[Anime #3] The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Title: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
Director: Tatsuya Ishihara
Original Creator: Nagaru Tanigawa
Number of Episodes: 14 (complete)
Plot Summary: On the first day of high school a beautiful girl named Haruhi Suzumiya introduces herself as having "no interest in ordinary humans". She asks for any aliens, time travelers, sliders or espers to join her. Watching her weird behaviour is Kyon who sits in front of Haruhi and is the only person who talks to her. When Kyon comments about Haruhi's joining every club in school and then quitting he unwittingly gives Haruhi an idea to start her own after school club. Thereafter Kyon and several others find themselves dragged, literally, into the Save our world by Overloading it with fun Suzumiya Haruhi's Brigade (the S.O.S. Brigade for short).

REVIEW: Alright! I will be completely honest and say that I said that I would never ever like this anime. I thought it was nothing more than a mindless anime about yuri induced fan-service-ness.

But I was proven wrong... dead wrong.

AnimeExpo 2007 came and went over the six days that I worked there last week/weekend. And this year, there were many musical talents present for the annual gathering of otaku nerdy-ness. Amongst the talents was none other than the amazing SOS Brigade themselves (which consisted of Aya Hirano, Minori Chihara, & Yuko Goto).

My sister had been talking about this anime for months on end and have tried to get me to watch the series. (A couple of times, she actually convinced me to actually sit threw an episode; thus making the already slightly confusing series even more confusing as I only watched bits and pieces plus one episode.) Then when it was the final day of Expo, I was walking by the Bandai Booth and saw my beloved Johnny Yong Bosch signing autographs for the series' poster. That was enough of a reason for me to check it out!

So here I am Tuesday/Wednesday watching the entire series between doing house chores and unpacking. FINALLY, I finished the series and here are my thoughts:

It was good. Well, at least better than I gave it credit for. The animation, many times, reminded me of the Japanese PC hentai RPG games. The story was very engaging as it was confusing. By the end of the series, I was happy to see that amits all the confusion and such, I actually enjoyed the series. With it's quirky subtle jokes and it's constant slapstick fan-service humor.

The music was so DAMN catchy! How could you not like the songs for this series?! I fell in love with the opening theme as I wasn't so partial to the ending theme (as all during AX I heard that song a 100 times T_T). But I think by the end of the series it really grew on me. ^_^

Characters throughout the series suprised me. I liked the character development as well as the nice aray of different personalities (complete with a heroine whose not your typical damsel in distress).

If I had to make one stipulation, it would have to say that the fan-service was a bit overboard. I know a little here and there is understandable... but come one now. A bit overkill, don'tcha' think?

Overall: For actually getting me to watch the entire series in 2 days I give it a lot of props! If I day that I didn't want to get into a series most likely it'll never happen. Yet with this one I ate up an entire 14 episodes in the time span of 24 hours. So that deserves a bit of recognition. Of course, if Haruhi was here, she would not be hearing just me and my modest praises for this slightly "off" anime series, she would would be hearing a standing ovation for her ultra cool, quirky, musically talented, mysterious anime filled with LOTS of Suzumiya Haruhi fun! Won't you join the brigade? (Restrictions for joining: you must be an esper, time traveler, slider, or alien.)

Overall (dub) : B
Overall (sub) : A-
Story : B/B+
Animation : B+/A-
Art : B+
Music : B+