Review of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: MINDSET: (abbreviated as TMOHS) this was the first show when the appeal of blu-rays on anime started to exist, and fortunately, it was far from bad. Consequently, “almost” every Slice Of Life became Slice Of Sh*t after it; as if I do not care about that, since anime is going to have a grim future anyways. SYNOPSIS: Kyon whose more than an ordinary guy than generic, was about to enter junior high, and he did, only difference was the girl who sat next to him was a crazy b*tch called Haruhi. Due to the two talking quite often, Haruhi figured something out: A randomactivities club known as “The SOS Brigade” there, Kyon and a bunch of other random people, which Kyon founded out to be some part of a sci-fi organisation, were all gathered here for a one purpose: The truth is, Haruhi is God of the universe. Keeping her unstable or bored can get her Omnipotence to go haywire, and will effectively destroy the world. So the whole anime centres around the group, keeping Haruhi from being so negative, in order to prevent rapture...

REVIEW:
I believe the show is far, far from “deep” or “philosophical” since the biggest strength of this show is the self-aware and energetic nature that strays away from the calm yet cute moe or just plain boring Slice Of Life shows. It does feel like the writers were trying to amplify the crazy levels to make high school life anime not so boring. Obvious Fact. If the show was trying to to be something like that, where talking about how similar it confronts the themes like how NHK deals with the dark side of otaku culture, or those old Gainax shows presenting the negative effects of escapism. Something that is elusive at our time.

When do I remember the show trying to make me think? The closest thing to that were moments when the show tries to be plot heavy or have mystery elements. One moment Koizumi, one of the club members, were at a taxi with Kyon as he explain how Haruhi could go out of hand and describes on how he is working with the mysterious syndicate. The two elevate up to the top of building, he then conveys himself with Kyon to another dimension with an alien-like titan. He sends out his esper friends, and kills it, or the baseball game when Kyon has to win this game or Haruhi's negativity will create the apocalypse.

Even is it was serious, it does seem far from philosophical and has the show tried to raise tension, mystery, suspense and themes to think for? No.

The persona’s further emphasised this, that the show is just some crazy high school fun. The cast are far from 3-Dimensional, or just don't feel any closer from real people. Characters like Nagato or Mikuru are used in effect that the show was more happy fantasy with Nagato having the one dimension of a rock with all the otaku's drooling over fan fics on what if she had a personality, and even Mikuru, a flipping moe girl whose kind of shy and has big boobs.

The mightiest strength of this show, is the overall self-awareness: TMOHS aimed for an Otaku demographic, and it doesn’t fail at all. Haruhi may not be a person you'd like to be with, but has there been a point when you imagined some sort of fan fiction of her? Even if You didn't, the show is basically just one big escapism route for real life, yes the story is confusing and the second season tried to be serious, but ends up being sh*t. Yet the weird sci-fi elements adds to eh show with how Kyon lives life with time travelers, psycho-computers and the hidden Syndicate which was never ever explained, and it did felt like a subtle reference from the old image of the Otaku, being a sci-fi fan and all.

Kyon is viewed as this parody of the generic protagonist, he does have the kind hearted traits of almost any vanilla guy, yet he never wanted to join the club and all what he wanted was to repel away from the hell he lived in, because Haruhi. He kind of develops-ish with with increasing his value of some members of the club, but at the end of the day, he was just portrayed as some ordinaty guy who just gotten his life in a mess. However, his personality never needed a back story and enough exposition was given right at the first few minutes of the show. Mix the chemistry of Haruhi's insanity, and the two contradict each other. Though it seemed to be a weird choice for a protagonist at first, it still fits with the whole parody of a calm slice of life and why not parody the vanilla guy back?

Speaking of Haruhi, she flipping embodies the show, period. Her bombastic nature coupled with unpredictable moments like using Mikuru as a sex object to black mail the computer club was down right hilarious! It was like intentional thought from the writers to make others fantasise about her motives, and a fair explanation on “how the hell is she crazy?” was never given. Though it doesn't affect t he show too much, in fact, no one excluding Kyon was ever given a back story, or even develop at that matter.

Coming back at how the show can be very “plot”. How they use those mysteries and tension and jazz, never built up to anything, which effectively removes the self-awareness. Contradictory, it doesn't happen often an can sometimes be used upon greater effect, like finding out one of the cute school girls was yandere computer obsessed on killing Kyon for twisted reasons, but that scene fits with the bizarre nature of the show because the show is meant to be crazy any ways.

Kyoto Animation were known as the masters of the moe craft, the character designs clearly had effort put into, and everything just seems to fit so well. With Kyon's calm look, or Haruhi's facial expressions and poses. Clear effort was put in, and Kyo Ani deserves the recognition it gets. I also liked the lack of chibi, which meant the entertaining writing for this show did not have cheap laughs! It had effort put in to carefully wove each joke, or just overall woeful moment nicely. It's artificial-like look adds further emphasis as a show really made for escapism, and I feel very glad that CGI models are barely ever used in the show. The lighting makes everything look shiny, but far from the insane Ufotable style which even makes oak wood tables plastic, but its subtlety is nice. It all looks sleek and smooth with the frame rates, and not once when the budget ever felt quite cheap, and these days, a budget like this is rather steep compared to most Slice of Life shows these days.

The OST is above average for the most part, and for an OST that lasts for a whopping hour, shows how much effort was put into it. Simply put, it fits the themes quite nicely, however, like the animation it does have a just as great budget. It fits the mood quite nicely, but does something to really implement those emotions, to something like a cool mystery. It has a surprisingly large amount of differing sounds in the background, with techno beats, drum rolls, electric guitars to make a gritty sound and even has 16-bit music to a certain degree! There are even songs only used once in the show, like that massive insect scene with Koizumi throwing a missive fireball at it and jazz. Its a highly versatile OST, and its super effective.... Though it does seem like one of the OST's that has quantity over quality, but something like the first one You hear in the first minute of the show, is memorable. The OP is also cool, yet I would argue if its even skip worthy since you may brush it of like me, or actually liked it.

LEGACY:
It still lived up back then, and still lived up today with its high reputation. Will it still be remembered in the future? Maybe... It's overall a damn good show for its high budget, and doing something that Slice Of Life shows don't do often nowadays, and that’s just being “FUN.”

CRITICAL SOCRE:
Story: 7/10 – Slice Of Life being done in an energised fashion.
Characters: 6.5/10 – Fits the whole “Fun” theme.
Animation:7/10 – High budget
Sound: 7/10 – Highly versatile. (great jazz)

PERSONAL SCORE: (enjoyment)
My analysis even answers my enjoyment to be honest. Expanding on how enjoyed the show would be filler.

ALTOGETHER FINALE: 7/10