Haruhi SuzumiyaThe first time I've watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was six months ago. I, like most people, watched it in the original anachronistic order. Though it seems many viewers became entirely enamored by the rather unusual lead who's name is a part of the title of the series, I saw her as a manipulative, bossy, selfish, and cute bitch. Others get taken by Mikuru Asashina or even Yuki Nagato (Mostly Mikuru, it seems. Heck, I'd still take her even if she's been "ruined for marraige". Especially her adult form.... woof woof!), but neither of them nor Koizumi Itsuki really serve as little more than parodies of characters found in other (admittedly, usually lesser) animes.

Though I found the first episode absolutely brilliant with its poor camera work and bad effects (but incredibly realistic bad camera work, especially with jumpy movements, strange zooms, and auto-focus trying to correct itself!), I found the series overall to have a fairly simple storyline with pointless and only sometimes entertaining fillers with some dull characters outside of Haruhi and Kyon.

Yes, I admit, Haruhi is not dull. Just because I didn't like her personality doesn't mean she didn't have some depth to her character. But who really defined my view of the series was the cynic, Kyon. The idea of using his point of view in the anime lets him intersperse hilarious comments as a narrator, especially since, more often than not, his narration and actual dialog actually mirrored my own thought processes while watching the series!

Which comes to this morning when I decided to rewatch the series, but in the actual chronological order. This order would be as follows (Taken from List of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya episodes from Wikipedia):

1. Episode 2 - "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I"
2. Episode 3 - "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya II"
3. Episode 5 - "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya III"
4. Episode 10 - "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya IV"
5. Episode 13 - "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya V"
6. Episode 14 - "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya VI"
7. Episode 4 - "The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya"
8. Episode 7 - "Mystérique Sign"
9. Episode 6 - "Remote Island Syndrome (Part I)"
10. Episode 8 - "Remote Island Syndrome (Part II)"
11. Episode 1 - "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina - Episode 00"
12. Episode 12 - "Live Alive"
13. Episode 11 - "The Day of Sagittarius"
14. Episode 9 - "Someday in the Rain"

As should be rather obvious to see, the main 6 episodes of the anime (from what I can tell) are in the correct chronological order, but are broken apart by other stories that have occurred after these 6 episodes. According to Wikipedia, these filler episodes are short stories from later on in the novel series. So to watch the anime as it was adapted from the novel named The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, you would have to watch episodes 2, 3, 5, 10, 13, and 14.

And those were the episodes I watched this morning.

My Observations of the Main Plot of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

One of my goals was to look into the theory that Kyon was the actual "God" of this world. As in: all the events that occur are actually his wishes. I actually found this theory interesting when I read about it a few months ago. So when rewatching the main six episodes to the anime as Kyon experienced it, I tried to keep this theory in mind.

My observation on the "Kyon is God" theory from those six episodes? I find little to really refute or confirm it. Then again, I also find little actual proof that Haruhi is the actual center of this world except for Yuki's, Mikuru's, and Koizumi's confessions to Kyon. Heck, it could be Kyon wanting Haruhi to be the center of his universe when he first sees her, which triggers the chain of events starting in Episode 2 and resulting in the kiss in Episode 14. Still, that doesn't account for any proof for or against the "Kyon/Haruhi is God" theories existing in any of the filler episodes. I'm pretty much leaning towards Haruhi being the real center of the world.

Truthfully, though, I'm not sure if I'm interested in continuing on in this series. As I've said, I've found those other 8 episodes to be pointless (though occasionally entertaining), and have little desire to rewatch them. I was much more interested in seeing the events unfold from Kyon's point of view, and I was left much more satisfied with just watching those six main episodes rather than the full 14 episode run. Yes, the explanations given by Yuki, Mikuru, and Koizumi about themselves and their jobs to be boring; my minded wandered again on all three like it did the first time I went through the series.

Watching and hearing Kyon's reaction to the events around him kept me constantly entertained. He really is surprised when he witnesses his first supernatural event (when the backup to Yuki tries to kill him to get a reaction out of Haruhi), but he becomes remarkably calm during the other events (though it's obvious that his calm *was* tweaked at seeing the older Mikuru... woof woof!).

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya seems to have taken the anime fandom world by storm. For various reasons, it is easy to be entertained by this show. Heck, thanks to Kyon, I even enjoyed this popular series, especially in the compressed 6-episode time frame. Even then, I couldn't place this series any better than "good". Even the short format couldn't change that. It is highly entertaining and has some high points, but I can't place myself to say I really want to watch it over and over again. Still, the fan silliness around this anime and the viral-marketing efforts by Kakokawa Pictures USA and Bandai Entertainment have highly amused me and has me close to getting the official R1 DVDs onto my "to buy" list.