Review of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

There's a tendency among the anime community today to decry the proliferation of light novel adaptations, and it's far from unjustified. They're often poorly written, lazily produced, and just generally representative of anime's worst habits. But perhaps we should have seen this coming. After all, when a mediocre show is somehow praised and held up as the paragon of imagination and creativity of its time, then its inevitable copycats can only ever be even worse. Which brings me to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the show that arguably started the light novel adaptation boom. The plot, such as it is, is centered around Kyon, a highschool student who considers himself grown out of such childish things as believing in aliens and Santa Claus. But all that changes when he meets the titular Haruhi Suzumiya, a brash, outgoing girl who is obsessed with the supernatural and paranormal. Against his better judgement, he gets swept up in her wake and joins the SOS Brigade, a club that's technically dedicated to finding evidence of wondrous things, but is really just an excuse for the shows central five characters to dick around and get involved in all sorts of shenanigans. And then things get... weird.

See, Kyon discovers that the world he's living in was actually created by Haruhi herself, unconsciously, and her desires and whims shape it. He also discovers that his fellow club members, unknown to Haruhi, are actually an alien, a time traveler, and an esper, the kinds of supernatural beings that Haruhi most longs to find. Their purpose is to keep her entertained and active, less she grows bored (or melancholy, if you prefer) and ends up scrapping this world. Of course, this implies that Kyon also has a purpose to serve for Haruhi, but what that might be, he isn't quite sure.

As bizarre as that scenario is, it's also the strongest part of Haruhi Suzumiya, and the moments where it really explores the weird possibilities of its premise are the moments where it comes alive. If only those moments were more frequent. But instead, the show mostly becomes every slice-of-life comedy ever, which means it lives and dies on the strength of its characters.

And therein lies Haruhi's greatest flaw: the characters suck. I've seen these kinds of characters and situations done a million times better in a slew of other anime. Here, they're way too arch for me to give a crap. Kyon is given nothing to do but snark, which he does well enough, but that's all he's got. Esper guy (I'm terrible with names) was a bore, the Girl with the Big Tits (TM) was only there for, well, it's in the name (and to be constantly groped my Haruhi, because apparently sexual harassment doesn't count if it's a girl doing it), and best girl Yuki only worked on account of being a copy/paste of Rei Ayanami with a more comedic edge.

As for Haruhi, her attitude and bossiness were endearing about 20% of the time, but the other 80% I really wanted to slap her. Her just getting her way all the time quickly got predictable and boring, which is why my favorite parts of the show were when she was challenged, or she challenged herself. If there was more stuff like her occasional moments of melancholy (heh) or that kickass concert scene, I think I would've liked her a lot more. But "asshole who always gets their way" just isn't interesting.

Haruhi Suzumiya isn't an awful show. it's got a slew of good ideas and some genuinely fascinating moments, especially in the final couple of episodes. But it loses itself by mindlessly indulging in every tired anime cliche to fill in the gaps between the actually interesting stuff. What a damn shame.