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

[Gorse]

Speaking as someone for whom Haruhi is my favourite anime series, ever: You're not gonna get it, the time has passed. It's a 19-year-old show aimed at too-smart-by-half teenagers/young adults in the 2000s, it has a ton of (intentionally) boring bits, and the characters are going to seem heavily different from modern anime casts (and, for today's audiences, probably much less interesting). Haruhi was an adaptation of the first modern "light novel" (the term didn't really exist before then), so it created or codified 95% of all tropes in the genre (and many anime tropes in general), but much of the tone, style, and voice is from another very specific era of Japanese animation and culture than what exists today.

I love every last bit of the entire Haruhi Suzumiya no Yuutsu franchise (well, the spinoffs kinda suck, but who cares), but a major part of enjoying it was enjoying the culture that surrounded it, and enjoying the characters as they existed at the time. You certainly could never make a "modern-day" Haruhi – it simply wouldn't work. No matter how much people on Twitter reference or discuss it, they'll never understand what made people in the mid-2000s do stuff like this:

ALSO: Anyone who suggests any form of "watching order" other than how the episodes were originally released is just being a silly-willy-foo-foo. Crazy as it may seem, you watch episode 1, then 2, then 3... all the way until you get to the end. Watching every episode of the Endless Eight, in order, is absolutely mandatory.

 

[Mago]

Speaking as someone for whom Haruhi is my favourite anime series, ever: You're not gonna get it, the time has passed. It's a 19-year-old show aimed at too-smart-by-half teenagers/young adults in the 2000s, it has a ton of (intentionally) boring bits, and the characters are going to seem heavily different from modern anime casts (and, for today's audiences, probably much less interesting). Haruhi was an adaptation of the first modern "light novel" (the term didn't really exist before then), so it created or codified 95% of all tropes in the genre (and many anime tropes in general), but much of the tone, style, and voice is from another very specific era of Japanese animation and culture than what exists today.

I love every last bit of the entire Haruhi Suzumiya no Yuutsu franchise (well, the spinoffs kinda suck, but who cares), but a major part of enjoying it was enjoying the culture that surrounded it, and enjoying the characters as they existed at the time. You certainly could never make a "modern-day" Haruhi – it simply wouldn't work. No matter how much people on Twitter reference or discuss it, they'll never understand what made people in the mid-2000s do stuff like this:

ALSO: Anyone who suggests any form of "watching order" other than how the episodes were originally released is just being a silly-willy-foo-foo. Crazy as it may seem, you watch episode 1, then 2, then 3... all the way until you get to the end. Watching every episode of the Endless Eight, in order, is absolutely mandatory.

I'm not entirely sure I understand how the culture the show came from is all that different from what we have now? A lot of modern anime are still very otaku centric and still follow the same tropes. They don't seem that different from what you get today. And tbc I was watching anime when this show came out. Thats around when I followed anime the most heavily. I just never watched this show for some reason. I've watched plenty of anime from all eras though. I mostly watch older stuff though.

 

[Prism_Red]

I'm not entirely sure I understand how the culture the show came from is all that different from what we have now? A lot of modern anime are still very otaku centric and still follow the same tropes. They don't seem that different from what you get today. And tbc I was watching anime when this show came out. Thats around when I followed anime the most heavily. I just never watched this show for some reason. I've watched plenty of anime from all eras though. I mostly watch older stuff though.

There lies the answer, the Haruhi and and the culture 'then' really paved the way for the culture 'now'. That's why I said people who watched other anime with similar tropes then watch Haruhi later on might find it boring, it was a product of it's time.

 

[Mago]

There lies the answer, the Haruhi and and the culture 'then' really paved the way for the culture 'now'. That's why I said people who watched other anime with similar tropes then watch Haruhi later on might find it boring, it was a product of it's time.

Fair nuff. I'll just say I feel a good show should be able to stand the test of time. The original Dragonball is still my favorite battle shounen and I still loved Seinfeld despite the trope named after it. Both of those I properly watched way after their heyday.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

believe allot of people say it´s top 10 of theirs and for some reason every one seams to get their dick hard for that trash ho Zero 2 man people rely loves shit for some reason.

To be fair 02 is hot. But i wouldn't say she can save the entire show with naked femdom tropes

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

Hot in what universe? She is just a crappy personality. Any girl ever can be hot if they got tits and pussy but bat shit ugly if you see their bad inside.

I would say 02 is a typical twitch/tiktok tot that have shit loads of simps but she uglier than a pile of horse cum.

How can she have a "shit loads of simps" if they all die from being piloted with her? Checkmate.
In all honesty i can see if your a newcomer to anime that you can find her attractive, but for me she has nice looks stuck on a shitty anime.

 

[Gorse]

I'm not entirely sure I understand how the culture the show came from is all that different from what we have now?

Mago (I love your username), unless you were an active anime fan before the mid-2010s, it's impossible to describe just how different the medium and culture was before the year 2015. Anime fans (beyond the standard Pokemon/DBZ kiddies) were 99.99% teenagers and young adults – the idea of 30-year-olds+ who continued watching DBZ or Sailor Moon into middle age was absolutely unheard of beyond ridicule – they were a lot more non-anime media-savvy in general, specifically with books, and there was zero American social media influence whatsoever (Twitter alone radically changed the culture single-handedly).

People – anime fans – were far smarter, snarkier, younger, more social, and more sane (that goes for both eastern and western fans). They were also – in the creators' eyes – exclusively Japanese (there was certainly never any thought that these hyper-local teenage girl cartoons would be popular enough in America to have them appear in McDonald's advertisements). That's who Haruhi was aimed at. Without that culture and that mindset, the show simply doesn't make sense. That's why modern anime fans can't get into it – that world died, so Haruhi is no longer relevant.

You had to be there. If you were, and you fulfilled the criteria above, it was exactly the kind of thing you were looking for. If not... well, the ending theme is still pretty catchy.

ALSO: The show, and the second season especially, was made specifically as a product for broadcast television, not binge-watching or the streaming era. Endless Eight (and, frankly, much of the rest of the show) is hated by western anime fans who watched it out of context, but if you think from the perspective of someone tuning in each week who has no idea how the story is progressing, the effect is clear. It's supposed to be disorienting, and you're supposed to be fretting over it in the time between episodes: Did I miss something? What's going to happen next week? Did those little details mean anything!? I'd better discuss this with my friends...!

 

[Pi-Man]

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 like Haruhi, Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiment Lain, Jigoku Shoujo, or Nanoha.
More than Dragon Ball, One Piece or Naruto. Or Attack on Titan.
I think I'm kinda "normal".

 

[Mago]

Mago (I love your username), unless you were an active anime fan before the mid-2010s, it's impossible to describe just how different the medium and culture was before the year 2015. Anime fans (beyond the standard Pokemon/DBZ kiddies) were 99.99% teenagers and young adults – the idea of 30-year-olds+ who continued watching DBZ or Sailor Moon into middle age was absolutely unheard of beyond ridicule – they were a lot more non-anime media-savvy in general, specifically with books, and there was zero American social media influence whatsoever (Twitter alone radically changed the culture single-handedly).

People – anime fans – were far smarter, snarkier, younger, more social, and more sane (that goes for both eastern and western fans). They were also – in the creators' eyes – exclusively Japanese (there was certainly never any thought that these hyper-local teenage girl cartoons would be popular enough in America to have them appear in McDonald's advertisements). That's who Haruhi was aimed at. Without that culture and that mindset, the show simply doesn't make sense. That's why modern anime fans can't get into it – that world died, so Haruhi is no longer relevant.

You had to be there. If you were, and you fulfilled the criteria above, it was exactly the kind of thing you were looking for. If not... well, the ending theme is still pretty catchy.

ALSO: The show, and the second season especially, was made specifically as a product for broadcast television, not binge-watching or the streaming era. Endless Eight (and, frankly, much of the rest of the show) is hated by western anime fans who watched it out of context, but if you think from the perspective of someone tuning in each week who has no idea how the story is progressing, the effect is clear. It's supposed to be disorienting, and you're supposed to be fretting over it in the time between episodes: Did I miss something? What's going to happen next week? Did those little details mean anything!? I'd better discuss this with my friends...!

Thank you and alright fair enough :P

 

[spectresfrommercury]

Too many reasons to list but simply put just bout everything kyoani did for the anime it really nailed it beyond the park.

 

[Mago]

We just watched The Sigh of Haruhi Sazumiya part 4. I'm ngl this show is morally repugnant, and i'm someone who plays the Rance series.

Spoiler

She drugged that girl and essentially tried to have a guy kiss her in her drugged state. This is sexual assault. This was honestly the most uncomfortable scene in the show, which isn't a bad thing but how they ended the episode with the MC not only forgiving her but even somewhat implying he was in the wrong? Also the girl who was drugged is just treated like an object, Haruhi should be begging her for her forgiveness. Wtf is this writing?

 

[SpcDaicon]

I think Haruhi encapsulated the otaku culture of its era, specialy for the japanese audience. It's something you see and go "Yeah, that's anime alright".

Like many people said, I think it was the first successful light novel adaptation of work that is "otaku-centric" in nature. There were adaptation of light novels before but the majority of them where purely fantasy/sci-fi (Record of Lodoss War, Boogiepop, etc) and, although Haruhi has supernatural elements, the focus are the charcters.

I think Haruhi's merit is the fact it was the first successful adaptation for a novel of it's kind and helped to pave the way for others like it.

Also I didn't totaly tried to act like Kyon in highschool I swear!

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

Re-Watching very slowly. Pretending I don't know anything.
Only 2 Episodes in (chronological order).

First episode was funny and good.
2nd episode starts getting interesting, Nagato reveals something to Kyon at the end.
One thing that didn't age well with 2nd episode though is the

Spoiler

blackmailing with gang-grape.

I did not remember that and was kinda shocked she said it.

 

[SpcDaicon]

blackmailing with gang-grape.

Man, it's actually insane how Haruhi gets scot-free from being a total jerk sometimes. I guess since she

Spoiler

is unknowingly GOD

it makes sense in context

 

[Mago]

Re-Watching very slowly. Pretending I don't know anything.
Only 2 Episodes in (chronological order).

First episode was funny and good.
2nd episode starts getting interesting, Nagato reveals something to Kyon at the end.
One thing that didn't age well with 2nd episode though is the

Spoiler

blackmailing with gang-grape.
View attachment 37031

I did not remember that and was kinda shocked she said it.

That was bad but there's a part later on thats so much worse.

 

[Yukyon]

One thing that didn't age well with 2nd episode though is the

Spoiler

blackmailing with gang-grape.
View attachment 37031

I did not remember that and was kinda shocked she said it.

Man, I love Haruhi but boy did some of the things in it aged like milk

 

[RageBurner]

I like Haruhi, Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiment Lain, Jigoku Shoujo, or Nanoha.
More than Dragon Ball, One Piece or Naruto. Or Attack on Titan.
I think I'm kinda "normal".

I think I'm normal too. News to me.

 

[Mago]

We watched the movie and wow that was a huge leap in quality. I don't know if I wanna call it a masterpiece but it was really damn good especially compared to everything that came before. I just don't know if im over praising it because it came off a series I honestly despised up to that point so it just seems amazing in comparison.

 

[Gorse]

I hate to say it, but if you're looking at Haruhi with a post-2010s sense of morality, you're not gonna like it at all. It wasn't really a series made with a modern sense of ethics (especially not an American one) in mind.

 

[DanCalibur]

I watched it around 2008, at the time I was already loosing interest in contemporary anime and that one specially made me feel like no longer being part of the target audience?

 

[Mago]

I hate to say it, but if you're looking at Haruhi with a post-2010s sense of morality, you're not gonna like it at all. It wasn't really a series made with a modern sense of ethics (especially not an American one) in mind.

Honestly it was just that one episode that really bothered me (morally speaking), and a lot of it was that this was the most engaging part of the series, but they resolved it in like the worst way possible. My friend even softened on the show a lot especially after the movie, but that episode is still a stain for us both.

Post automatically merged: Mar 6, 2025

I watched it around 2008, at the time I was already loosing interest in contemporary anime and that one specially made me feel like no longer being part of the target audience?

Can relate to that yo.

 

[Egg (McMuffin) Man]

I love Haruhi, it was one of my favorite anime when I was younger and is a show I would consider to be an important part of my youth, but I have to agree with some of the other users who said that its time has passed and you wouldn't get it now.

To put it simply, Haruhi was very influential in it's era. In many ways Haruhi's influence can still be felt today, and as a new viewer that would probably detract a lot from the original show. What might have been an original concept in Haruhi's day is likely overplayed in 2025, so wouldn't have the same impact on a new viewer. So while I do enjoy the show and recommend checking it out, I can also understand if someone who has watched a lot of modern anime doesn't enjoy it.

 

[Kyyo]

I think it had a significant impact on the otaku subculture of the 2000s but it doesn't really work well today in my opinion. I tried it a while back and found it pretty boring lol.

 

[Leon]

I honestly couldn't tell you, haruhi is by far one of my most hated anime protagonists, which is kinda funny since most of the rest of the main cast i'm quite fond of, especially yuki and the main guy (name escapes me),

 

[OverTheMoon]

An aspect of the anime which I adore is how it was made, more specifically the infamous Endless Eight episodes.

The fact that the staff never re-used any voice acting or animation and whatnot and ended up producing these eight very similar but quite distinct episodes just goes to show how passionate they were about the projects they were working on.

I also have to add that watching all of Endless Eight made me appreciate the movie (which in itself is an absolutely fantastic payoff) a lot more.

There are various theories as to why they ended up making Endless Eight the way it was presented to us and it seems that we will never truly know the definitive answer as there are multiple that have been around for years but I'm genuinely happy that it happened because that was probably one of the most daring moves an anime had made and something like that today would probably never happen.