Monday, June 18, 2018

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part 3 Episodes 12-19

It’s Summer Vacation and Haruhi wants to make every second of it count…literally.  Kyon slowly discovers that he and the SOS Bridage have become locked in an endless loop of the last two weeks, with Haruhi seemingly refusing to let the good times end.  The number of repititions is growing and its beginning to get out of control.  If Kyon cant find a way to sever the loop, there’s a chance he, Yuki, Mikuru and Koizumi will be trapped in it forever…and Haruhi might not have it any other way.
 
I was dreading this.  From the moment I decided to add this series to my cue, I knew it was coming.  There was no way to just skip it.  No, I had to go the distance…and I did and UUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!  Ok, I should explain.  While many hold Haruhi Suzumiya as one of the biggest Anime series of the 2000’s there is one part of its legacy that is an eternal black mark on its record…and that’s the Endless Eight Arc.
 
Before I go any further, let me tell you about one of my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes: Cause and Effect.  In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise are trapped in a time loop where they repeat the same day over and over again, beginning with the crews weekly poker game and ending with the disastrous destruction of the Enterprise.  Each run lasted about the length of a segment between commercial breaks.  By the end, we’d seen the same day about 3 or 4 times.  The crew had been getting hints of “déjà vu” throughout the continuing loops and eventually managed to break the loop thanks to one critical detail being changed to avoid destruction.  All of that was done in the span of 45 minutes and is still considered to be one of the best TNG if not overall Star Trek episodes of all time.
 
Why bring this up?  Because the Endless Eight is Haruhi Suzumiya’s answer to Cause and Effect AND WE HAVE TO WATCH THE SAME EVENTS PLAY OUT FOR EIGHT STRAIGHT EPISODES!!!!  Yes, there are subtle differences with clothing choices, different camera angles on events, an odd sentence changed in a conversation or added dialogue.  But it doesn’t change the fact that after the first episode of this arc, the same beats continue seven more times until Kyon finally figures out what the hell needs to be done to get Haruhi to break this loop.  
 
Oh yeah, like everything else in this series, this is all Haruhi’s fault.  And it is easy to be angry with her more than ever.  After all, the same eight episodes back to back to back (etc.) can piss anyone off really.  At the same time, however, I also try to look a bit deeper into the madness of Haruhi Suzumiya.  Despite everyone being told about the loop (except Haruhi of course), the SOS Brigade is having an absolute blast right up until the last moment.  In a way, one could sympathize with Haruhi.  I’ve often shared dreams of having Otakon or Katsucon weekends repeating themselves because they were just that freaking amazing.  Having witnessed the Endless Eight, im glad that’s not the case because it would not only ruin how special those weekends are to me, id probably go insane too.
 
Seeing the loop continue for so long, I also have to gripe at pretty much every special person in the SOS Brigade, especially Koizumi.  He has the answers, he knows how the loop is working, so why cant he just break the loop himself?  Nope, he has to leave it to Kyon, who’s as lost as the rest of us trying to piece together the answer.  The closest to providing any help Koizumi gives is suggesting Kyon professing his love to Haruhi…and then volunteering to do it himself but chickening out.  Koizumi’s got the fox face for a reason.  He’s way too devious and it’s more obvious than ever, he’s competing with/jealous of Kyon’s closeness with Haruhi.  Maybe he’s miffed that all of these occurances with Haruhi could be settled quickly if he himself were the object of Haruhi’s secret affections. Then again, Koizumi seems content to let things play out like they always do, consequences be damned…and it pisses me off.  Mikuru didn’t really do much more either other than constantly cry at every interval and that got annoying more than usual.  Yuki was the only one I sympathized with.  Even her cold detachment from everything was being tested during this nightmare and she was only becoming more and more out of sorts with each loop.  It might explain why something happens down the line…but ill table that theory for that time being and talk about it when the time is right.
 
Honestly, this wouldn’t have been as bad of a marathon had the characters or even the production staff done anything to spice up each playthrough.  And yeah, yeah their minds kept getting reset each time but come on.  It would have been great for there to have been an episode where Kyon sat out the time loop for once or went nuts and did things he’d never get away with regularly…within good reason of course.  But no, the production staff merely changes the colors and clothes that everyone wears…and that’s about it.  I heard a rumor that the directors of the English Dub wanted to try swapping everyones voices during one of the episodes, which would have been pretty fun but that idea, for whatever reason, was abandoned.
 
One last thing of note, this entire Arc takes place during the shows second season.  The animation looks good (albiet we’re watching the same damn thing…yeah yeah yeah).  But I bring this up because while we did see a Season Two episode last week with Kyon meeting young Haruhi, this week we got the Opening and Ending themes for that season in full.  Personally, I like the Season Two opener “Super Driver” more than the opening from Season One.  The ending is cool too…but it does rob us of the always entertaining Hare Hare Yuki Dance as a result.
 
Well…that dismal summer from hell is finally over and done with and YES it will probably impact the score for the series as a whole.  If that’s the case then dammit, everything else needs to be way beyond solid to make up for the lost time we spent in the Hellscape that is…the Endless Eight.  See you all next week.

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