Review of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
Perhaps the best 2 hours of my life today re-watching this film. I absolutely enjoyed watching Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu again! It was a major upgrade in terms of story and character relationships from the anime. Few things I loved about the movie was the outstanding story and relationships between the SOS brigade. When you watch the anime (not the movie) it can be quite the chore actually trying to get through it. However the movie adds to the story that interesting "But what if" factor and it just completely re-write everything into..dare I say "Greatness!" One of my personal favorite things observing in themovie was Kyon's reaction to his friends being gone and how he completely changes when he finds out he's in a different world. It was rather interesting to me because personally I don't like Kyon, I hate his personality and constant complaining which keeps me from liking him. However, when he finds out that a majority of people don't remember Haruhi, Mikuru, Itsuki, and Nagato don't remember him or are gone. That moment when he starts regretting everything, mostly about his reactions to how he treated Haruhi that is when I began to feel more respect from him. In all honesty Kyon's a stick in the mud.
Next, was the unexpected twists that occurred. I don't necessarily want to spoil anything however, there were so many moments especially towards the middle maybe the 1:40 minute mark where Kyon is able to solve Nagato's key, everything to that point and beyond was marvelous. I seriously couldn't ask for more shocking revelations in the movie!
The soundtrack was very well orchestrated, shout out to Keigo Hoashi for the work. Pretty much every song played was beautiful, it really set me in a good mood. My favorite part though, was when Kyon's friend whose name I cannot remember, remembered Haruhi and what school she goes to. The music played while Kyon was running to her school was just so damn amazing! The whole time he's running I'm just like "Hurry dude, hurry!"
Lastly, there was the artwork, I didn't actually notice too much other than there was a quality upgrade. The character designs were more or less the same. Nothing too stand out-ish.
Final thoughts is that if you're going to watch this, I would seriously recommend that (If you haven't already) check out the anime first. That way you can see and notice for yourselves the huge difference between the movie and tv show.
Overall I give this movie a solid 9/10 because of it's improvement to the story and most importantly the characters!