Review of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Haruhi is great and I'm kicking myself that I didn't watch it sooner. This is one of those series I tried to watch back when I first got into anime as a teen - but back then, I realise, there were many things that I missed about the show. I had no idea about the different orders to watch, for starters, and I remember being bored and dropping it partway through the second episode. God, I was a dumb teen. As a much older, somewhat wiser person now, I have to say that Haruhi is straight-up wonderful. I decided to watch it in broadcast orderfor a change, and loved the challenge of putting the story together.

The story, I have to say, is excellent. It's a very clever take on a typical school slice of life. The problems they get into are funny. The show never felt like it was dragging (in fact I had to force myself to sleep multiple times because I just wanted to keep watching). And the main story arc, when it kicks in, is just so clever and - even now, having watched it over a decade later - still so refreshing in a world of typical slice of life anime.

There's also just so many absolutely iconic moments that had my jaw on the floor at times. The extremely famous scene where Haruhi performs at the school arts festival, for example, or the crisply animated closing dance, for example. The art and music and story is so consistent and so good at times that it almost had me cheering. The music, in particular, was fantastic throughout. There's very few parts where it intruded on dialogue during scenes, the use of classical music in particular was just absolutely wonderful, and when the music soars in during important scenes, it suits it so perfectly.

I'm not a typical dub watcher, but I highly recommend the English dub purely for Crispin Freeman absolutely hitting it out of the park as Kyon. He's hilarious and spot-on and, compared to the Japanese voice for me, just channels the character so perfectly.

If you haven't seen it, Haruhi is ultimately a huge recommend for me. It's funny, charming, witty, emotional, intriguing, and will have you laughing, gasping, and cheering in your seat.