Review of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

It's somewhat tough to look at one of the OGs in the form of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu in 2021. Some parts of the show aged quite gracefully, like voice acting, or the general concept of the show as a whole. Other parts are obviously dated and show it almost immediately, like the art department. And yet, it is still an enjoyable piece of fiction as a whole. I've seen an interesting point somewhere before, about S2 being made for the purpose of being popular, while S1 was made to just be a good anime. And it shows, really. The entire first arc of the seasonbalances exposition and goofiness quite well, and ends on an ambiguous note of sorts. Other arcs are hit and miss, unfortunately, or just concepts that were not explained or expanded upon properly (such as Lone Island Syndrome).

However, watching it all back-to-back with S2 (BD watch order) actually made me appreciate S1 more than i've expected. The first arc is pretty good, the cockroach boss battle was just fun, and Boredom i've promptly forgotten about immediately after watching it. At the same time, the "Movie" episode was better than the actual 6-part filming of said movie, Live Alive almost made me fall in love with the show due to the sheer unexpected nature of the music bits, and both the showdown and the heater episodes were just two nice additions to the overall story while not doing too much in terms of overall plot.

Yes, it could be argued that barely anyone develops past the tropes, that Yuki from ep.1 and Yuki from the end of both seasons are barely any different, but i've found out that it's easier to view Haruhi as a franchise as just another nice piece of media that i've watched at some point.

Now i'm curious to see what the Disappearance would bring.