Review of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

As much as i'm frustrated that an important point got spoiled for me in ANOTHER SHOW's review, i'm not going to be that guy, so here's your disclaimer: i'm not going to tell spoilers intentionally, but my thought process is very sporadic and it's not uncommon for me to divulge things that may or may not be spoilers. The Disappearance is probably the franchise's peak so far (as surprising as it is that there was no continuation of the story after such a treat of a movie), and I'm surprised at how much i've enjoyed it. You can find the basic premise in the description of thefilm, and adding almost anything to it is going to be pretty much spoiler territory. While there were some weird twists here and there, and the pacing itself could use some improvement, the entirety of 160 minutes went by in a flash. So that's an 8 for the story.

The art itself is mesmerizing, it was amazing at the time, and it still holds up great now. Especially noticeable when watching back-to-back with the TV series, now you have more details, more dynamic parts of the picture, and so on. I have almost no qualms with the art as it is, so it's a 9 for me.

Can't really say much about sound design, it's on par with how the show's always been, it's not trying to stand out too much, and both the OP and the ED were a miss for me. That's why it's 7 or 8, at most.

It's not exactly too big of a logic leap to guess it by yourself, but the thing that was spoiled for me (and in the Haruhi S2's reviews, no less) was the "hint-hint" about the identity of the main "villain" of this story.
It didn't occur to me until half of the movie was over, and I was slightly disappointed after realizing that, but still - i've enjoyed the show, and the characters played big part of it. Not entire cast of the TV show is present at all times, and they are different, but you can easily believe that it's how they'll behave in these circumstances. That's a 9 for characters from me.

All I can say about the enjoyment: Yuki is the best, in both worlds. That's it. Several sweet moments from one, and one amazing scene from the other. She is, indeed, best girl imo. I said it. 9 for enjoyment.

The overall score is difficult, for a number of reasons. For one, I can't say i've enjoyed the original TV show that much (especially S2), and even S1 was often hit and miss for me. And yet, despite the lack of expectations, this film has managed to keep me entertained and interested for, I would say, more than 80% of its lenght. Which is a lot on its own, considering the fact that it's almost 3 hours long.

It's interesting that the animated series ended on such a high note and never got any continuation in this medium. Now there's also that entire KyoAni business, too, but still - it's been quite a lot of years. Who knows, maybe S3 of Haruhi would one day become a new step for the entire anime industry as a whole, and would serve as the comeback for KyoAni. One could dream.