It would appear I’m also tsundere for Haruhi Suzumiya-chan
It’s funny watching the “Where’s my Haruhi sequel?!” dorama unfold from a distance and not really being fussed one way or the other. If my finances were a little healthier I’d have bought the DVDs of the first season already but since 1. I still think Mushishi is more awesome* and 2. my Tokyo trip is my priority at the moment they’ll have to wait. While I’m not as affected by the absence of Haruhi’s second appearance as most people I did begin to take a passing interest in the chibi-fied, ONA incarnation, Suzumiya-chan Haruhi no Yuutsu. Eventually.
I honestly believe there’s a lot of potential in ONAs: not just the fifteen minute slabs of win that make up Eve no Jikan and the idea of Crunchyroll ‘going straight’ but the general freedom of expression and distribution that the format offers. I can’t comment on CR’s integrity in the past, though, and truthfully the ONA issue would warrant a post of its own. In any case the launch of the Haruhi spin-off that I’m guessing is supposed to stop the fans lynching the studio staff fill the gap before the second season bypassed all that and went straight to Youtube; even in the current climate I was pleasantly surprised at that.
These episodes are pretty far-removed from Haruhi Suzumiya as a slice of life/sci-fi piece, or whatever other genre boundaries it gleefully jumped over. Nevertheless I always saw Haruhi Suzumiya as being as much a beneficiary of circumstance, in that there may not have been many other good shows airing during the spring 2006 season to compete, as a *good* anime series in its own right. That DVD rewatch may alter my stance but as enjoyable as it was I felt like I’d missed something when I look at the fervour the very mention of her name whips up.
The Suzumiya-chan Haruhi ONA in contrast to this ignores the complications, the gimmicks and pretty much everything else about the Haruhiverse (yes, I made that word up on the spot). Instead it strips things down to the bare minimum of the characters and the comedy: in the tradition of 4-koma the chibi incarnations and ‘short sketch’ approach work fine. Although it has yet to do anything groundbreaking Suzumiya-chan Haruhi is already a little reminiscent of another show that I eventually warmed to: Lucky Star.
This is going to be embarrassing.**
I was never completely sold on Haruhi Suzumiya’s head-on collision of everyday comedy and science fiction that rewrites the laws of causality, in the same way that the romcom and mecha action in Full Metal Panic! mixed about as well as oil and water. A similar brand of slapstick and non-sequitur humour to the gags that makes Lucky Star so endearing worked better on its own merits in FMP? FUMOFFU and it does pretty much the same here. It doesn’t try to do anything special; it just throws out some surreal, throwaway sketches with little weight of expectation tied to them.
Because the first season of Haruhi Suzumiya was a high profile, big budget show I felt almost guilty for not ‘getting’ it or appreciating the finer details; Haruhi Suzumiya-chan in contrast looks cheap and disposable in the best possible way. Each episode is posted up online for a limited period so if the gags fall flat, who the heck cares? The worst that happens is you wasted less than five minutes of your life on something that went in one ear and out the other (much like reading a post on this blog really. OTL ) but on the other hand it could make you laugh yourself silly for a little while with no adverse effect on your pocket. Similarly these short skits must be a lot less labour-intensive for the studio to crank out so really, everybody wins.
If this is indeed a plug to fill a sheduling gap it’s a sound decision on the producers’ part: it features familiar characters, a cutesy aesthetic and rapidfire gags to appeal to the fans and keep the Haruhi Suzumiya name in the headlines but its limited shelf life and (so far) lack of storyline prevent it dragging the main series down if it fails. Of course I’ve yet to see it fail: it took a few episodes to tune my brain onto the same wavelength as the writers’ humour but once that little bit of effort was out of the way I sat back and enjoyed it for the simple, harmless fun that it is.
Some of the sketches are in a similar vein to the knockabout hijinks that surrounded the SOS-dan and their increasingly outrageous schemes in the original series but in addition to Nagato’s new-found obsession with playing NSFW games on her laptop (mwahahahaha!) the appearance of Achakura had me utterly creased up. It’s not often that this sort of comedy does anything for me but for some reason her character, possibly aided by the transformation from Ryoko Asakura, is pure LOL for me. I dare you to look at the picture above for more than fifteen seconds without laughing.
*this gag would be lost on you if you didn’t read my old blog.
**ditto.
Shame on you for not making any mention of Haruhi-chan’s sister ONA, Nyoron Churuya-san, which is probably where the biggest surreal laughs of the bunch are. ;) Lots of completely out of place references to smoked cheese (including the appearance of a gravestone for said cheese in the latest episode), Tsuruya being told “You will die”, and the ever-cute, ever-hilarious catchphrase, a melancholy “Nyoron….” just make me laugh for no particular reason every single time.
That aside, The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya does have enough funny moments to be worth watching given that it’s free and is hardly a massive sink of anyone’s time – I still burst out laughing at the thought of mini-Ryoko being pinged at high speed from her folded cushion…
I think I can pinpoint the moment I caught on to Haruhi-chan. That was when they switched from the awkward CG to the chibi-look traditional animation. It does definitely resemble Lucky Star, and it plays well with the characters, who were already kind of anime parodies (albeit a little more well-developed) to begin with.
If and when a sequel happens, it will be a cool thing, but the light novels start to get extremely tied up with time travel and alternate realities. Right now it’s a lot of fun to just watch these noncommittal little slices for the laughs.
Achakura and Nagato are the runaway stars of Haruhi-chan. They’re really fun to watch and are so cute together. The short episodes allow for convenient rewatches too.
Aww, you can comment all you like on crunkyroll’s integrity! Comment away!
I do think that the Haruhi writers have hit on something with Nagato’s obsession. The otakusphere really identifies with characters who do socially unacceptable things, and in fact, I think it might qualify as a kind of moe (witness the love for Konata’s habit of playing ero games.)
Glad to know I called it right.
Yuki as a character has taken on a brand-new angle ever since I read the entire Hyperion Cantos and saw the allusions, however scant, so this revisit to the Haruhiverse is rather enjoyable for me, too.
@Hanners: I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even know about Churuya’s own spin-off but since I found her character to be utterly awesome in the original series I’ll check this one out too.
Y’know, I could sooo see that coming when I watched that but when it actually happened I was still creased up with laughter!
@otou-san: I think the sci-fi side of things in the main series would work better if they were to be used more extensively – that way I’d see them as less of a gimmick. ‘Alternate realities’ sounds like a good excuse to play around with the characters and situations, which I think the writers could do very well indeed…I hope.
@ghostlightning: yeah. For some reason I find their antics more entertaining than the SOS-dan and their misadventures. The series could probably get away with just the two of them…and possibly cut a deal with Sennheiser over those bunny ear headphones. ;)
@Moritheil: TBH I don’t know much about CR’s integrity at all, or even what the fandom as a whole thinks of them. Still, it was an unusual move to put this series on Youtube but it works a treat.
@Owen S: you’re trying to say you told me so without actually saying “I told you so!”, right? ;p I’ll look into the Hyperion series at some point for the epic-ness as well as for the allusions, although the Saga of Seven Suns is giving me a bit of a space opera overdose at the moment. I have to say Crest of the Stars does it better than Anderson does though.
I’ve neer gotten into the hype with Haruhi either, but I don’t think there’s anything in particular I’m missing. Then again, I can’t see the big deal about Nyoron Churuya-san. She’s abused and taken advantage of, then she says nyoro~n. Ha-ha?
Omisyth: Churuya-san’s humor is more dark, so if that’s not your thing, it makes sense. I like both, but I prefer the gag-type humor of Haruhi-chan much more.
Damn it! whyd they have to make it chibi?! its retarded!