Today, 2nd of July is the date when the anime, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya ended 2 years ago. Coincidently, my birthday falls on the same date. I’m officially 15 years old today!^_^
So, you can say that I’m writing this in conjunction with my birthday. Since there is no better birthday present than talking about my favorite anime character and my favorite anime series, not really. But if it’s Haruhi, it’s worth it.
Suzumiya Haruhi. Everyone knows and loves her. Maybe the right word that I’m looking for is ‘worship’ her. Fans all over the world loves her, including me. But why? Do I really like her THAT much and why is she my favorite anime character? I’ve been asking myself this question for some time now and I haven’t come up with a good answer except the ones that other people give. You know that’s not enough to be my favorite anime girl.
I didn’t watch The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya when it aired since I haven’t started watching animes during that time. I only watched it some time in early 2007. I know that the airing of the anime sent shockwaves to anime fans/otakus worldwide. The Haruhi phenomenon is still going strong even 2 years after the anime ended. Something like that must be VERY big.
When I first started watching anime, I was clueless about which anime I should watch. So I surfed a few forums on the internet and that’s the first time I laid my eyes on Haruhi. Everyone keeps talking about her, so I searched some information about her. Then I found out that she has her own anime. Without further ado, I downloaded the anime right away. That’s when my journey started..
So, back to the question. Why do I like Haruhi? Aside from her characteristics and traits, is it because of the phenomenon. After all, that’s what made me watch The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya in the first place. Will I still like her if everyone else doesn’t? The answer is yes, but not as much. Yes, the phenomenon affects my love for Haruhi, but not that much. The phenomenon helps to reveal more information about the series and the phenomenon also encourages people to do more Haruhi-related works.
From a Haruhi-hater point of view, Haruhi is an annoying and selfish girl. Some even go as far as calling her ‘retarded’. But for Haruhi fans, those are some of the reasons why they like Haruhi (tsundere for those who knows otaku-speak). To me, her beautiful looks, charisma, talent, awesome voice, and of course, her tsundereness are some of the reasons why I like her. I can name hundreds of other reasons why I like her.
In the anime, Haruhi does unreasonable things (cute and fun things in my opinion) that often leads to trouble for the other SOS Brigade members, especially Kyon. But she doesn’t realise it, she is not even conscious of the fact that she is GOD. This unique theme doesn’t exist in other animes, which makes this anime stands above other animes. In other words, this plot is brilliant. I was like “What the…” when I first heard of such thing. A Japanese High School Girl is God who created the world 3 years ago. LOL..
You know what, Kyon is one of the best thing in the anime. His narrating makes the anime more fun to watch and thanks to his narrations, I understand more about what is happening since he describes it in the best way possible. His thoughts are humorous and entertaining at times with the use of metaphors and such. The main character is narrating the anime, I like it. Another unique thing about the series.
Another good thing about Kyon’ narration is that we now know how it feels like to be in Kyon’s shoes. Or more specificly, how it feels to be surrounded with 3 cute girls and 1 umm..guy, and all of them are not ‘normal’. Unfortunately, Kyon is not your average kind of guy like you and me. If I was Kyon, I would freak out at first but I will still continue my life as if it was normal (wait a minute, that’s what Kyon did, right?). More importantly, I will hook up with one (or more) of the SOS Brigade members. But that’s impossible..
Haruhi = I don’t think so. But Kyon has the best chances with her.
Mikuru = She’s okay. I think that she is perfect for Kyon, despite the differences in their personalities. But you know, Haruhi will kill Kyon if he hits on girls other than herself.
Yuki = Same as above.
Itsuki = Eh…
The series has a very good line of characters, even if there is only 5 characters that series is focusing on. So, you get your alien, esper, time traveller, and of course, God. One must be wondering how Kyon handles these people. Thank ‘God’ that they look human and acts like one too. The characters also have their different traits which helps them get along well with each other in a sort of weird relationship. The difference in the characters also leads to interesting events and so on. Well, all anime series has different characters, but it is more obvious in this one.
Tanigawa Nagaru did a great job at creating the light novel. Actually, it’s thanks to Haruhi that I know the existence of light novels, even though I never read one. As usual, KyoAni did an amazing job at animating it. Animating something from ‘words’ sure is hard since there are not so many pictures for reference. It’s different from animating manga which is easier. LOL, what am I saying, as if I ever did something like that before. KyoAni made a great novel popular. Most fans won’t even know that Haruhi exists if it wasn’t for KyoAni, it’s the same for other series too. I guess that anime is a more popular medium than light novels, at least in countries outside of Japan.
Since I never read the light novel before (yes, I fail as a Haruhi fan), I’m only judging the series based one the anime alone. I know that it’s unfair because some people say that the light novel is better than the anime. You can read a great post about this topic here. I probably won’t read the light novels though, I’m not the novel type person, I won’t understand much by reading them. I can’t enjoy a story without graphics and voices as much as I do with stories that have them, even for a Haruhi novel. But who knows?
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was a very good anime. It is one of my first animes, and I can still remember the good times I had when I was watching the anime. I watched the anime in the ‘correct’ order, not the broadcasting one. The 1st episode amazed me with the animation and awesome introduction. My love for the anime increased by the 12th episode, the one where Haruhi performed. I was like Kyon at that time, amazed, and that scene is still stuck in my head. The ending for the anime, I like it. It’s hard to explain how I feel at that time, but what I know is that I felt sad at that time…
Series like this one can go on forever. There’s not much plot in the series and if KyoAni runs out Haruhi light novels to animate, they can come up with random things, but I’ll doubt that it will be as good as in the novel (original contents often fail). Well, that is if KyoAni decides to animate all the light novels. If that happens then, I will be overjoyed, assuming that they won’t screw up. So..yea, the Haruhi anime can go on forever. But you know, the longer the anime runs, the harder it is to accept the fact that it will end soon. By the time the anime ends, it is hard to let it go. The same thing happened to me with Hayate no Gotoku. I love HnG and I was sad when it almost ended, but I was happy when they announced that there will be a 2nd season. I was VERY VERY happy when I found out that Haruhi will have a 2nd season too. ^_^
I, like some of you, don’t really know exactly why I like Haruhi so much. It’s hard to explain and I can’t give a more specific answer than “I like her” or whatever I said in this post. The reasons stated above are not the only reasons since there are other characters with the same traits, but failed to be my favorite. Maybe Haruhi has a special power that attracts fan to worship her. She has something that you can’t help but to love her for, something that other anime characters don’t have. Well, I guess that’s Haruhi for you. No one can replace her and she is still the best.
~Setsukyie~
