Yet another petition to nominate Haruhi Suyumiya as Anime Goddess.
I like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. You guys like Haruhi. All around the world there are shrines made to Haruhi-God, usually involving the sacrifices of Lulu plushies and other bishies. But why there his such a fascination for the anime? (I’m focusing on the anime since it’s the media more spread in fame.) As some of you know, I had my own blog (still have but it’s technicaly on hibernation…), and one of my posts was exactly a view on the key factors of the anime. Since the announcement of the 2nd season of Haruhi that I was eager to review and adapt my old post and expose my view on THAT. This need was strenghtened recently because I’ve started rereading the novels in my Psp, which refreshed my Haruhihism. You may check the old version of the post here. (One thing that scares me is the amount of typos the old post had ……)
1. The Novels
One main factor for success was the origins of TMHS (short for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) A good amount of anime series start as a manga and depending on the success, it’s decided if it will be converted for Anime. instead , TMHS has started as series of light novels novels published in Japan. Those novels (who are still being released up to date) form the bulk for the story of TMHS. Not every material present in the novels is being used but the adaptation has an impressive direct adaptation to the Anime. This origin as a novel means the plot is more well defined and developed from the root than your typical Anime.
2. Moé Factor
As Haruhi said in TMHS, “Moé is an essential factor”. And we sure haven’t got lack of it in the series. Spanning from the energetical Haruhi to the shy girl Miruku, our meganekko Nagato and even pretty boys as Itsuki to please the ladies (or Yaoi lovers; yeah I know you ladies want to see some Kyon x Itsuki action!!!). Even the side characters are eye candy (Impzie worships Tsuruya and a offering of Tsuruya pics makes his day). We can’t also forget Haruhi’s collection of cosplay suits, ranging from maid, bunny girl, frog (?) and other nosebleeding goodies. Just for this factor, TMHS can create a good share of Haruhiists.
I wonder where are Kyon and Itsuki….
3. Genre Mixing
Another strong point in TMSH: this Anime is invokes so many genres you can’t even name them all from memory. We have Slice of Life, Sci-Fi, Paranormal, Romance, Seinen, Philosophical, Postmodern, Psychological, School, etc. The anime envolves so many areas that there is always something for the individual tastes of the viewers. Also, this range allows less stress and monothony of having to focus on the same themes.
4. Personalities
The characters, like any story, are a major part of the success or failure of an Anime, and TMSH has all the right elements in this aspect. But the most funny part is each main character seems to be connected to a particular psychological aspect and the group acts as a brain trying to process each situation they encounter:
Kyon – The Realist
Haruhi – The Dreamer
Nagato – The Intellectualist
Mikuru – The Innocent
Itsuki – The Philosopher
…Or it’s just me over analyzing this .
Mental note: don’t let Haruhi fool around with the Evokers….again.
5. Wierdness Factor
We have already seen before animes who were wierd due to several reasons: from oldie Excel Saga, to FLCL ( and the infamous 1st scene who almost costed the whole budget normally planned to a whole season.) and Bobobo. But TMSH really hits a 10.0 on a scale of wierdness. The 1st episode made the viewers go “WTF?” and grabbed them from that point. The airing order ( who showed episodes randon
mdly instead of a chronological order, also known as Kyon and Haruhi order) made the viewers wonder even more about the story and re-track several times on what they have seen. The plot premisse is wierd too: a bored girl who wants to find aliens, time travelers or espers; and gets secretly watched by the same kind of beings who she’s after because she has the uncounscious power to create and manipulate reality; and there is also the poor guy who gets stuck in the middle off all and see all happening around him.
6. Kyon’s Point of View.
Talking about Kyon, the unlucky bastard who gets involved with the Sos Brigade. this guy is a major reason why TMSH is great: every action we see in the anime is seen and commented by him. He has the role of an active narrator, giving his opinion about the incidents that he and the SoS Brigade go through. If we didn’t have the access to his point of view, our perception of the whole plot would be different.
After checking all these factors, we wonder if the producers will keep them as good as they are or change anything when they start doing the 2nd season, mainly the whole Kyon/Haruri episode view. But unless something goes horribly wrong, the 2nd season will originate an even bigger fandom around Haruhi.
“… I don’t want to make the second season! I’m tired enough of having my life endangered and I still didn’t get any girl after 12 episodes!.”
40 Comments
o.0
i think this website is AWESOME!
There’s gonna be a second season???
GREAT!!!!
this has made my day….
love the post
One thing I’ve noticed with TMoHS is that there is also quite a bit of Ying/Yang in the story. Consider this:
* Kyon has all the knowledge and no power, and Haruhi has all the power and no knowledge.
* Kyon says that Haruhi won’t listen to him. However, Kyon is the only person on numerous occasions who is able to get Haruhi to change her mind. It’s interesting that everyone goes to Kyon when they need to Haruhi to do something, but they tell him Haruhi won’t believe him.
* Kyon is male, Haruhi is female (obvious, yes). Both claim something of a platonic relationship, yet they do really like one another.
Overall, interesting stuff. Makes for some real neat by-play between the characters.
dam ur so good at making good point i gotta give it to u ur great at this stuff lol
For me, it’s the novel and how it handles Kyon’s narration. It’s very imaginative (up to a point), and Kyon’s witticism never ceases to amuse me. Tanigawa’s writing is also engaging and very readable, so even though it’ll never win any literary prizes, I still enjoy reading them a lot.
*random fan mode on*
For the Glory of the God Empress Suzumiya Haruhi-Sama!
We shall illuminate the Universe with her Grace!
*Random Fan Mode Off*
I liked the directing of the show itself mainly, other than that, the cast is really into it. And Captain “GAR” Kyon helps too.
To Lupus,
Actually, the first novel did win literary prizes. ^^;
Cheers.
Why am I a Haruhiist? Because I spent about $200 buying all the limited edition box sets for one thing…
Plus the whole series is a change of pace, something fresh.
I don’t count prizes that a publishing house award to its own authors ^.^;
1. I am not a member of this silly ‘religion’. Nor will I ever be.
2. This ‘religion’ is nothing more than a very successful Japanese otaku-centric marketing campaign. FYI, not many have heard of the novels until AFTER the show was aired.
3. A fair amount of the proponents of this ‘religion’ I have met are some of the most disagreeable people on the planet or mindless corporate whores( I got nothin’ om the latter). Worse than atheists, and they are already bad enough with their ‘I’m better than you’ atitude. (Yes, given a choice to be in this ‘religion’ or being an atheist, I’d take the latter, if I wasn’t in an established religion already. And I don’t like atheism.)
…Could an atheist animu viewer argue here? I’m getting tired of repeating my views, and I’m in no mood to deal with flames, trolls, and zealots.
@DrmChsr0: constructive criticism is always welcome here. Free speech is a right given to everyone, but if someone starts to get too offensive to others just for random trolling, I’ll cut them myself.
And I’m happy that we have the view of non-Haruhiists. A fun fact is that female viewers have less tendence to be Haruhiists…but I wonder if that will happen with season 2. (If you read the novels, you will understand…)
Firt, I am not a haruhist, those deserves to burn.I follow the way of the DITE, I am yukiist.The one and only true god, haruhi(the sociopath devoid of any empathy) is just an anomaly.
There was two reason why I liked TMHS:Kyon and the crazy speculations we did to explain things.Some were really, really weird.
Extrange: I’m trying to not turn this into some quasi-religious debate. Because it all turns into something of the sort, because we’re dealing with religion here.
And to set the record straight, I’m male, a born-again Christian (not a fundie, I’m friggen’ Protestant), and while I’m rather accepting of most religions (yes I love the Catholic, the Muslim, the Jew and whatnot, yes, even those who think the FSM made the world andd whatnot :V), I can’t see the point of this ‘religion’. Unless the point is to market the novels, show, and related merchandise.
What pisses me off is that people try to portray it as a legitimate religion, even though it is not. Worse still, people are buying into this.
A religion based on a consumerist culture isn’t a religion, it’s a well-crafted marketing ploy. It’s not even deserving of the ‘cult’ status.
I am a haruhist but it makes little impact on my life. In fact I am primarily a Christian. (Haruhi herself once said she respects and believes in all religions and the first commandment in the 10 commandments is “Thou shalt not have any gods “BEFORE” me)
So why am I a haruhist?
I don’t actually believe that Haruhi is an actual person (although some die hard fans suspect the light novels to be auto-biographical in origin) but instead her philosophy is one I take to heart.
“Normal people do not interest me but if any of you are aliens time travels or espers then come and see me right away”
“It makes life more interesting”
and so on.
That’s why I am a haruhist. I believe that individuality is a myth, that we are all really conforming to something, conforming to non-conformity placed before us by our social circles. Like Haruhi noticed in her baseball game, everyone goes to a school that’s the same, meets other children and plays the same games, everyone is exposed to the same media, the same education. Then they get a job and life their lives in a cubicle like millions of others and go to a bar every friday night with ther co-workers because everyone else does.
Haruhi wants to shake things up, do something new and That’s why I’m a Haruhist.
I don’t care that it’s a silly marketing ploy. Heck I don’t even own any Haruhi merc at all aside from the first light novel (the only one available where I live) and the first season of the anime!
@DrmChsr0: Careful, Haruhiism is a term created to define Haruhi fans, not a mass religion itself (like how we use Narutards do denominate Naruto fanboys). True that it’s pimped out by the society to help selling Haruhi related merchandise but that happens with any fanboyism of subjects with a critical mass. One of the events most celebrated by Western world, Christmas, was pimped out by Coca-Cola company to help sales during Winter season.
I have recently converted to Pastafarianism from Haruhiism, since I hope to begin study of String Theories.
Tsuruya-sama is win. That’s all.
Extrange: Trust me, the people I meet have elevated it to a cult status.
I could never understand how anyone could think Haruhi is the star of the show. The entire series takes place through Kyon’s eyes, so it’s clearly Kyon that is the star of the anime.
Kyon should be the one with the huge fanbase, not Haruhi.
Extrange,
The post is a brief, well-thought out analysis on the merits of Haruhi Suzumiya. While I would agree that the show was good, I have never elevated it into my favorite anime. For one, the show is good, but not that good. For another, Haruhi is irritating for me.
I expect the second season to rouse Haruhiists again, but I also expect it to be no better than the first one.
@DrmChrs0: There is always guys like that, specially if they don’t know other kind of animes. It’s a know fenonemon among kids and shows like Naruto.
Show the lil suckers some Elfen Lied, Shigurui or girls with bloody machetes animes …..
Extrange: Well, these people know there are other series out there. They watch them.
The worst part about it is, they’ve gone so far as to talk about rewriting history and taking over the world in her name.
And no, I didn’t make it all up.
In an environment where people kill in the name of religion, I have to assume they can, and eventually will, do it. It doesn’t matter if the statistics say otherwise. Numbers aren’t much help when we’re dealing with humans.
I think some individuals are taking this way too seriously. There’s crazies in every type of pop culture that say they will conquer the world or kill for their favorite actor/icon/musician/movie theme. I don’t see how this is somehow worse than others or something that should be worrisome…
any Mikuruists around besides Haruhists? =/
I watched the show. I enjoyed the show. I loved it in fact. To me, it was Kyon that made the show what it was. More accurately, his point of view. But you know what, I don’t get ‘Haruhi-ism’. I’ll occasionally watch some random people doing the dance and laugh, and sure, the Haruhi/Mikuru/Yuki combo is perhaps the most moe thing I’ve ever seen, but make some sort of crazy religion out of it seems a bit much to me.
Whatever happened to just being a fan? I agree to all the points made in the post about the appeal of the show. It’s one of my favorites after all, but you won’t hear me calling myself a Haruhiist.
One simple reason: I love Haruhi
Everything about her gives me a big smile on my face.
On second place: Kyons remarks, love when a guy lets out smart remarks for the friends around him.
After reading a short outtake from the novels that were translated into plain text I liked them. To bad I can´t read them in their original state
Would if I could as to say.
So it´s quite simple for me. And with a new season on the run I just can´t say how happy I am. More LE versions to buy with fun extras
Haruhi horrifies me. Someone even a third as selfish as her will earn slappings in my family. I wonder why people like her. Bet they won’t feel that way if they are in Kyon or other SOS members shoes.
But she’s better than Mikuru though. She’s a disgrace of females for willingly being sexually abused by Haruhi. Although because of her stupidity, Haruhi manages to avoid criminal court.
Kyon’s monologue is great though.
I can’t help but feel that way when watching, but then again, this is anime, so what am I getting worked up for, shhh.
Well, I don’t think am a haruhist. Huge fan of TMoHS, but no not a haruhist. Also, The way I have perceive the series is that Kyon is the main protagonist. The viewer sees the world through Kyon’s eyes. I agree with others, that it is this perspective which gives the anime its unique flavor. (Love his monologues.)
Because of that, I lean towards agreeing with those that insist that Kyon is the most important character, not Haruhi. Of course, Hurahi’s apparent omnipresence is the central plot element. But we need Kyon’s viewpoint to give us a vantage point from which to watch the phenomena that is Haruhi.
Anyways, neither nor Haruhi are not my favorite characters. I am in Impz’camp, Tsuruya-sama is win.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw a church devoted to Haruhi, similar to what Peter Griffin did to The Fonz in Family Guy.
I’m going to just say it. I’ve enjoyed The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, well at least, the episodes I have seen up to this point. I wouldn’t call myself a Haruhist, or what have you, simply an animé fan.
From my perspective, you can’t call anything a religion, as there is far too much evidence against them. But I digress…I’m aware that people fight for their beliefs, and generally, I don’t care about the existence of religions, I ignore their existence, and don’t say they’re bad or anything. Just that I don’t believe in them.
Now as for the animé itself, I enjoy the plot, and I enjoy the concept of the whole idea behind it. Kyon’s perspective on everything really makes it worth while, and I can understand how people would become fans of it. But in the end, it’s bound to the same things everything else in the world is bound to. And not everyone will like it, and not everyone will hate it. I can’t say I’m a die hard fan of it, but it’s definitely something I’ll re-watch eventually.
I noticed quite a lot of people with complaints and a lot of people comparing the fan base to a religion. Well, just face it, there’s nothing you can do. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs, and those that don’t like something about the animé, well, it’s not something you’re producing. So if you don’t like it, don’t watch it, don’t talk about it, it’s not being FORCED upon you. I can easily see this animé not being well received or having complaints just like Persona 3 has a group of people who are concerned that because of it teenagers will start shooting themselves in the head. But then, I can see a lot of things being criticized and I’d compare them to Persona 3 or MoHS in most cases.
I’ll just put it this way, if people are going to be weak willed enough to make or believe in some sort of cult or “religion” because of a concept made up and shown in an animé, among other things, or shoot themselves in the head because “they saw it in a game”, there’s nothing you can do. Actually, you’re probably being a hypocrite in a way, because there’s no doubt something you believe in or do that is based on or comes from something that could be compared to this concept. Much like Religion, this world revolves around money, and those that have a lot of it usually aren’t satisfied until they have more, and it’s a vicious cycle. Religions were formed to control the masses, advertising is made to persuade the masses. And for what. A happy society? Or to put more money in the pockets of the higher ups.
Now I’m not saying any of this to insult anyone, I’m being a realist. And sure, I no doubt do something that makes me a hypocrite by saying all of that, but let’s face it, complaining about something won’t change anything. And if I’ve offended anyone, I’m sorry, but I had no intentions of doing so. I’ll leave quietly with the Haruhi Evoka image and leave you all be. If you have a problem with my views, then just ignore them. It’s the simplest solution and prevents flaming, and arguments.
I fucking love Haruhi! i’ve only seen 14 episodes, and 13 & 14 were the same, and 13/14 sucked… but I fuckin love that show! She looks like me! Kiss kiss! Toodles!
I’d be more inclined to call Itsuki The Jester.
Kyon x Itsuki = HELL NO!!! Why, you ask? Itsuki is straight and Kyon despises Itsuki!! Other than that, I agree with this completely ^w^
I freakin’ love this show. It’s amazing and not because it’s just some fad. The way I actually found this anime is by going through AMVs one of my fav anime (Rosario + Vampire II, if anyone’s wondering). Anyways, I just really enjoy it. Big Haruhi fan, not a Haruhiist, it’s just weird to have a religion based on this. I still love the show, however. Anyways, a comment on one of the other apparent “debates” here, I would like to say, that both Haruhi and Kyon are the main characters. They are equally important and would be no good by themselves in the story, so they are both the most important characters. I’ve actually read translated versions of the light novels and liked those too (although I strongly believe that things like translations and dubbing kinda ruin the intended words of the author). Still love this thing. Oh and Kyon and Haruhi forevah!
i dont see how anyone can hate haruhi. shes like the main character well kyon pretty much is but on every picture on google or on other stuff she in the picture. mikuru is annoying! why does kyon like her so much! i cant tell if he likes haruhi or mikuru better but i hope he likes haruhi better. i like mikuru x itsuki and kyon x haruhi thats it! i hate how mikuru is so shy all the time thats stupid haruhi rocks! who cares if she has big boobs haruhi is prettier. Haruhi x Kyon forever!
well i like haruhi chan ! and kyon -senpai <3 i am a fan of the anime !
i like this serie me encanta tan solo de ver las imagenes
Kyonism !!!
I’m a 100% pure Kyonist …
I’m also 60% Haruhiist ….
Kyon deserves a fanbase too <_<
Even though Haruhi rocks :p !
ha ha ha i just love all the comments . . . and a 2nd season is fine for me too . . . i love TMoHS and kyon-kun too . . . its a refreshing view of the world from a different perspective – from haruhi-god itself . . . i don’t know if this considers me a haruhi-ist? i don’t think so . . . but then, i will always be a fan of this series