Haruhi (2009) 12: Um… wow. That wasn’t all that good.
Posted: June 20, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized 15 Comments »
Nice shirt.
Though Haruhi S1 was, in essence, a bunch of random events mashed together, this episode brings such a theme to new heights (or rather, lows*). This episode presented to us the SOS Brigade’s entire summer in twenty minutes – a seemingly impossible task. And it partially was.
In a nutshell…
This episode had too much for its own good.
Watching Yuki’s emotionless reactions was certainly the highlight of the twenty-five minutes I gave this episode (and god, that “snakes” fireworks and the gun parts cracked me up). A close second was Kyon’s ever-awesome sarcastic comments.
But that was basically it. Everything else was so mundane, so un-Haruhiesque that I barely managed to finish watching the episode.
When the events took up one episode apiece (for example, the baseball episode and the SOS v. Computer Society game episode), there was enough elbow room to allow Haruhi’s eccentric personality shine through and make what otherwise would have been a boring episode into a fresh, fun, new one.
However, this episode bombarded its audience with event after event – all of which have been presented in one shape or another in at least several other slice-of-life anime/manga. For example, fireworks appear in almost every single slice-of-life comedy, as do beach and/or pool episodes. Compared to bug catching and fishing, baseball and computer games are much less common in most slice-of-life comedies.
Choosing these events was, in itself, a flaw – though not a fatal one yet. The fatal flaw, IMO, was that these events were squeezed so closely that Haruhi’s inhuman personality didn’t have time (or audience attention span) to get across.
Now this isn’t to say that Haruhi didn’t make some Haruhiesque comments. She sure did. Her looking for Martians is a great example of this method that just didn’t work in this episode. Although it’s basically what Haruhi would have said in any other episode, it doesn’t work here because the audience is constantly looking at new scenes, new settings, and new patches of the SOS Brigade’s summer.
I must admit that the episode did a commendable job trying to solve this:
- Haruhi’s eccentricity is essentially what made all of the SOS Brigade members go through these events
- The sheer number of events is witness to the sheer insanity of Haruhi’s mind
- Kyon and Koizumi’s short discussion on how Haruhi is learning to enjoy normal events
- Haruhi actually participating in normal events
- Short, random assertments of Haruhi’s personality
- Haruhi looking for Martians
- Haruhi being bossy
However, it’s firmly my belief that all of this cannot even touch the fact that the events are, by nature, boring and stereotyped. Add to that the rushed feeling, and we, as the audience, can’t pay attention when Haruhi’s personality comes through, ignore Haruhi’s statements because they feel natural, or even feel that Haruhi is actually in the way of the flow of events (i.e. it feels that ‘looking for Martians’ is a very forced line).
I watched episode 10 of the 2009 run not long before this episode (at most a day or two ago), and it had a fireworks scene and a beach scene, so I’m probably really biased towards this episode. Also, I just watched Eden 11 and Sora Kake 24, both of which were incredible episodes (the latter a lot more so), so this episode could seem less amazing in comparison (especially since Eden 11 was a finale and SoraKake 24 was a close-to-final episode). Though I guess if you think about it, Haruhi (2009) 12 should stand out as a great episode no matter what, given that it’s – you know, Haruhi.
Meh. Just my two cents.
P.S.: I’ve found out that my episodics have shortened. I guess typing up a lot per post has put too large a strain on my fragile, precious fingers.
Heh well someone has his expectations set a bit high XD. Personally I enjoyed this episode very much. However that’s also due to the fact that I enjoy slice of life moments like a gang of friends hanging out. So this was ep was to me, a combination of two win things, fun slice of life, and the Haruhi gang. It’s only natural that I would be a bit(very) biased. It seems like you’re leaning in the other direction though, with the whole “Slice of life is fundamentally boring.” Also the small details like a change of outfits everyday (Surprisingly rare in anime. They actually changed everyday like real people XD) and etc were the icing on the cake.
Nah, actually the whole thing with Haruhi is overhyped and overanalyzed. How did a moe adaptation of some random novel become a supposed masterpiece that deals with all sorts of sci-fi elements, blahblahblah, is beyond me. Sure it’s fun but the hype has really grown out of proportion. I mean, once you look at it, Haruhi is ridden with cliches, they’re practically all over the place. The thing that actually made it fly was Kyon’s commentaries, the animation and moe, and that’s it, but somehow Haruhitards have come up with all sorts of virtues to defend the series and the previously unknown novels and they just keep coming.
It’s a pleasurable watch but that’s it. Of course all Haruhizombies will fervently disagree, but to anyone who’s still sane enough, once you forget about the -tards and set your expectations within the usual range, you’d have no problem with Haruhi.
This episode was too mediocre… Oh well, it may be because of the fact that I was over hyped by the 12th episode of Hayate
Dude, while I agree that this didn’t feel like a true Haruhi episode, there’s a reason for that. Did you notice Nagato is flipping bored no matter what happens. (Even her unusual curiosity is missing.) I was hoping they were going to show the last loop, but it looks like they chose one in between.
In all seriousness, this episode is fan-service for people who had read the books. I highly recommend going to http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Suzumiya_Haruhi:Volume5_Endless_Eight to read what’s really happening in this story. This episode is really kinda’ like the Mikuru movie the club filmed where the episode is showing events that happened, but the book explains everything (Mikuru Beam!). If you read the story, and then watch the episode again, paying close attention to Nagato, it almost makes you want to cry for her (even more so if you read the rest of the stories that lead up to the disappearance).
just two commenrs:
– DID YOU READ THE NOVEL?
– fair review if you read the novel (if not its still fair but might change)
So what do you say? That the adaptation is really crap and the novel is superb? That the adaptation hardly follows the novel so the cliche sci-fi elements and other stuff incorporated in the adaptation somehow aren’t in the novel? So did KyoAni fail in adapting the novel or is the novel itself what it is?
eg. Having read LotR before the movies, I can say that the movies just don’t live up to the book. Knowing that though, it’s the best possible adaptation so far, in that it can get the new crowd interested and still appease the old fans of the book a good degree. I know where they took ridiculous hollywood liberties and I will never defend them on their own merit. I can comprehend their necessity as far as the medium is concerned but that’s all. On the contrary all the arguments for Haruhi (and a number of other overhyped anime) I’ve seen are in essence two.
1. Haruhi is teh epic win (insert random reason if applicable).
2. If argument 1 fails (as it is bound to), bring the argument of not having read an insignificant novel into play, as if the source material will make all the difference in the world as far as the anime goes.
As I said, Haruhi is kinda fun, but the overhype and the overanalysis is so ridiculous the universe must be a practical joker.
@npal Actually, the anime is an almost spot on adaptation of the novel. There are some things that come through in the Anime that I didn’t feel in novel such as Kyon’s quick wit (example: Haruhi: “Start!” Kyon thinks: Finish!).
As far as your thought that a book cannot be converted to the visual medium (I think this is what you’re saying), I have to say in this case, you’re wrong. The stories in the novels, which are mostly short story collections, are pretty short and fit into the 22-25 minute time frame allowed pretty easily. Also, as they chose to go with an episodic TV series instead of movies, they have a bit more time to work with and don’t have to cut as much material as they did in LotR. (Thank goodness they did though, I don’t know if I could handle Tom Bombadill again.) Books by nature contain more than a movie and as such benefit heavily from the extra time allotted by a 24 episode series than a 3-hour movie. There are some things in the books that aren’t in the Anime, but they are pretty minuscule.
As to the over hype, I kind of agree, but I enjoy it. My favorite part of the series is the out of order airing of the episodes such that they built up to the epic experience in the last episode of what really was the sixth chronologically. If you watch them in chronological order the first time, you won’t feel a lot of the mystery that others had. Frankly, it’s just an OK series that way. There was a real art to the way the they were aired, and I have to credit KyoAni for what they did.
No no, I didn’t say that a book CANNOT be converted.
I made two points. One that a conversion should be self-contained. If I have to refer to the source material due to the adaptation being incomplete, the adaptation has failed. e.g. Clannad’s balls of light, F/SN (many stuff).
The other is that the hype killed people’s sense. I can understand people loving something, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Damn, my favorite series is CCS, but the why I like it has nothing to do with it being an objective masterpiece that I can defend against valid reasoning. It has its good parts and its not-so-good parts. Haruhiists cannot comprehend that their thing is not as great as they make it appear and certainly cannot comprehend that it has flaws, that’s what pisses me off with anything that gets overhyped.
And damn, I was actually looking forward to Tom :p The total GARness of wearing the One Ring and being its master instead of it possessing you cannot be described in words. I was really disappointed that it wasn’t there, but I learned to live with it, as I learned to live with the AragornxArwen hollywood mix >_>
Yeah, and you can too. There’s and awesome translation wiki up at http://www.baka-tsuki.org that was actually started to translate the Haruhi novels and has since grown to a good number of popular titles. It even allows you to download PDFs of the books. My current scheme with these is to download the PDF, convert them to a PRC with the Mobipocket Creator (http://www.mobipocket.com/en/DownloadSoft/default.asp?Language=EN), and copy them to my Kindle and/or phone. I just wish there were an official translation of these books.
Nice observation on the shirt. This episode wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad. One thing I really liked about it though was that Kyon’s personality really shined, especially at the end.
FlameStrike, I actually love slice-of-life comedies. I’m just pointing out that more innovation is needed because slice-of-life is just that – a slice of ordinary life that shows things the audience has experienced (or at least seen/heard of) before.
But in any case, I think my high expectations are somewhat justified. [replying to everybody now] Although this episode might have been better had I read the light novels, it shouldn’t have to be that the episode sucks if I don’t read the light novels. I mean, Haruhi season one was, in my opinion, one of the greatest anime of all time. I’m watching Haruhi (2009) from start to finish, and I can honestly feel a large difference between the old episodes and the new ones.
Sure, as npal says, Haruhi was and is filled with cliches, but in the past, Haruhi, Yuki, and Mikuru’s contrasting personalities, Kyon’s sarcastic narration, and Koizumi’s… queerness all allowed us to become immersed within the anime – experiencing ordinary everyday events from a not-so-ordinary viewpoint.
Like I said in a previous post, Kyon and Haruhi allow us to directly experience normality via abnormality via normality. In other words, we see Haruhi’s insanity affecting normal events through the normal eyes of Kyon. This episode, however, failed to leave this same impression on me. It was basically normal via normal via normal – a cluster of cliched events without the usual Haruhi ingredient to spice things up.
Though as Tsaot said, there could be a valid reason for this deviation. I will run through this episode again on Tsaot’s advice and focus on Yuki, but I believe that a Haruhi episode need not a second run-through, an explanation, or, as I stated above, a previous reading of the light novels to shine brilliantly.
P.S.: @Tsaot: I actually thought that the Ultraman mask and beetle parts reflected Yuki’s odd curiosity pretty well.
This episode was mediocre, but I’m sure it will end up being the worst episode of the season, meaning that the rest of the episodes will kick serious ass.
Heheh, high hopes you’ve got there!
Though I shouldn’t be talking. After waiting for so long, I have my Haruhiist engines on full-throttle right now, and my hopes are as high as ever, despite this recent boring episode.
I noticed your sub(s) suck. Try a.f.k.’s. They, at least, don’t suck, though some people are bitching about their nonHDness (out of curiosity, is S2 even released in HD or is it upscaled raws?) so I can’t vouch for that part.
As for your actual review, I agree with it. It’s a pretty tame episode compared to the excitement level I’m used to with Haruhi S1. I complained to a friend about it and his cryptic remark made me think I was missing something. As an FYI, haven’t read the novels yet. Basically, I’m expecting better things (story-wise, ‘cos I think the animation’s a lost cause) next week. Here’s hoping.
Ha! So where were you when they first aired the chronlogically last episode “Someday in the Rain”? People were screaming how bad Haruhi failed after such a promising start. Little did they know all of the awesome sh** (Asakura, the concert, the ending, etc) would come after that episode.