Review of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

Taking the Melancholy of Harumi Suzumiya and removing the best elements (Harumi herself and the crazy club activities) to focus on the weakest parts (the normal school life and supporting cast) sounds like it should be an awful idea, but somehow this film really takes the concept and puts some real meat on the bones of what I thought was a pretty shallow series. The basic idea here is that Kyon finds himself in an alternate timeline/dimension/whatever where Harumi doesn’t go to his school and can’t reword reality for her own amusement. This obviously removes most of the comedy and makes a character ensemble intoone character’s personal journey. But it’s a great journey. Because what Kyon has to accept to move on is that he really enjoyed his other life and that his air of nonchalant indifference was largely an act. Because his new ordinary life is achingly mundane compared to the crazy stuff he used to be doing.

This makes for very good drama, and the problems I’d been anticipating never materialized. I was never bored of his quest nor did the absence of many of the more comic elements make the film seem like a different animal from the series. It made for a stronger story in fact, and provided some of the closure I’d hoped for from the series. Overall it made for a very pleasant change and made me feel for the characters in a way I hadn’t before. An excellent conclusion for the Harumi series.s