Review of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Its okay. Its enjoyable. Its not that special or amazing. As always with KyoAni the art and animation are absolutely fantastic and they constantly prove themselves to be the best studio when it comes to making Slice of Life shows, at least from a technical perspective. The music works, though I don't find it to be extraordinary. Haruhi Suzumiya is a cock tease of a show. Its biggest issue is that it provides a solid, genre busting, and strangely self aware set up, plays with it a little and then more or less drops it in favor of filler. The thing mostpeople talk about is the gimmicky broadcast order. And that is what it really is, a gimmick. Watching it in anachronistic order doesn't really help the experience at all. All it does is spread the filler evenly throughout the show and confuse you.

The other problem with it is the characters. Kyon is more or less the saving grace of this show and his role as main character and snarky unreliable narrator really brings in most of the charm as does his obfuscating stupidity. Haruhi, while similarly developed, is either going to be an fun, crazy character or disliked for her self centered jackass behavior. At least she has character and some depth, which is more than I can say for the rest of the cast. All of which are one note and have absolutely no depth beyond their one note roles.

The dubbing in both languages is very good, all characters sound appropriate for their characters and turn in really good performances. Special mentions have to go to Crispin Freeman, who absolutely steals the show in this series as Kyon.

In the end, its just an okay show. Its padded with filler, which is surprising for a 14 episode season, and a cast of one dimensional, one note characters aside from the two leads.

Story: 3
Art: 9
Sound: 5
Character: 4
Enjoyment: 6
Overall: 6