Why is The melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya heralded as such a classic and important anime?

[Mago]

So me and a friend of mine decided to watch this series together after the incident on Twitter (If you arent in the know, some kid said he didn't know the series, got backlash, and a lot of people went on about how its this all time classic that's very influential and how everyone should know it blah blah blah). Tbc i've known about the series for a long time, I knew that it was popular, especially the movie, but I also knew about a certain controversial arc. However I figure for the series to still be super beloved in spite of that arc must mean the rest is pretty good right?

We made it 8 episodes in so far. Tbc we are watching it in Chronological order because we read broadcast order was rendered obsolete with the second season. Either way so far I gotta be honest.. this show just feels like a lot of nothing? I'm not making this thread to be inflammatory or bait people. I just don't see anything of value. I don't see how the characters are supposed to be likable, they seem very one dimensional and cliche even for the time. I get that theres a meta reasoning for that but I don't think that changes the fact that they arent the least bit interesting. Haruhi is the most interesting character but I still wouldn't call her good. Shes also kind of a shitty person, which is fine but I don't feel the show does anything interesting to explore her shitty characteristics at least so far.

The plot so far feels underdeveloped and not well fleshed out. First arc kind of felt rushed. A lot of the plot was delivered through exposition dumps, in fact episode 3 and 5 were largely just exposition dump episodes. I'm not someone who needs all action and only watches battle shounen tbc. My second favorite anime ever is LOTGH, and I love Tarkovsky and Bergman films. I'm not trying to brag about how I watch smart shows I just don't want to accused of only watching stuff like Dragon Ball (Though I do love the OG Dragonball), and not being able to handle more cerebral media. If anything Haruhi feels like brain rot at points. The baseball episode especially felt like a complete waste of time, it wasnt smart and it wasnt fun either. It was just brainrot.

We still plan on finishing the show (Im dying to see his reaction to THAT arc) and tbc i didn't go in expecting this to be trash, though I didn't expect it to live up to the hype either. Also for the first couple of episodes I was legitimately interested in seeing how the show would progress but episode three with the really jarring exposition dumps killed most of my engagement, and most importantly the characters just are not at all interesting or endearing to me. Again not trying to ragebait, if it came across that way its because I just don't know how else to word this. I wanted to make this so I could hear other perspectives and discuss the show as we continue watching it.

 

[Vetusomaru]

Haruhi is overrated. It's good only for the songs and Mikuru.

 

[hazys]

I don't especially like Haruhi but it's difficult to overstate its impact at the time. Haruhi was the beginning of "otaku-centric anime." The concept of Haruhi is basically this meta otaku/chuuni fantasy where "what if my friends and I had secret powers and the fate of the world depended on us even though we're actually a bunch of teenage dorks?" is earnestly explored. Like, before Haruhi we didn't have deluges of light novel adaptations called stuff like "Spirited Away to MMO World" or "My High School Crush Is a Demon King." Those kinds of stories were previously relegated to the VN sphere. Haruhi opened the floodgates for chuunibyou anime to go mainstream. It also coincided (though it wasn't really a coincidence) with the advent of "moe" shows like Lucky Star and, later, K-On. At least that's how I remember it.

 

[Prism_Red]

Anime as a medium has considerably grown over the years, at the time, 2006, Haruhi is one of the early modern example where an anime "blurred" the lines between TV show and anime otaku culture that catches on to the public. You can see how it influences other animes down the line, be it the catchy dancing ED, normal insert protags with not-so-normal supporting characters, the tsundere-kuudere-cute girl triangle dynamic, and so on and so on...
If it seems like nothing special to you, that's because you've probably seen such concept rehashed so many times with many animes out there to the point it became normalized.

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

That's it.
I'm downloading for a re-watch. This will take a while.
I only watched it once when it came out.

 

[Prism_Red]

That's it.
I'm downloading for a re-watch. This will take a while.
I only watched it once when it came out.

You seriously gonna re-watch the Endless Eight too?

 

[Mago]

That's it.
I'm downloading for a re-watch. This will take a while.
I only watched it once when it came out.

Oh interested to see how you feel upon rewatch then :D

Anime as a medium has considerably grown over the years, at the time, 2006, Haruhi is one of the early modern example where an anime "blurred" the lines between TV show and anime otaku culture that catches on to the public. You can see how it influences other animes down the line, be it the catchy dancing ED, normal insert protags with not-so-normal supporting characters, the tsundere-kuudere-cute girl triangle dynamic, and so on and so on...
If it seems like nothing special to you, that's because you've probably seen such concept rehashed so many times with many animes out there to the point it became normalized.

I used to be a much bigger anime watcher than I am now, so maybe my memory is just blurry but I was feeling that it wasn't even original for its time. I guess my memory is wrong though. Most of what I watch now is either really old or more niche so I'm not exactly in tune with the development of anime trends in the 2000s. Ofcpourse I wouldn't mind it not feeling original if the plot and characters were at least engaging to me.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

I got filtered by the first episode. Maybe cause i watched it at aired order. Then i looked into it and it has like 3 different variants on how to watch it. Then i gave up.

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

I got filtered by the first episode. Maybe cause i watched it at aired order. Then i looked into it and it has like 3 different variants on how to watch it. Then i gave up.

You also watched it from episodes 1-12 in that order?

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

You also watched it from episodes 1-12 in that order?

No i remember the original aired episode 1 was episode 12 so i was extremely confused.

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

No i remember the original aired episode 1 was episode 12 so i was extremely confused.

Ah, I just watched it like I do anything else from episode 1 to 12 in that order.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

Ah, I just watched it like I do anything else from episode 1 to 12 in that order.

Peach Boy Riverside had the same idea were the director scrambled the episodes all over. Effectively ruining the experience. At least for that show.

 

[Rocket2049]

yeah it was cool in season 1, it just feels like one big meme anime
as for the watch order... i wasn't aware it was 'out of order' the hell?
that prob proves how plain the anime was watching out OUT of order still made sense.
i watched season 1 three times, once in english dub, only to watch with other people
it definitely was "okay" there was much much worse anime around the same time, maybe that's why people liked it.

 

[Prism_Red]

Oh interested to see how you feel upon rewatch then :D


I used to be a much bigger anime watcher than I am now, so maybe my memory is just blurry but I was feeling that it wasn't even original for its time. I guess my memory is wrong though. Most of what I watch now is either really old or more niche so I'm not exactly in tune with the development of anime trends in the 2000s. Ofcpourse I wouldn't mind it not feeling original if the plot and characters were at least engaging to me.

It's not, Haruhi is more like an introduction for people at the time and became the biggest example because of it. It's what SAO is to dot.Hack (or Billbine if we're going for the isekai angle), or what Idolmaster is to Sakura Taisen.

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

Peach Boy Riverside had the same idea were the director scrambled the episodes all over. Effectively ruining the experience. At least for that show.

Oh, I haven't watched it but ok.

 

[CardcaptorEd2019]

The first episode I watched was the one where Kyon meets Haruhi, but I'm pretty sure the original first episode is where the SOS Brigade are making the movie. I saw Haruhi after way after it's airing, but Haruhi was a very influential back when it first aired. Lucky Star is a good example of how influential Haruhi was back then

The anime was ok, but personally after you watch the show you have gotta watch The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. When I first watched it, the 2 hours and forty-two minutes of the movie just passed me by. The movie had me glued to it throughout the whole thing. I saw the show twice(including Endless Eight) probably to lead up to the movie.
Favorite scene of the movie- Also, I usually watch subbed anime, but Haruhi is one of the few anime that I watched with the dub

 

[denpaenjoyer]

This was an era of anime and manga that focused more on iconic characters than "great plots". Not only that, but frankly, the anime is not that great of an adaptation of the light novels.

 

[diapered]

Well it was talked about a lot on the internet during that time, and that was also when imageboards were becoming popular? That's how I heard about it... And now that I think about it, I think it was the first anime I pirated (either that or fate/stay night) >_> So it does bring back memories for me, in that regard. I remember liking it just fine, but not something I would rewatch.

 

[RageBurner]

I haven't yet (I intend to), but let me say something as an aside: elitism sucks.

Elitism ruins everyone's fun, no matter what the subject is. No one can possibly know everything there is to know about something or must have tastes that are considered "cool', "relevant" or "indispensable"

 

[Pi-Man]

You seriously gonna re-watch the Endless Eight too?

The "best part".

 

[Hotwer]

The best I can describe the anime is that it's perfect for its era, right place right time. The movie tho is a classic, one of my top anime movie I've watched.

 

[CaptainToad]

It's a post-modernist work. A large part of it is how media shapes people's expectations of reality and it plays with those ideas, particularly via genre but also tropes and such (usually embodied by an individual character). Each character represents a different genre and embodies a different character archetype in anime, so they have different understandings of the phenomena surrounding Haruhi. The individual stories, especially in the novels are divided by genre, etc. etc. It's really fun. I like the slightly pseudo-intellectual name-dropping of pop-science facts or philosophical ideas as things to keep in mind when analyzing society and all that (does this more in the books).

Kyon's also probably one of the most relatable anime characters considering he's the normal person participating in basically an otaku group, which from Haruhi's standpoint is basically LARPing (but wanting it to be true) but from the others it's real (and either disbelieving or not wanting parts to be true, Koizumi and Mikuru especially do this).

He constantly goes back and forth over whether being "normal" is better or not. Haruhi is disatisfied with the mundanity of life. So it Kyon in a secret way, which the movie/book covers in more explicit detail. The others live in supernatural worlds and yet they have natural explanations for most of the phenomena from their own perspectives.

It's also just fun because they're mostly hanging out doing fun kid stuff. I find the characters really likeable, you get a nice group dynamic and implicitly understand how they relate to eachother: Mikuru's scared of Yuki and seems to not respect Koizumi's ideas while having a soft spot for Kyon, Koizumi's professional and distant from everyone except Kyon the only other man in the group (possibly gay), etc. etc.

It's animated really well. I like the unique form of story telling, especially the 00 episode of their school festival film. It's slightly more analytical than other otaku-esque shows that take otaku-ness of media as something that can't be played with. And its usage of time travel is really consistent and it wraps around the narrative really well at times.

Also, Haruhi and Yuki are especially really cute.

Haruhi's dilemma reminds me of the short story How Wang-Fo Was Saved about a rich nobleboy in ancient China who becomes disillusioned with life after he leaves his palace decorated with the beautiful paintings of Wang Fo and sees the world for what it really is.

 

[NeonKnights]

I watched both seasons. The first is amazing. The second season is considerably worse even though it has a good opening track. I feel many things were better in the 2006 version. Endless eight was worthless. The absolute nadir of the season. See if you can spot all the differences in each iteration. It's unthinkable. However more than that I thought there was a problem with the video as I was seeing the same episode over again. The Mikuru Beam episode. Again!? Why they felt that was necessary I'll never know.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

I tried to watch it but gave up because it was just boring and confusing.
But then again I will never understand why people herald Akira or Eveangelion.
I will never understand the love for attack on titans or Darling in the franxx.

Honestly it´s like the Euro vision for some reason majority of people love that crap with tons of crap music. So some crap anime become very popular because the collective love that crap.


Or im the unnormal person that has shit taste that can never understand why the anime is good.

I dont think anyone "loves" Darling in the FranXX when that had the most copy and paste Trigger ending ive ever seen.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

It's a shitty and overrated series overall, even the LNs didn't change that.

It's basically OreImo/My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute but more on the denpa and absolutely absurd elements that tried to mix everything which makes it a total mess and lacking any direction whatsoever.
The worst part is that most LNs after this apparently also tried this kind of storytelling approach as well.