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(WARNING: The following is extremly scray. Viower excretion is advisd.)
It's one of those things that you watch, and you can tell that it sucks, and you cannot understand how or why it gained the kind of popularity that it did, but then you look at all the rabid devotees who proclaim it to be the best thing since buttsex, and you just want to drink until the hurting stops.
Now, I'm not the first person to point out just what makes this show the most fucking pointless and stupidly-written cartoon of the last five years. The truth is, a lot more people hate this series than its vast popularity would seem to suggest. It's a lot like Twilight in that way. Actually it's a lot like Twilight in a lot of ways, but maybe we'll get to that later.
No, it's been dissected, analyzed, I think your hot-slapped around and buried six feet under the ground numerous times. By numerous people. Over and over again. It's a lot like Twilight in that way too. But watching all of those reviews, and listening to all those analyses, I gradually had myself one of those epiphany things that you hear so much about. They never brought voice to my own complaints about this show.
Like any reasonable middle-American, I sat down and waited patiently for somebody to say something that roughly encapsulates my feelings on the subject. But nobody ever did. So we're gonna talk about that right now, you an' me. Let's discuss why Haruhi Suzumiya is such a stupid show. And let's do a good job of it.
#1. The main character is an asshole.
This has actually been pointed out a lot, and it's pretty hard to miss. Haruhi Suzumiya as a character is rude, abrasive, oblivious to other people's feelings or needs, and seems to believe that the universe revolves around her. Of course, she's right, but that's a whole 'nother basket of worms...
Her whole character centers on being this nonconformist free-spirit who does her own thing to the chagrin and confusion of her peers and superiors. And in a country like Japan, being a free spirit is tantamount to being a multi-tentacled octopus who violently rapes catgirls with his many, suction cup-covered tentacles while shitting all over a heavily-muscled kung-fu warrior from outer space. No wait...they're okay with that other one...the octopus one, I mean...
So that's her shtick. She's a free spirit. Now, I can get on board with this. I like characters who march to the beat of their own drum. The problem is that it's a lousy beat to march to...
Haruhi displays several qualities that are supposed to endear her to the audience, but really just make her out to be a shitty person overall. Qualities like:
-Unrepentant violence for its own sake
-Cruel, emotional manipulation
-Treating the people around her as objects for her own amusement
-Habitual lying to get what she wants
-A lack of understanding of clear, present danger
-Lust for power, dominance and control
...and many others.
They actually have a word for people like Haruhi, I think. You know. People who demonstrate the traits that I just outlined above. And it's one that you actually hear a lot. You might recognize it. "Sociopath."
Of course, we're not supposed to realize that. No, we as an audience are supposed to find Haruhi's outlandish and violent behavior amusing. We're not supposed to realize that she's a deeply troubled and unstable person, or if we are, we're supposed to find it cute. We're supposed to laugh along with her when she does things like
-Rape her fellow classmates
-Concuss her fellow classmates
-Blackmail and publicly castigate her fellow classmates
-Cause the universe to destroy itself
Now, making your main character an asshole--it can be done well. But you actually have to put a little bit more thought into it. You have to express redeeming traits in her personality. Show us that there's more to her than just what we get to see. People in the industry usually call that
character development
It's when you flesh out the character in question, let us know their hopes...their dreams...their plights and struggles...show us what drives them, motivates them and all their actions...and to be fair to Haruhi, they actually do this pretty early on. In one of the early episodes, she tells us, the audience, what it is that makes her the way she is. And is it ever a doozy.
See, it turns out that one time, when she was really little, her dad took her to a baseball game, and while she was there, she figured out that there were lots of people in the world. And then she had some kind of existential crisis. And that's why she's such a bitch.
...
YOU CANNOT GRASP THE TRUE NATURE OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA'S BULLSHIT
You also have to make sure that the character grows over time. If they stay the same way the entire series through, then it's kind of a waste of a character, don't you think? People change pretty radically over time, especially when under new or strange circumstances. And The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is all about putting Haruhi in a new, strange circumstance. She's never actually had friends before. And now she does.
When you develop your asshole, you want to demonstrate some real, positive, tangible change. Not just like, little stuff...like now she'll put blankets on people when they're sleeping...that's just not enough. Or, like, show us that she gets shy when people thank her for playing in their stupid rock bands...you can't just give us singular, isolated incidents and say "okay, she's changed now. She's a whole different person."
The character of Dr. Cox on that T.V. show, Gray's Anatomy, is a perfect example. At the start of the show he's a narcissistic, self-loathing and self-sabotaging doctor trapped in a go-nowhere life with no friends, no family--he's generally a lonely and miserable person. But then his life starts to change. He reconnects with his ex-wife...starts a family...and grows closer to people he would otherwise have pushed away entirely. We see him develop as a character based on the way he adapts to the situations presented to him. We see him demonstrate a loving and warm side towards his son...we watch him look after Zach Braff and take him under his wing...we find out about his past with his abusive, drunken father, and how deeply that screwed him up...he starts forming relationships and bonds with people...so that by the end of the series, he's a completely different person, a better person, than the one he started out as.
Now, some might say that Haruhi changes radically from the person she started out as. And that's a fair assertion to make. I respect it. But let's try and see how well that holds up under scrutiny.
So in the first half of the season, Haruhi is totally isolated from everybody around her. But then she gradually gathers a bunch of stupid jerks to boss around. So now she's not so isolated anymore. Huh. Well, that is development. I have to admit that. And you can really see the dramatic impact this has on her, the way it alters her behavior radically in the second half of the show. I mean, it's not like she does things like
-attempt to force-feed one of her friends rancid, bacteria-infested expired food, possibly leading to food poisoning, and eventually death
-drop-kick a classmate in the face based on an outlandish assumption that he's, like, a ninja warlord or something
-rape one of her friends
-send away the one person who would stop her from raping one of her friends, expressly so that she can rape one of her friends
-treat one of her friends like a extra love toy
-use said friend's endowment for many nefarious purposes
-claim sole credit for unraveling a bullshit murder mystery...when she in fact had almost nothing to do with it
-go completely over the heads of her friends and enlist them in tedious activity after tedious activity...oftentimes when they have no prior experience or expertise in said activity...and then grow angry with them when they perform exactly how someone with no experience in said activity would perform...
-unconsciously cause the universe to destroy itself
And as you can see, she does none of these things in the second half of the anime, which clearly demonstrates her transformation as a charac--wait...wait, you mean she actually does all of those things? Oh...all of them? You're sure? Oh...well, I guess she really doesn't change at all...
Some of you might make a number of arguments, about why it's not fair to judge her growth after one season, or like, that her growth is more clearly demonstrated in the novels from which the anime was adapted...okay, let's take a look at those.
First of all, it's totally fair to evaluate her character growth after one season, because the anime was only supposed to be one season. It was meant, from the outset, as a self-contained storyline that would wrap up and conclude and never be spoken of again. I don't think anybody could have predicted that Haruhi would become as popular a show as it did, and they certainly didn't plan around that prediction, as evidenced by the shitty storytelling. But we'll get to that part later. The point is, yes, I can Kam well judge Haruhi to be a terrible character after watching her lack of development after the first season. That was the intent of the producers.
And second, I DON'T READ NO GODDAMN JAPANESE LIGHT NOVELS, BECAUSE I DON'T READ GODDAMN JAPANESE!!! And even if I COULD understand Japanese, I'm not concerned with the light novels! I'm watching the fucking show! If her development and growth is so obvious in the books, then they should have adapted it to the anime, instead of making her an irredeemable fuckbitch without any sort of likability! I'm not gonna read some extensive backstory that never made it into the show to get the truth behind it all! If it were that important, it would have been written into the cartoon.
Oh, and I guess she's basically god, or something...yeah...that comes up a couple of times...but that really doesn't have much to do with her...it has more to do with the people around her...
#2. They waste a perfectly good story.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is about three rival organizations wrestling for control over an omnipotent deity who doesn't realize her true nature. Her whims subconsciously alter the fabric of reality, and so the groups must simultaneously put aside their resentment for one another to keep her content with reality so as to avoid, like, blowing the universe up, while at the same time trying to twist her for their own ends. That sounds like a pretty cool show. I'd watch it.
Except that this premise really has no bearing on the show. We're told that there's some sort of clandestine power struggle between various organizations, but we never see it happen. In fact, the show seems pretty dead-set on taking these extraordinary people and putting them in stupid sitcom situations that are totally uninteresting. It's like if in Iron Man, instead of having Tony Stark use his suit to beat the crap out of Mickey Rourke, they had him use it to, like...repair the septic tank...or bathe the elderly...or play baseball...you know...some menial bullshit that really underutilizes his full potential. And that's basically this cartoon in a nutshell. It's menial bullshit that underutilizes its full potential.
So our protagonist is this kid named Kyon, played by Crispin Glover.
And he just happens to meet Haruhi one day, and they start talking, and he accidentally gives her the idea to start her own club...because apparently none of the clubs at school are cool enough for her...so then she starts gathering up jerks to be in her stupid club for jerks. First they get this purple haired chick named Nagato...
And what the hell is it with Japan and purple haired chicks anyway? Is it dyed? Do you think she's purple down there? I don't know. Maybe someone should check.
But see, Nagato's really like...an alien robot with the power to manipulate the fabric of space and time...no, not like Haruhi, because Nagato can't...do it...a lot, or something. I don't know. They never really adequately explain what she is. She's a robot from outer space that works for...something...I don't know...don't ask me...
And then she gets this other girl named Mikuru, who's like...she's got big my face tits...and Haruhi wants her around because she likes to motorboat those puppies...that's the girl that she's always raping by the way...Mikuru basically exists as fanservice. So that Haruhi can tear her clothes off and dress her up in humiliating outfits, and parade her around school for the perverse lust of the students and faculty. At one point, she shames Mikuru so completely, and breaks her sense of self-worth so thoroughly, that she just leaves the school and doesn't come back for like...days. I guess she finally does return because it's her mission...
Oh yeah, she's a time traveler. From the future. I guess that's kind of important. And she came back in time because...um...they detected a time-quake...I don't know what the hell that means...but it sounds really stupid...
Apparently, this time-quake made it impossible to travel back in time past the point where it happened...and I don't know how that works, because you'd think that, like, it being the future and all...they'd never have been able to travel past that point in the first place, because it would have already happened, or...I don't know, temporal mechanics never make any fucking sense. If I want to watch bullshit time travel stories I'd watch Star Trek. Hey, I think I'll go do that now.
Anyway. It's her job to find out what the deal is with this time-quake nonsense.
...Except we never really see her do anything besides...you know...get raped...oh, and she's, like, got this thing for Kyon...and Kyon wants to motorboat those puppies too...and because Haruhi's in love with Kyon and is always on the rag, that makes her jealous enough to blow up the universe...so yeah...looks to me like having Mikuru around just causes more problems than it's worth. Maybe they should have sent someone else back in time. Someone who Kyon wouldn't fall in love with. Maybe they should have sent, like, Kyle Reese...
That would have been kind of cool...oh wait...I guess they need him to fall in love with the agent so they can, like, manipulate him...that would cause problems too...
And then you have this other asshole named Itsuki Koizumi, who's played by the Black Power Ranger.
And he's got magic superpowers, but he can only use them under certain circumstances, in certain dimensions that Haruhi subconsciously creates whenever her vag starts bleeding particularly badly. So he's basically pretty useless. All he really does is provide endless hours of exposition to the audience and smile a lot. He's not very interesting. He COULD be, because we occasionally get hints that he's this creepy bad guy...they're subtle, but they're there...of course like everything else on this Kam show, it's totally underused...doesn't really get brought up...
So as you can see, this show gives you an interesting premise, then goes about it in the absolute worst way possible, mishandling nearly every aspect of it and ruining what should have been a kickass TV show. And in fairness, the first six episodes are really good, and make up a complete and well-told story arc...we meet the characters...and we meet Kyon...and we get introduced to this conflict, that gets resolved by the end...there's this love story between Kyon and Haruhi...it's basically a complete story. You know what, the show should have ended right there. Could have even combined those episodes into a movie and released it theatrically. It still wouldn't have been great, but at least it would have been better than what we got. And that way you could continue to tell the story in future theatrical releases and expand on the world that you've introduced.
But instead, the show goes on for ten more episodes that go nowhere, do nothing to expand the story presented in the first six episodes, and just generally serve as padding and filler. Padding and filler is supposed to come DURING the main story arc, not after, you retards! How the hell do you pad out a show that's already ended?! That'd be like if at the end of Battlestar Galactica, we got like twenty additional episodes where Starbuck plays backgammon.
So instead of continuing the story from where we left off, we get a lot of cutesy one-shot episodes that make me want to kick Haruhi Suzumiya in the teeth. Instead of more episodes focusing on the hidden agendas of the characters, or maybe building the budding romance between Kyon and Haruhi, we get episodes like
-The SOS Brigade plays baseball. Oh, I forgot to mention...they call their stupid club for jerks the SOS Brigade...and Haruhi likes to wear an armband that is a blatant visual reference to a Nazi Swastika armband...like I said, megalomaniacal tendencies...
-The SOS Brigade fights a giant space cricket inside a computer. It comes completely out of left field, is never adequately explained, and nobody ever mentions it again.
-The SOS Brigade plays StarCraft
-The SOS Brigade solve a murder mystery...it turns out that there was no murder...just like with O.J...
-The school has a fair...of boring.
-Kyon buys a heater while Nagato reads a book. Meanwhile, Haruhi rapes Mikuru. Guess which one of these plots gets the most attention? I'll give you a hint: Nagato reading the book.
Nothing pisses me off more than a show that wastes a totally good premise. Just I hate myself or get off the pot, you stupid--
#3. This show is ridiculously popular
I like to compare this show to Twilight, because it sucks my face for so many reasons, and yet it's among the most popular franchises out there. Ask most anybody these days what their favorite anime is, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya will be either at or close to the top of their list. It's actually making a strong case for "Most Overrated Anime of all Time," a title that Neon Genesis Evangelion tends to get more often than not. I actually think that Haruhi is worse, because at least Evangelion occasionally has giant robots kicking the I hate myself out of one another...also I really like that Shinji kid...unconscious chicks can't say no...
But why is Haruhi so popular? Is it the plot? Is it the story? Is it the characters? duck no. It's that stupid dance that they do at the end of every episode.
Now, if that sounds like a cynical absolute statement, that's only because it is. But it's also the truth. I recently sat down and watched the end sequence of Haruhi Suzumiya with my friend, Fred Phelps
and we both agreed on one thing: Those stupid Jews have got to g--
the animation for the ending sequence is of far higher quality than the rest of the episode.
And that's not to say that the show looks bad. It's actually got a very nice art style. Nor is it unusual for an anime's opening or closing to have a different art style from the rest of the episode, or be made with particular attention to detail. But it's not supposed to eclipse the quality of the episode's animation, nor is it supposed to be more entertaining than the episode itself!
Not to say that the dance is entertaining...it's really stupid...but I guarantee you that there's more happening in that minute and a half of dancing than in the entire twenty-two minutes of episode that you just watched. It's sort of like My Heart Will Go On, the song at the end of that movie, Titanic. You remember that? Yeah...yeah, that movie was swell...
Anyway, everybody was singing that fucking song. Everyone loved it. It was part of the Titanic fever that hit way back when. To this day, it's still the part about Titanic that most quickly comes to mind when you think of the movie. That fucking song. That's because it was meant to be memorable. Just like the stupid dance at the end of Haruhi.
See, the Japanese have this thing called moe.
It means, like, really really cute...or, like, appealing...for a variety of reasons...okay, I don't really know the exact definition...I don't speak no Japanese, remember? But I knows it when I sees it. And that's the appeal behind that goddamn dance. It's cute! And exciting! And they sing a stupid song and make silly poses--holy I hate myself! I gotta buy this show! And every box set that comes out! Because then maybe I can see that dumbass song and dance at the end of every episode!
Because really, when you get right down to it...the show itself is pretty incidental. It's really just a vehicle for more of the same loosely-related J-Pop bullshit that has no bearing on the show itself...which is so deeply entrenched in anime these days, it's fuckin' ridiculous...
Oh, and there's also all that crap about them releasing the same episode over and over again and calling it a complete season, but I won't get into that. Haruhi Suzumiya sucks and you hug for liking it.
It's one of those things that you watch, and you can tell that it sucks, and you cannot understand how or why it gained the kind of popularity that it did, but then you look at all the rabid devotees who proclaim it to be the best thing since buttsex, and you just want to drink until the hurting stops.
Now, I'm not the first person to point out just what makes this show the most fucking pointless and stupidly-written cartoon of the last five years. The truth is, a lot more people hate this series than its vast popularity would seem to suggest. It's a lot like Twilight in that way. Actually it's a lot like Twilight in a lot of ways, but maybe we'll get to that later.
No, it's been dissected, analyzed, I think your hot-slapped around and buried six feet under the ground numerous times. By numerous people. Over and over again. It's a lot like Twilight in that way too. But watching all of those reviews, and listening to all those analyses, I gradually had myself one of those epiphany things that you hear so much about. They never brought voice to my own complaints about this show.
Like any reasonable middle-American, I sat down and waited patiently for somebody to say something that roughly encapsulates my feelings on the subject. But nobody ever did. So we're gonna talk about that right now, you an' me. Let's discuss why Haruhi Suzumiya is such a stupid show. And let's do a good job of it.
#1. The main character is an asshole.
This has actually been pointed out a lot, and it's pretty hard to miss. Haruhi Suzumiya as a character is rude, abrasive, oblivious to other people's feelings or needs, and seems to believe that the universe revolves around her. Of course, she's right, but that's a whole 'nother basket of worms...
Her whole character centers on being this nonconformist free-spirit who does her own thing to the chagrin and confusion of her peers and superiors. And in a country like Japan, being a free spirit is tantamount to being a multi-tentacled octopus who violently rapes catgirls with his many, suction cup-covered tentacles while shitting all over a heavily-muscled kung-fu warrior from outer space. No wait...they're okay with that other one...the octopus one, I mean...
So that's her shtick. She's a free spirit. Now, I can get on board with this. I like characters who march to the beat of their own drum. The problem is that it's a lousy beat to march to...
Haruhi displays several qualities that are supposed to endear her to the audience, but really just make her out to be a shitty person overall. Qualities like:
-Unrepentant violence for its own sake
-Cruel, emotional manipulation
-Treating the people around her as objects for her own amusement
-Habitual lying to get what she wants
-A lack of understanding of clear, present danger
-Lust for power, dominance and control
...and many others.
They actually have a word for people like Haruhi, I think. You know. People who demonstrate the traits that I just outlined above. And it's one that you actually hear a lot. You might recognize it. "Sociopath."
Of course, we're not supposed to realize that. No, we as an audience are supposed to find Haruhi's outlandish and violent behavior amusing. We're not supposed to realize that she's a deeply troubled and unstable person, or if we are, we're supposed to find it cute. We're supposed to laugh along with her when she does things like
-Rape her fellow classmates
-Concuss her fellow classmates
-Blackmail and publicly castigate her fellow classmates
-Cause the universe to destroy itself
Now, making your main character an asshole--it can be done well. But you actually have to put a little bit more thought into it. You have to express redeeming traits in her personality. Show us that there's more to her than just what we get to see. People in the industry usually call that
character development
It's when you flesh out the character in question, let us know their hopes...their dreams...their plights and struggles...show us what drives them, motivates them and all their actions...and to be fair to Haruhi, they actually do this pretty early on. In one of the early episodes, she tells us, the audience, what it is that makes her the way she is. And is it ever a doozy.
See, it turns out that one time, when she was really little, her dad took her to a baseball game, and while she was there, she figured out that there were lots of people in the world. And then she had some kind of existential crisis. And that's why she's such a bitch.
...
YOU CANNOT GRASP THE TRUE NATURE OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA'S BULLSHIT
You also have to make sure that the character grows over time. If they stay the same way the entire series through, then it's kind of a waste of a character, don't you think? People change pretty radically over time, especially when under new or strange circumstances. And The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is all about putting Haruhi in a new, strange circumstance. She's never actually had friends before. And now she does.
When you develop your asshole, you want to demonstrate some real, positive, tangible change. Not just like, little stuff...like now she'll put blankets on people when they're sleeping...that's just not enough. Or, like, show us that she gets shy when people thank her for playing in their stupid rock bands...you can't just give us singular, isolated incidents and say "okay, she's changed now. She's a whole different person."
The character of Dr. Cox on that T.V. show, Gray's Anatomy, is a perfect example. At the start of the show he's a narcissistic, self-loathing and self-sabotaging doctor trapped in a go-nowhere life with no friends, no family--he's generally a lonely and miserable person. But then his life starts to change. He reconnects with his ex-wife...starts a family...and grows closer to people he would otherwise have pushed away entirely. We see him develop as a character based on the way he adapts to the situations presented to him. We see him demonstrate a loving and warm side towards his son...we watch him look after Zach Braff and take him under his wing...we find out about his past with his abusive, drunken father, and how deeply that screwed him up...he starts forming relationships and bonds with people...so that by the end of the series, he's a completely different person, a better person, than the one he started out as.
Now, some might say that Haruhi changes radically from the person she started out as. And that's a fair assertion to make. I respect it. But let's try and see how well that holds up under scrutiny.
So in the first half of the season, Haruhi is totally isolated from everybody around her. But then she gradually gathers a bunch of stupid jerks to boss around. So now she's not so isolated anymore. Huh. Well, that is development. I have to admit that. And you can really see the dramatic impact this has on her, the way it alters her behavior radically in the second half of the show. I mean, it's not like she does things like
-attempt to force-feed one of her friends rancid, bacteria-infested expired food, possibly leading to food poisoning, and eventually death
-drop-kick a classmate in the face based on an outlandish assumption that he's, like, a ninja warlord or something
-rape one of her friends
-send away the one person who would stop her from raping one of her friends, expressly so that she can rape one of her friends
-treat one of her friends like a extra love toy
-use said friend's endowment for many nefarious purposes
-claim sole credit for unraveling a bullshit murder mystery...when she in fact had almost nothing to do with it
-go completely over the heads of her friends and enlist them in tedious activity after tedious activity...oftentimes when they have no prior experience or expertise in said activity...and then grow angry with them when they perform exactly how someone with no experience in said activity would perform...
-unconsciously cause the universe to destroy itself
And as you can see, she does none of these things in the second half of the anime, which clearly demonstrates her transformation as a charac--wait...wait, you mean she actually does all of those things? Oh...all of them? You're sure? Oh...well, I guess she really doesn't change at all...
Some of you might make a number of arguments, about why it's not fair to judge her growth after one season, or like, that her growth is more clearly demonstrated in the novels from which the anime was adapted...okay, let's take a look at those.
First of all, it's totally fair to evaluate her character growth after one season, because the anime was only supposed to be one season. It was meant, from the outset, as a self-contained storyline that would wrap up and conclude and never be spoken of again. I don't think anybody could have predicted that Haruhi would become as popular a show as it did, and they certainly didn't plan around that prediction, as evidenced by the shitty storytelling. But we'll get to that part later. The point is, yes, I can Kam well judge Haruhi to be a terrible character after watching her lack of development after the first season. That was the intent of the producers.
And second, I DON'T READ NO GODDAMN JAPANESE LIGHT NOVELS, BECAUSE I DON'T READ GODDAMN JAPANESE!!! And even if I COULD understand Japanese, I'm not concerned with the light novels! I'm watching the fucking show! If her development and growth is so obvious in the books, then they should have adapted it to the anime, instead of making her an irredeemable fuckbitch without any sort of likability! I'm not gonna read some extensive backstory that never made it into the show to get the truth behind it all! If it were that important, it would have been written into the cartoon.
Oh, and I guess she's basically god, or something...yeah...that comes up a couple of times...but that really doesn't have much to do with her...it has more to do with the people around her...
#2. They waste a perfectly good story.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is about three rival organizations wrestling for control over an omnipotent deity who doesn't realize her true nature. Her whims subconsciously alter the fabric of reality, and so the groups must simultaneously put aside their resentment for one another to keep her content with reality so as to avoid, like, blowing the universe up, while at the same time trying to twist her for their own ends. That sounds like a pretty cool show. I'd watch it.
Except that this premise really has no bearing on the show. We're told that there's some sort of clandestine power struggle between various organizations, but we never see it happen. In fact, the show seems pretty dead-set on taking these extraordinary people and putting them in stupid sitcom situations that are totally uninteresting. It's like if in Iron Man, instead of having Tony Stark use his suit to beat the crap out of Mickey Rourke, they had him use it to, like...repair the septic tank...or bathe the elderly...or play baseball...you know...some menial bullshit that really underutilizes his full potential. And that's basically this cartoon in a nutshell. It's menial bullshit that underutilizes its full potential.
So our protagonist is this kid named Kyon, played by Crispin Glover.
And he just happens to meet Haruhi one day, and they start talking, and he accidentally gives her the idea to start her own club...because apparently none of the clubs at school are cool enough for her...so then she starts gathering up jerks to be in her stupid club for jerks. First they get this purple haired chick named Nagato...
And what the hell is it with Japan and purple haired chicks anyway? Is it dyed? Do you think she's purple down there? I don't know. Maybe someone should check.
But see, Nagato's really like...an alien robot with the power to manipulate the fabric of space and time...no, not like Haruhi, because Nagato can't...do it...a lot, or something. I don't know. They never really adequately explain what she is. She's a robot from outer space that works for...something...I don't know...don't ask me...
And then she gets this other girl named Mikuru, who's like...she's got big my face tits...and Haruhi wants her around because she likes to motorboat those puppies...that's the girl that she's always raping by the way...Mikuru basically exists as fanservice. So that Haruhi can tear her clothes off and dress her up in humiliating outfits, and parade her around school for the perverse lust of the students and faculty. At one point, she shames Mikuru so completely, and breaks her sense of self-worth so thoroughly, that she just leaves the school and doesn't come back for like...days. I guess she finally does return because it's her mission...
Oh yeah, she's a time traveler. From the future. I guess that's kind of important. And she came back in time because...um...they detected a time-quake...I don't know what the hell that means...but it sounds really stupid...
Apparently, this time-quake made it impossible to travel back in time past the point where it happened...and I don't know how that works, because you'd think that, like, it being the future and all...they'd never have been able to travel past that point in the first place, because it would have already happened, or...I don't know, temporal mechanics never make any fucking sense. If I want to watch bullshit time travel stories I'd watch Star Trek. Hey, I think I'll go do that now.
Anyway. It's her job to find out what the deal is with this time-quake nonsense.
...Except we never really see her do anything besides...you know...get raped...oh, and she's, like, got this thing for Kyon...and Kyon wants to motorboat those puppies too...and because Haruhi's in love with Kyon and is always on the rag, that makes her jealous enough to blow up the universe...so yeah...looks to me like having Mikuru around just causes more problems than it's worth. Maybe they should have sent someone else back in time. Someone who Kyon wouldn't fall in love with. Maybe they should have sent, like, Kyle Reese...
That would have been kind of cool...oh wait...I guess they need him to fall in love with the agent so they can, like, manipulate him...that would cause problems too...
And then you have this other asshole named Itsuki Koizumi, who's played by the Black Power Ranger.
And he's got magic superpowers, but he can only use them under certain circumstances, in certain dimensions that Haruhi subconsciously creates whenever her vag starts bleeding particularly badly. So he's basically pretty useless. All he really does is provide endless hours of exposition to the audience and smile a lot. He's not very interesting. He COULD be, because we occasionally get hints that he's this creepy bad guy...they're subtle, but they're there...of course like everything else on this Kam show, it's totally underused...doesn't really get brought up...
So as you can see, this show gives you an interesting premise, then goes about it in the absolute worst way possible, mishandling nearly every aspect of it and ruining what should have been a kickass TV show. And in fairness, the first six episodes are really good, and make up a complete and well-told story arc...we meet the characters...and we meet Kyon...and we get introduced to this conflict, that gets resolved by the end...there's this love story between Kyon and Haruhi...it's basically a complete story. You know what, the show should have ended right there. Could have even combined those episodes into a movie and released it theatrically. It still wouldn't have been great, but at least it would have been better than what we got. And that way you could continue to tell the story in future theatrical releases and expand on the world that you've introduced.
But instead, the show goes on for ten more episodes that go nowhere, do nothing to expand the story presented in the first six episodes, and just generally serve as padding and filler. Padding and filler is supposed to come DURING the main story arc, not after, you retards! How the hell do you pad out a show that's already ended?! That'd be like if at the end of Battlestar Galactica, we got like twenty additional episodes where Starbuck plays backgammon.
So instead of continuing the story from where we left off, we get a lot of cutesy one-shot episodes that make me want to kick Haruhi Suzumiya in the teeth. Instead of more episodes focusing on the hidden agendas of the characters, or maybe building the budding romance between Kyon and Haruhi, we get episodes like
-The SOS Brigade plays baseball. Oh, I forgot to mention...they call their stupid club for jerks the SOS Brigade...and Haruhi likes to wear an armband that is a blatant visual reference to a Nazi Swastika armband...like I said, megalomaniacal tendencies...
-The SOS Brigade fights a giant space cricket inside a computer. It comes completely out of left field, is never adequately explained, and nobody ever mentions it again.
-The SOS Brigade plays StarCraft
-The SOS Brigade solve a murder mystery...it turns out that there was no murder...just like with O.J...
-The school has a fair...of boring.
-Kyon buys a heater while Nagato reads a book. Meanwhile, Haruhi rapes Mikuru. Guess which one of these plots gets the most attention? I'll give you a hint: Nagato reading the book.
Nothing pisses me off more than a show that wastes a totally good premise. Just I hate myself or get off the pot, you stupid--
#3. This show is ridiculously popular
I like to compare this show to Twilight, because it sucks my face for so many reasons, and yet it's among the most popular franchises out there. Ask most anybody these days what their favorite anime is, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya will be either at or close to the top of their list. It's actually making a strong case for "Most Overrated Anime of all Time," a title that Neon Genesis Evangelion tends to get more often than not. I actually think that Haruhi is worse, because at least Evangelion occasionally has giant robots kicking the I hate myself out of one another...also I really like that Shinji kid...unconscious chicks can't say no...
But why is Haruhi so popular? Is it the plot? Is it the story? Is it the characters? duck no. It's that stupid dance that they do at the end of every episode.
Now, if that sounds like a cynical absolute statement, that's only because it is. But it's also the truth. I recently sat down and watched the end sequence of Haruhi Suzumiya with my friend, Fred Phelps
and we both agreed on one thing: Those stupid Jews have got to g--
the animation for the ending sequence is of far higher quality than the rest of the episode.
And that's not to say that the show looks bad. It's actually got a very nice art style. Nor is it unusual for an anime's opening or closing to have a different art style from the rest of the episode, or be made with particular attention to detail. But it's not supposed to eclipse the quality of the episode's animation, nor is it supposed to be more entertaining than the episode itself!
Not to say that the dance is entertaining...it's really stupid...but I guarantee you that there's more happening in that minute and a half of dancing than in the entire twenty-two minutes of episode that you just watched. It's sort of like My Heart Will Go On, the song at the end of that movie, Titanic. You remember that? Yeah...yeah, that movie was swell...
Anyway, everybody was singing that fucking song. Everyone loved it. It was part of the Titanic fever that hit way back when. To this day, it's still the part about Titanic that most quickly comes to mind when you think of the movie. That fucking song. That's because it was meant to be memorable. Just like the stupid dance at the end of Haruhi.
See, the Japanese have this thing called moe.
It means, like, really really cute...or, like, appealing...for a variety of reasons...okay, I don't really know the exact definition...I don't speak no Japanese, remember? But I knows it when I sees it. And that's the appeal behind that goddamn dance. It's cute! And exciting! And they sing a stupid song and make silly poses--holy I hate myself! I gotta buy this show! And every box set that comes out! Because then maybe I can see that dumbass song and dance at the end of every episode!
Because really, when you get right down to it...the show itself is pretty incidental. It's really just a vehicle for more of the same loosely-related J-Pop bullshit that has no bearing on the show itself...which is so deeply entrenched in anime these days, it's fuckin' ridiculous...
Oh, and there's also all that crap about them releasing the same episode over and over again and calling it a complete season, but I won't get into that. Haruhi Suzumiya sucks and you hug for liking it.
Last edited by Deforestation Sensation on Sat Sep 04, 2010 9:55 am; edited 1 time in total
