The Failures of Haruhi Suzumiya
Even a hugely successful series like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has a few skeletons in the closet that it wishes would just disappear and be forgotten forever. But here at HaruhiSuzumiya.net, we pride ourselves in collecting and reporting Haruhism in all its forms, no matter how ugly the truth may be. So without further ado, here’s a short list of the past failures of Haruhi Suzumiya media that we rather forget:
Haruhi Suzumiya manga by Mizuno Makoto:
Haruhi fans usually think of Gaku Tsugano’s manga or Puyo’s Haruhi-chan when you mention “Haruhi manga”, but the first manga adaption of the Haruhi Suzumiya light novels actually occurred two years prior to the debut of the anime. Mizuno Makoto’s Haruhi Suzumiya manga was serialized in Shonen Ace in May 2004, but was shortly canceled in December of the same year after just one volume (only five chapters were published). Artistic criticisms aside, Mizuno Makoto’s adaptation had little input from Nagaru Tanigawa so the story differed considerably from the light novels – and not in a good way. There were also rumors that Mizuno was publishing his own Haruhi adult doujin on the side without informing Shonen Ace. In the end, it was not that surprising that his manga got the axe. If you’re interested in taking a look at Mizuno Makoto’s canceled Haruhi manga, the raw (untranslated) version is archived in our manga section.
Suzumiya Harubin
Back in 2008 when Olympic fever was all the rage in China, a certain Olympics information booklet was circulated around to secondary schools around the country. Adorning its cover was a poorly drawn version of our beloved Haruhi in an all too familiar pose. Any argument that this was just no more than a mere coincidence vanished when we learned that this character’s name was Harubin – a play on words of Harbin, one of the largest cities in China. You got to love China’s copyright laws. Although short lived, Suzumiya Harubin became an Internet meme and became synonymous with poorly drawn Haruhi fan art.
Nice boat.
Back in February 13th of 2009, many fans eagerly awaited the first episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan to be streamed for free from Kadokawa Anime’s Youtube channel as was promised. But what they got instead was a 46 second sailboat and sunset montage with the simple message on screen that translated to “It was not finished.” (The boat montage was a joke referencing the 2007 “nice boat” video that aired instead of the final episode of the School Days anime). Some fans LOL’d, others compared it to being rickrolled by Kadokawa, but most just forgot the whole thing when Haruhi-chan episodes began streaming the following week.
Original video with different music:
Endless Eight
The two words that are forever ingrained into the memories of die-hard Haruhi fans everywhere. To summarize: Endless Eight was 8 consecutive episodes from the second season that had Haruhi and gang go through the same events every episode due to a time loop. What was most surprising though was that Kyoto Animation did not cut corners by simply recycling animation; the camera angle, character wardrobe and even voice actors’ dubbing were different in each episode. Nonetheless, it was still the same events repeated over and over again, with only minor differences between iterations. Some argue it was an ingenious method to make viewers experience the same feelings as the characters that lived through the endless loop, others called it meaningless filler meant to delay animating Disappearance and increase DVD sales. If the latter was the case, it might have backfired: as quoted from John of AnimeNation.com
The “Endless Eight” story arc – literally two straight months of the same episode with cosmetic differences – may have inflicted mortal damage to anime’s marketability. The current Japanese DVD release is reportedly under performing, but isn’t an abject failure. Speculation theorizes that completist Japanese otaku are continuing to purchase Suzumiya Haruhi DVDs despite their distaste for the content of the DVDs. America doesn’t have that sort of fanatical devotion.
There’s no doubt the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise lost quite a bit of credibility with its core fanbase with the Endless Eight episodes. However, the series is still at the top of many popular anime lists and continues to gain new fans around the world. A sense of betrayal still lingers with some long-time Haruhi fans, but with the new Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie coming out, maybe it’s about time to bury the hatchet and enjoy some quality Haruhi anime again.
When I read the Endless Eight story in the light novel, it didn’t impact me as much as when I watched all eight episodes through without skipping anything but the opening and ending sequences.
I’ve gotta say, it was a bold move, and I appreciate Kyoto Animation for that. It was rather artistic, too, according to somebody’s review on it, and I can see that, and I can only further commend KyoAni. Sure, it was annoyingly repetitive, but now I get it. It would have been painful, even for a humanoid interface such as Nagato to experience that same thing over and over again.
What I like to think is: At least we didn’t have to watch it for 500-some-odd years.
Please do not give the writers any more ideas. The last thing we need is to be stuck watching endless 8 episodes for 500 years. KyoAni and Kadokawa really don’t need any help comeing up with new ways to torture their fans.
Also, you forgot to mention the failures of the constant trolling that worked up to the release of the second – correction rerelease of the first series. Seriously, that’s why many people that I know stopped paying attention to the series completely. It killed alot of the fanbase there.
I have to admit, I wanted to say that there is no other company whose mistakes have disapointed my more than KyoAni and Kadokawa have with the Haruhi series, but I just can’t. I’m still pretty upset about the whole Crossgen stupidity. Such awesome story material and plot lines going to waste will always upset me.
I think what Hideaki Anno did with the last two episodes of Evangelion is a pretty good contender for ‘worst anime failures to happen to a great series.’ Hideaki was also trying something more profound with those 2 eps, but like in this case the fans weren’t too happy. I heard some were so mad that they sent death threats and vandalized Gainax’s studio with graffiti. I hope that didn’t/won’t happen to KyoAni and Haruhi fans are more forgiving
It disappoints me that you can’t appreciate it as much as me, but I have no qualms with your opinion. I understand, too, that the move wasn’t too popular with the people who weren’t patient enough and understanding enough to pay attention to every episode of the Endless Eight arc, but that’s okay, I guess…
Well, not really, but no one’s killing anyone… Yet.
Harubin can be Haruhi’s evil twin
I don’t mind if there was a good adult Haruhi Novel.
The chinese version was a giant nutshot, what the hell man?
Endless eight was only good till the third episode. But i wasn’t pissed off, it just depends on what point of view you’re watching it from. my theory is that for haruhi the point of view comes in 4 forms
Haruhi- Extremely rare, Hardcore otaku, they’re the ones that are disappointed after they stopped at 8, if they had haruhi’s powers i hope they release some more content quick
Nagato- Rare, Watching this series is just another duty to an anime fan. You feel that you must, as a patron, watch every episode and most of the time you’re enjoying it. But after the endless eight you feel a little exhausted and if asked the most you can say about it is “unique” with no opinions whatsoever.
Kyon- majority, It’s interesting but all the ordeals are troublesome, you like Haruhi but you see her as annoying. You watch the series with the feeling that it’ll work out and it’ll be enjoyable. In the endless 8 case, you feel sorry for yourself and every around you who has to deal with Haruhi’s antics, you pretty much give up half way through the eight, and leave your summer homework unfinished cause it’s going to repeat any way, but then you know the only way you know it’s going to end is to watch the last episode and finally do that summer homework. doesn’t mean you don’t love the series.
and to describe my type.
Koizumi- Minority, you say Haruhi is a fun and fantastic anime, you feel that although some episodes might drag on and be tiring, but you’re glad it isn’t anything worse and love the anime for it’s good points while not thinking too much about the bad. Taking down a few closed spaces isn’t too bad. The endless eight was just a unusually tough closed space and as usual you’re just happy Kyon finally figures it out and saves the whatever. After watching the endless eight you can’t help but to smile, shrug, flick your hair with your index finger and go-
“Oh that Haruhi, energetic as usual”
(I bet all you Kyon types just face-palmed and went, “Lair!”)
Wow! That was clever! I’d classify myself as a Nagato. But I’m not Nagato… I like Nagato, but I’m not Nagato.
That was very redundant… Anyway, I wouldn’t classify myself as a Nagato. I’d say a nasty Haruhi/Nagato/Koizumi chimera that enjoyed the episodes, although they did drag on a bit, and I felt a little obligated because I’m such an otaku.
As you can see, I am prone to contradicting myself.
hey dudes, i’m totally disgusted at that harbin, whatever…
. I don’t want to have some second-rate chinese cartoonist screwing up my favorite manga/anime series…
or maybe she is not haruhi’s evil twin, maybe she is just a depiction of what haruhi will look like if she is on drugs
I totally second Krennthief’s views here. The Endless Eight was both a great way to explain 596 years of the same two weeks *and* a funny idea. Artistic? Maybe.
The kind of “fanbase” that stops watching because of this can just go have their daily fix of Teletubbies ^_^
I gotta disagree with you there. Three episodes would have been great. Four would have made the artistic point. Eight…
Eight was just painful. (Watching the fan reactions, though, that’s just fun.)
That’s OK, I guess it’s a matter of patience; or maybe I’ve got too much time to kill .-D
I’ve been increasingly smiling during the eight “eight” episodes. I can’t believe they actually drew, animated, produced, voiced and aired eight different versions of the same story.
I felt “treated”, not “betrayed”.
I laughed at Kyon’s sarcasm, gasped at the ever-different yukata(s?), searched for each episode’s particularities (did you notice? In one episode, the name of the yukata shop is “ENDLESS” ^_^, and what about the “airplane” episode?); just as you’d do with “normal” episodes.
After all, the only major development in the plot will be the Disappearance, so I’m contented enough if I can look at Yuki as long as I can regardless of the story (just kidding here).
To be honest, I really wasn’t reading too much boards before E8. I didn’t know about the 2-3 episode only speculation, so I really expected Endless Eight to be… well… Eight episodes.
Maybe you’d say I’m a “Koizumi” on this one. I think I am: *smiles*.
And I think someone has mentioned this before: we’ll be able to emphatize with Nagato more if we went through something similar.
I gotta say, the Endless Eight generated a lot of buzz about the show by people who would never have commented before, and that’s a GOOD thing. It gets people to watch. It makes a bold statement, “I am who I am, whether you like it or not”. That’s a good thing, and I’m certain even those who disliked the idea will never FORGET Suzumiya Haruhi in this lifetime! Anyone who doesn’t want to watch all endless 8 can simply skip the middle episodes, I’ve no problem with that and I’m sure neither do the producers/writers. But it built a DEPTH to this anime that is rarely there by giving you an opportunity to really get to know some of the characters better than you would have otherwise, getting to know the story up close, and to see the minor permutations, rather than sitting back and just watching time go by.
Can there be a possibility of having new season and episodes of this series???
I actually like the Endless Eight, even if it gets somewhat annoying at times. It gives me ideas of what outfits to put the gang in when I do fanart of them. It also sometimes comes in handy for AMVs!
Kyon is right that Endless Eight was very reminiscent of the episodes 25 & 26 of Evangelion. Anno redeemed himself with the excellent End of Evangelion movie. I haven’t seen Disappearance yet, but if it’s good, it will redeem KyoAni.
Can’t believe that there are people actually defending this Endless Eight rubbish. You guys need to get your heads examined, seriously. This is the worst arc ever in all anime. Reminiscent to ep. 25 and 26 of Evangelion? What planet are you from LOL!!! Evangelion is genius (yes that includes 25 and 26). Endless Eight is nothing but a trolling exercise by KyoAni – laughing themselves silly while they are rolling in the money. I appreciate these episodes as a trolling exercise but nothing more than that. I love Haruhi still but this arc is garbage.
@jc: Ah yes, and I’d say you should get your head examined to see if your nervous system and brain cells are working correctly and take some test to ensure that you can think really deep into the story to see what they meant, and to know how the characters felt.
I’d say you’re nothing but another random person on the internet like me, but I say we are different, I know how to really enjoy something although I’d say that wasn’t enough, while you just say you love and like something out of nowhere because of your own selfish needs.
If I’m wrong, tell me, because of the way you put it, it makes you look that way. Remember, words are a double-edged knife, it can both help you… or hurt you.
i loled at the first manga. the art is so bad and i also loled at the fact that he made an adult version too. lol can you imagine, HARUHI SUZUMIYA PORN COMICS. you have to have to life inorder to read those. can cant even begin to imagine haruhi wanting kyon’s dick or something. it really ruins the franchise
You forgot the fact that the animators “K-on!”ed some of the girls’ faces in season two. -.-
with thanks for sharing this excellent post. Please hold up this particular weblog as ensure that must be an example of my preferred web-site in my reader, having thanks
Leave your response!
Categories
Recent Comments
Recent Haruhi Forum Topics
06/Feb/12 - 10:30 am
05/Feb/12 - 4:15 am
05/Feb/12 - 4:07 am
04/Feb/12 - 10:26 pm
04/Feb/12 - 2:08 pm
Haruhi Fan Club
Recent Posts
Most Commented
Blogroll
Haruhi Suzumiya is the creation by Nagaru Tanigawa and is licensed by Kadokawa Pictures USA and Bandai Entertainment (North America).