The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is one of the most hyped anime series of 2006. I stumble on this one when I was looking at some anime ranking for 2006 in Japan. It was voted the most popular anime of 2006. After watching it, I thought that it lived up to the hype.

The anime is very light, and anyone can watch. There is almost no violence in the whole series but there are a few sexy moments. This is the story of a young high school girl that is bored with her life and wants to meet aliens, time travelers, ESPers (Extra Sensory Perception) so that life can be more interesting. The first episode can be very misleading, since it is not like the rest of the series. Even if you do not like the first episode, try watching the second and third ones, they are much better examples of what to expect of this anime.

The story is told from the point-of-view of Kyon, another high school student that kind of becomes friends with Suzumiya in the second episode. The series progresses with them meeting other people, like Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina and Koizumi Itsuki and living the day-to-day life, sometimes with unexpected and surprising turns. Oh, by the way, the series does not follow the timeline of the anime, meaning that episode 6 is actually episode 9 in the anime continuity. But don’t worry about this, you can watch them in the order they are presented (this episode mix-up was probably done on purpose). Most of the episodes have self-containing stories, with little hints to the whole thing.

After I watched all the episodes, I went back to watch them following the timeline. A lot of things made more sense now. If you want to watch them in the timeline order, here's the sequence: 02, 03, 05, 10, 13 ,14, 04, 07, 06, 08, 01, 11, 12 and 09.

I really like the music and the animation on this one. The music is great, opening and ending, and even Suzumiya’s performance in one of the episodes are worth buying (actually, this was a great song). A few soundtracks came out and even CDs with radio shows with the characters for the school radio.

This anime got so popular that there is even a live action porn movie. It is basically the beginning of the anime story, but with sex.

The anime is based on a shōnen (boys) novel by Tanigawa Nagaru, that so far has 8 volumes. There is also a manga being published. As soon as I get some free time I am going to read the novels and the manga. And post a comment on them. :)

Since there is more story on the novels that was not animated, there is hope that there will be more episodes to come.

Conclusion: Great anime, worth buying.