Anime preview: The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya

 




The last episodes of the second season of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" mix mischief, emotional angst and science fiction in a fascinating story.

Despite the general disgust of the "Endless Eight" story arc, the last part, "The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya," is well worth a second look. Although fans hated this series after "Endless Eight," they definitely have to stick around to watch Haruhi produce a student film with the S.O.S. Brigade.

The story is simple. Haruhi Suzumiya wants to do something with the club for the school's cultural fair. For whatever reason, she decides she will hold a film screening for a movie.

And of course, Kyon and the other group members have to participate in it. They don't have much of a choice, considering that the fate of the world depends on Haruhi's satisfaction.

This film, of course, is a direct reference to the student film spoof in episode 0 of the first season. This was a cheap, but laugh-out-loud funny movie with Asahina as a battle waitress.

Now, some people might think the film process might be boring. However, Haruhi makes things especially interesting, because anything she wishes has the possibility of coming true. She is a god, after all.

As we saw in the "Endless Eight" saga, Haruhi has the power to change all possible laws of time and space, rendering her as more powerful than even Lain Iwakura from Serial Experiments Lain.

Unlike Lain, Haruhi has no idea she has these powers, making the anime even more chaotic. Haruhi manages to talk store owners into giving her props and film equipment. She even manages to find a colored contact lens for Asahina to wear.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of this series after the "Endless Eight," no one can deny that "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" is the most unpredictable anime series ever made. It has the tendency to switch from a comedy to a dark drama instantly. The characters are constantly on the edge, especially in this story arc. Everyone is literally hoping that no one dies because of Haruhi's imagination.

At the same time, the story carries a deep, religious theme. In the 13th episode, Kyon and Haruhi go completely emotional, arguing over how they should film the movie. However, he knows that the film is much more productive than anything that the guys at school are doing. It's a touching love story with a god, even if it is very unconventional.

The second season is definitely a must-have series. Despite how much people hate "Endless Eight," this series is a serious reflection on the otaku culture of Japan as well as the fate of a post-war world. It is extremely volatile, because Haruhi is such an unpredictable character who has the potential to explode with anger and destroy the entire fabric of the the universe.

At the same time, it is a comedy. It will probably be one of the most infamous comedies ever created. With the grand implementation of special effects, science fiction and emotional angst, there's no telling where this anime will go.

Images courtesy of randomc.animeblogger.com

DVD Review: Gondolas and love for the city

I love "Aria," and even after 37 episodes I really want to see more.

The second half of season two is surprisingly charming, with a smorgasboard of touching scenes and reunions.

Aria's 37 episodes of over 15 hours of relaxing gondola drama and comedy might seem a little long-winded. However, the series mixes things up with some big tearjerkers. The first tearjerker takes place in the 15th and 16th episodes in a long farewall story arc to Akari's gondola.

The memories are priceless. The flashback clips in these episodes include precious moments of Akari when she first starts paddling backwards on her gondola. Among the memories is the first time the gondoleer passes her first exam on a course.

As the series moves on, it becomes more and more difficult to pick a favorite character, because each one has a special moment in part two. Aika has an especially emotional moment when she finds the hairstyle she likes, rather than copying Alicia all the time. Her best moment takes place when she takes the time to visit her boyfriend, Edward, just to see if he likes her hair.

Unlike season one, there are moments of compelling suspense. Episode 20 takes Akari on a journey to transport a ghost, who is rumored to have "spirited away" anyone who takes her to San Marco Island on a gondola. This is an episode based almost entirely on visuals and moods, but the ending is a touching tribute to "My Neighbor Totoro."

Even though the theme of spreading happiness is repeated throughout the series, "Aria" never gets old. Somehow, director Junichi Sato finds ways of showing messages of thankfulness without getting too overbearing. Unlike Ghost in the Shell or Fullmetal Alchemist, "Aria" focuses on the beauty of a city. Everything, from the urban legends to the warm parties, is a portrayal of childlike playfulness.

Even the joke episodes are completely over-the-top with humorous twists. Akari talks with her cat, President Aria about alternate universes and says that maybe if he slips in the little space between th,e stairs, he'll enter an world with different types of characters. The curious president decides to slip through the stairs, but the new world is a lot more frightening than anyone might expect.

The series ends with a Redentore festival in the fall, to celebrate the passing of the old season and the start of the new. However, the series doesn't end with the classic new year's day celebration. Instead, Episode 37 focuses on Alicia, Akari's mysterious mentor. When Akari asks Alicia what kind of person she wanted to be when she was a child. Oddly enough, Alicia starts rolling a snowball without answering Akari. Other people soon start helping the two women roll the snowball to make a humongous snowman.

Alicia's response at the end of the episode is a lovely conclusion that sums up the entire message of "Aria" in a few simple words. Even if "Aria" is still a big fluffy collection of sweet, cotton candy stories, it is a wonderful series nonetheless.

On Haruhi

I'm still fascinated by the whole Haruhi fiasco. Sure, it was eight episodes of madness, but it was also an unusual experiment that hasn't been tried in anime before. After all, almost no anime director would dare to string together eight episodes of nearly the same thing.

Most hardcore fans, especially Americans, hated the Endless Eight with a passion. However, I think it was also a test to force the otaku community to analyze their own reasons for watching anime for hours on end.

In the Answerman column of the Anime News Network, Adam Bruck gave some intriguing comments on the Haruhi Endless Eight.

"While the 7-week and counting repetition of Endless Eight is not good in any sense of the word, the fact that Kadokawa and/or Kyoani went this direction at all and the overwhelmingly negative public response make the situation very interesting.
Haruhi, of course, was a mega-hit that reached sales numbers and fandom seen only by shonen and giant robot anime. The fanbase was full of very obsessed people who helped the series sell a million CDs and DVDs and tons of character goods. It's incredible that a company would willingly destroy such a franchise. From a business standpoint, Endless Eight seems like exactly the wrong thing to do; from a fan's standpoint, it's depressing to see the continuation of an amazing first season turn out like this.
However, the fan reaction provides an interesting social experiment - what happens when you severely piss off a group of obsessed, introverted, hardcore Otaku who basically live for this stuff? (I know most Haruhi fans aren't like that, but the most vocal ones are.)"

Like many fans of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya," I have trouble deciding whether to like it or hate it. However, I really respect Kyoto Animation's stance. It's really hard to release eight episodes of endless repetition, but the series has gone far in yanking people out of their comfort zones. Unfortunately, if I say that I love it, I'm certain that some people will inevitably troll me for my views.

I'm thankful that very few people comment on this blog, for my sake.

Image courtesy of randomc.animeblogger.net

Anime preview: The Endless Eight!

I figure I have to write about this sometime. I don't want to, but I will.

The second season of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" rolls to a repetitive, but intriguing start with a series of eight episodes of nearly the same scenes.

For anyone unacquainted with this series, the first season started an anime craze. It's a simple love story between high school students Kyon and Haruhi Suzumiya. Suzumiya, fascinated with beings from outer space, starts a club known as the S.O.S. Brigade. The mission of the club is to search for psychics, time travelers and aliens. Ironically, the club has attract an odd trio of students: a psychic named Itsuki Koizumi, a time traveler girl named Mikuru Asahina and an invincible alien named Yuki Nagato.

They all stick around to please Haruhi, who happens to be a god. The fate of the entire world rests on Haruhi's well-being. Kyon's destiny is to make sure she is always happy, so that the world doesn't self-destruct.

Season two actually starts fine in episode one with the "Bamboo Rhapsody" story. Mikuru engages in a stellar time travel episode, in which Kyon and Mikuru jump back three years in the past to help Haruhi make some mysterious chalk drawings on the ground. The episode is an intriguing head-trip which leaves Kyon wondering whether he actually inspired Haruhi's fascination with aliens, psychics and time travelers.

Then the series take a serious downer. Sort of. Episodes 2 through 9 focus on the "Endless Eight" story arc. This is an adaptation of a two-chapter story in the manga, in which all the characters are trapped in an endless summer vacation, which takes place between August 17 and August 30. This is due in part because Haruhi doesn't want the summer to ever end.

The characters soon discover that time keeps shifting back two weeks from the end of August 30, because something in the time continuum is missing. Mikuru is the only one who knows exactly what is wrong, but she can't give away anything, because it's classified information.

This is actually a cool mind-trip, if it only went on for two or so episodes. However, Endless Eight plods on through a draining saga of eight episodes of nearly the same events. This is definitely the story arc that will test the patience of the most devoted anime lovers, who would rather watch something different in every new episode.

One could possibly say that the producers of the series wanted introverted anime addicts to analyze themselves and find some sort of deeper meaning throughout their own lives. However, it's more likely that this story arc resulted from difficult infighting within the Kyoto Animation studio over the direction of the series. The first season's director, Yamamoto Yutaka, said he only wanted "Endless Eight" to run for two episodes and apologized to the fans of the series. Then Kyoto Animation fired back with a statement saying that they have disowned Yutaka.

Regardless of whether anyone hates or loves the "Endless Eight," the entire arc is a horrific experience within itself. The obon festival's music is an eerie, soft flute tune that looms over the series like a scary dream. Even the voice actors give some shocking variations in their performance, especially in the last episode of the Endless Eight. Asahina is hardly understandable as she bawls her eyes out reciting each line. It's clear that Asahina, Koizumi and Nagato are emotionally exasperated from the entire experience.

Watchers will be forever divided over whether the story is a representation of the emptiness of the kawaii culture of anime or a total mess caused by company in-fighting. The bigger question is whether it will forever be remembered as a mind-tripping masterpiece or the biggest waste of time in anime history. I'm leaning toward the latter, but only time will tell whether it will be known as an experimental classic, as "Neon Genesis Evangelion" was.

No matter what anyone thinks of it, though, it is certainly a nerve-wracking experience which will test the patience of everyone who watches it if it ever is released in America. And that's a big "if."

Click here to see how much the Kyoto Animation studio hated the Endless Eight.

Image courtesy of randomc.animeblogger.net

Funimation video quality outdated

Okay, I'd have to say that free Funimation videos are great. However, they can't seriously consider taking over the anime world if their video quality is this choppy.

I mean, I love watching "Galaxy Express 999" on the Internet. It's one of the rarest series to find in the U.S. and now it's free to watch. However, the video on funimation.com is so choppy that it's inexcusable.

Blech. Fix your video Funimation. I really want to watch more, but you're letting me down. Maybe I'm better off using a LAN cable instead of wireless.

YouTube review: Galaxy Express 999

The odds are pretty high that very few people have heard of "Galaxy Express 999," considered by some anime directors as a masterpiece.

"Galaxy Express 999" is a campy but exciting classic with a colorful cast of characters and space-traveling trains.

The plotline alone is a big ball of cheese. In the setting of this series, the wealthiest humans are able to convert their bodies into cyborg parts, so that they'll never have to eat again. Of course, this leaves the poor humans down in the slums to starve. A rumor spread through the impoverished community that the legendary Galaxy Express 999 train line will take people to a planet where they can turn their body into a cyborg.

Episode one opens with Tetsuro and his mother looking for the Megalopolis station with the Galaxy Express line in a blizzard. Things quickly turn tragic when a cyborg gang kills his mother to post on a wall as a trophy. Tetsuro collapses in the freezing cold, but is thankfully saved by a blonde-haired woman named Martel.

She offers him an unlimited ride pass on the Galaxy Express 999, as long as he takes her with him. Thus begins a long story of revenge and liberation.

Admittedly, the character designs and technology is even goofier than the gadgets found in The Jetsons. Mars looks more like the wild wild west. A space cowboy named "Geronomo" makes a cameo. However, the campiness is exactly what makes "Galaxy Express 999" one of the coolest anime series ever made. The opening sequence of trains in space and Japanese enka singing only escalates the funky 70s feel to a level that is indescribably sexy.

There's even more to it than campiness though. This is one of the series which inspired series such as "Fullmetal Alchemist" with its portrayal of cyborgs. Certainly the visual theme is nothing new, but the second episode alone has enough drama and violence to make someone think twice about outfitting bodies with automail.

Hands down, "Galaxy Express 999" is a classic treat for anyone who loves anime with cyborgs and corny futuristic designs. Watch it for free at funimation.com.

Image courtesy of dereklieu.wordpress.com

Long time no see

Sorry if I'm a little late posting. For a few weeks I was working on a difficult Halloween story, some CD reviews and a couple other things.

I'm getting caught up on my anime watching. Stay tuned for an review of season two of "Aria" sometime this weekend.

Now after that, I have a few options. I could either watch the emo ninjas in "Nabari," or the shapely women of "Dragonauts." Some of the characters have quite an exaggerated body figure.

Feel free to watch the series online.

Image courtesy of randomc.animeblogger.net