Review of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

This review spoils the entirety of the first season of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and is advised only for those who have completed it. Haruhi Suzumiya struggles to cope with the realization that she is as insignificant as anyone else. Haruhi's longing to be special prompts her to act eccentric and stray from normalcy as much as possible. These actions, however, merely isolate her from her classmates. After Kyon inquires about Haruhi's hair ritual, she gives it up as she finally received the attention she sought. This demonstrates that her eccentricities are indeed a facade, and this is made more apparent when in herclosed space world, Haruhi poetically behaves ordinary in an extraordinary world. As Kyon becomes the one person to genuinely talk to Haruhi, she is able to break away from her need to stand out. Haruhi's eccentricies do still exist past this point, but they stem from her sense of passion and ambition to act rather than to invoke a reaction from others. In "Live Alive", in order to get over the melancholy she feels when people appreciate her for the first time, Haruhi turns towards her future prospects, planning for the next culture festival, to find her meaning amidst melancholy.

Haruhi wishes that reality were extraordinary but believes that the world is in fact grounded. In truth, her dreams of the extraordinary such as aliens, time travellers, and espers exist within the SOS brigade because she willed them to, yet she is unaware of them precisely because she doesn't need these fantasies. The SOS brigade provides her with a sense of significance by asserting control over others, but this is merely a pitfall in her attempts to find satisfaction. Despite her eccentric tendencies such as her belief that love is merely a disease, Haruhi herself admits that she cannot escape her human impulses. She still has feelings for Kyon and therefore is driven to a state of distress upon seeing Kyon and Mikuru being close to each other. When Haruhi's at the breaking point of her dissatisfaction, she subconsciously creates a new world where only she and Kyon exist. This is telling of Kyon's role as Haruhi's central tie to humanity amidst her escapist desires. Kyon’s kiss prompts Haruhi to forsake this new world and subconsciously act on her desire for connection. The final scene in Melancholy part 6, where Haruhi and Kyon are finally together at the bar constrasts with the previous meetings when it was apparant Haruhi wanted to pair up with Kyon but always ended up being in a different group with his random straw picking. Considering Haruhi's powers alter reality, the early cafe scenes show that she wasn't able to accept her love for Kyon until she returned from the new world. The episode "Someday in the Rain" emphasizes that Haruhi is now able to find value in the most mundane of scenarios such as a rainy day, in contrast to her absolute dissatisfaction with normal occurrences. "Remote Island Syndrome" displays how her behaviors eventually extend past Kyon, as she shows concern for Kyon's sister and is unable to accept the possibility that someone in her brigade was responsible for the murder. It's Haruhi's human side, her desire for connection, that enables her to break from her escapism. Poetically, Haruhi does not need to be god; to be human is enough.

Telling the story through Kyon's perspective is an effective means to demonstrate how Haruhi and her world are perceived in contrast to her own beliefs about herself and the reality of her world. Kyon's reactions to the supernatural are characteristically normal, but his monologues are noteworthy because of their identity. His “Haruhi is Haruhi and nothing but Haruhi” monologue is a prime example of this, as it's not notable for the conclusion he reaches but for the tangents and self-questioning he goes through. Despite Kyon’s awareness of the tropes and absurdities of the show, he’s overwhelmed by the mysterious supernatural world he's brought into. Once he can no longer deny this world, he denies his place in it, believing that he has no role in resolving Haruhi’s conflict and its repercussions on reality. This is a sensible conclusion for someone as ordianary as Kyon, but his necessity lies in his perception of Haruhi herself. Whereas Koizumi, Mikuru, and Nagato believe that Haruhi is a god, distortion in space-time, and the next step in evolution respectively, Kyon is the only one to perceive Haruhi as a person rather than some entity or force. This grants him the place as the one ordinary person in Haruhi's brigade to signify that he is the one most human to Haruhi, whereas Haruhi's absurd world provides color to the gray world of monotony he had accepted.

Both Kyon and Haruhi are overwhelmed during their arcs, coming to conflict with uncertainties they can't come to terms with. Fittingly, the show effectively captures the sense of being overwhelmed and lost in the world. Through Haruhi’s pointing out of the very cliches and tropes that govern the type of show she’s part of and Kyon’s pointing out of all the absurdities that take place, the series establishes a sense of awareness that the characters possess. Haruhi internally believes that the very fantastic elements she wishes existed don’t reasonably exist, which would, under normal circumstances, suggest an awareness of reality. But throughout the show, there’s a layer of unawareness above this awareness. Both the characters and the audience know very little about the truths of the series’ world. Only the bare-bones of the factions of aliens, time travellers, and espers are known, and there’s no clear answer as to what exactly Haruhi is. Haruhi’s subconscious “awareness” of the world’s grounded nature is proven wrong by her unawareness that her fantasies are indeed the reality. She believes in her insigfinicance despite wishing to be significant, without knowing that she is the most significant individual. There’s melancholy in these ironies; the power of significance she seeks is literally within her, yet she’s unable to grasp it. Kyon is lost through the overwhelming information he comes across that challenges his notions of reality whereas Haruhi is lost through being unsure of her place in the world. Amidst these uncertainties, everything feels all over the place. When reflecting upon the show, it is easy to lose oneself in the sheer looseness of the show’s ideas and concepts: its meta-aspects, sci-fi concepts, focus on the mundane, “filler” mystery subplots, playing with cliches and tropes, theories on how the world works, and perspectives on what Haruhi is. The content of the show is thus scattered, and the jumbled broadcasting order mirrors this in order to convey the sense of everything feeling all over the place. This viewing experience aptly parallels the void Haruhi and Kyon experience when contemplating the real world. They feel out of place within it and are overwhelmed by that which is beyond their knowledge.

In addition to the show's thematic focus, it utilizes its narrative and structual elements well. Despite the supernatural focus of the show, the school setting is justified as the setting because Haruhi's mundane environment is what fuels her melancholy. By contextualizing the place for supernatural and sci-fi aspects into the narrative, the show adds a more engaging spin to a school story, enabling moments of spectacle such as Nagato’s fight with Asakura. The moments of exposition are made engaging by spacing nfodumping with directing cuts, back and forth character interactions, and splitting expository moments between episodes for breathing room. Since the show thematically justifies its looseness of concepts, it is able to feature a variety of scenarios and interactions to enhance the entertainment value. The out-of-order broadcasting is an effective means of including Haruhi's character growth after the Melancholy arc while maintaining a strong climax. Furthermore, this broadcasting order fosters variety between episodes and strengthens the weight of the climax as the viewers are better aware of the importance of the climax for Haruhi's arc. There’s a certain charm to the way the show plays with the tropes and cliches of anime. It points out how ludicrous they can be, yet chooses to have fun while embracing them. Even over a decade after its release, the show still functions as a celebration of the tropes that constitute anime. Kyon’s interactions with Haruhi and Koizumi are both engaging, the former with how he ridicules Haruhi’s absurd eccentricities and the latter with how his sarcasm works well with Koizumi’s pretentiousness. Kyon’s way of presenting his monologues is often engaging, using analogies, hyperboles, and references to enhance his descriptive style. Introducing the show with his story of not believing in Santa Claus, and introducing the climax episode with “self Proclaimed— Time Traveller; self-proclaimed—Esper; self-proclaimed—Alien,” are both effective for presenting what he monologues. Furthermore, the show understands how to keep each of the tropes and scenarios it presents entertaining by nailing the character interactions in each episode, featuring the right music for whatever tone the show is going for, and effectively capturing the atmosphere of every situation. As examples, it’s able to evoke the mundane feeling of “Someday in the rain,” the stern mystery tone of “Remote Island Syndrome,” the playfulness of “The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya,” and the cryptic nature of Nagato’s exposition.

The greatest issue with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the cast's characterization, aside from Haruhi and Kyon. Koizumi, Mikuru, and Nagato can almost entirely be defined by the traits common to their archetypes they represent. Since the series plays with irony in many instances, it would have been beneficial if these characters while assuming the cliche roles Haruhi sought, in reality defied the roles they play. At the very least, Nagato does show some instances of defying her role as the stoic alien. There’s an emphasis on Haruhi’s negligence towards Yuki throughout the show. From the beginning, Haruhi considered her a mere accessory for the club room rather than an actual person and never paid any attention to her at all. In this regard, Yuki fits her role as the alien, not only a detached character but the one most alien to Haruhi. Despite her programming, Nagato can’t escape her desire to be human. Although emphasized more in the second season and the movie, this season features a few of her human moments: her setting up the events of "Mysterique Sign" due to loneliness, her enjoyment during the game against the computer club, and her semantic “joke” in "Remote Island Syndrome" by denying Haruhi access to the room she was assigned to guard. Nagato could have benefitted from further characterization, but Mikuru and Koizumi have even less. Even Haruhi Suzumiya wasn't free from characterization faults. Her tendency to use Mikuru as a play-thing comes off as a forced means to incorporate fan service throughout the show, under the excuse of Haruhi’s awareness of tropes such as moe. This can challenge the viewer's suspension of disbelief as Haruhi’s seclusion from human connection doesn’t justify moral apathy towards harassing Mikuru for her selfish desire to maintain control. Haruhi's growth in accepting others could also have been emphasized further in the filler episodes.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a wonderful work of art that effectively captures the sense of melancholy it strives for. It’s a nice take on the question of meaning, utilizing its intriguing premise to reach a beautiful conclusion. It’s a show both thematically ripe and engaging with a well done character arc, a strong dynamic between the two main characters, and an apt utilization of meta and irony to evoke the emotions it attempts to convey. It’s a show that utilizes its peculiar structure well and is unique in the way to uses Haruhi's powers to explore the question of how individuals find meaning in a world seemingly devoid of inherent meaning. Although it could have handled its cast better, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a wonderful show that holds up to this very day.