotional perspective, well I guess. I mean I do get a sense that a lot of what he puts forward on the outside is just for show but it doesn't grab my curiosity in the same way that Nagato's does. That might be because Nagato's situation is more tragic and affects her more than Koizumi's affects his own. However one thing that the alternate Koizumi mentioned in the movie was that he was very fond of Haruhi, this kind of makes me wonder if the usual Koizume is in love with her too. I knew from the series that he found her charming but the film hinted that there might be something more.
Now a brief mention of Mikuru Asahina
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| Mikuru Asahina: the least interesting of the SOS brigade |
Well to be honest the only good thing about her is that she makes Kyon say some funny things and that's it. Her role in the movie gave her more of a purpose but I wouldn't say it made her more interesting.
If I want to sum up my questions so far I'd say they'd be A: Why don't I like Haruhi as much as should? B: Why does Nagato change into a normal human being in the alternative universe in the film? C: does the alternate Nagato's personality reflect what the usual Nagato is feeling inside, actually I want to see if that's true for all the characters? D: why do I prefer the alternate Haruhi to the usual one? I mean they have the same personality so why I prefer one to the other is a mystery to me. There's probably some other stuff that I want to ask too but not thinking about when I'm writing this so I'll probably put forward some more questions later.
One final thing I want to point out that I mentioned at the beginning of this post is that everything I've talked about is in regards to the anime only, not the manga. I have no intention of reading the manga until the anime series has finished and there's nothing more coming out. Some of these questions I've put forward are probably due to me not paying attention when watching, however if there's a question that can only be answered by reading the manga I ask you not to spoil it just in case it's answered in future anime series/films.
I'm going to put forward my questions on the anime uk forum, it's fairly new so it's a small community but that's why I joined it. It's got potential for growth so I advise you join it too to help make it become the forum it deserves to be. It'll also be easier to discuss what I've put forward on there as well so here's the link to the website:
anime uk
more specifically here's the thread in question:
anime uk Haruhi Suzumiya thread
Well I guess that's all I have to say for now, I hope my ramblings haven't been too incoherent.
