Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu (2009)

There have been a lot of negative reviews on this site, which I can agree with to an extent. However, most of them focus entirely on the Endless Eight arc, while disregarding the rest entirely.

I can't say I disagree that the Endless Eight arc sucked; Having to sit through so many episodes of what was, for the most part, the same thing was somewhat annoying. The first time it happened, I had to check to make sure I didn't accidentally rewatch an episode. The changes are subtle enough to miss if you don't watch the episodes back to back.

However, I do like the fact that ... the producers tried to do something different, which a lot of others do not. If experimentation like this never occurred, we'd likely never have had the pleasure of watching greats like Cowboy Bebop, or even the original series of Haruhi.

I also very thoroughly enjoyed the other episodes, especially the final ones that very nicely covered the events that had us watch the greatest first episode of an anime ever. And while the Endless Eight arc was long, I really, really loved the final moments of the last episode of that arc.

Art and sound was spectacular, which was always to be expected. You have to hand it to the artists who managed to draw the same episode different ways so many times. The Endless Eight arc was -not- enough to detract from the other episodes of the series, which are all incredible in their own right.

In the end, as long as you're one of those people who only see the negative aspects of something, or have a hard time pushing them out of your mind, you'll probably hate the season.

I personally enjoyed it very much as a whole, and will continue recommending series 1, and start recommending series 2 to anyone who hasn't seen them. And I suggest you not let a few bad reviews deter you from what is ultimately a very enjoyable viewing.

After three years (of what seemed to be a long time of waiting) the second season of Suzumiya finally came out. What we weren't expecting was a troll from Kyoto Animations. But hey the message boards were extremely fun to go on when this show premiered.

What made this Suzumiya season so "special" was that there was no announcement about it. One day I was surfing the web and people were screaming all over the message boards. "OMG NEW SUZUMIYA." I laughed and quickly scrolled down, until someone told me it was actually true. I was like, "WTF KYOTO ANIMATIONS WHAT." And behold a new season ... of Suzumiya was brought to the face of the earth. Of course it was bundled with the first season, so sometimes you had to wait like a month for the next episode. But at least we got something, right?

Which brings us to Suzumiya's second season's problem; Endless eight, which is basically the same episode eight different times with OMG DIFFERENT CLOTHES, OMG DIFFERENT YUKATAS, OMG DIFFERENT SWIMSUITS, AND OMG NEW ANIMATIONS! What disappointed me was that Kyoto Animations didn't skimp out on the budget for these eight episodes (and I'm proud of them for that). But it makes me feel like it was a waste of money, just animating the same thing over and over again. When they could have spent their budget elsewhere. I also feel bad for the voice actors, since they had to actually record it eight different times. I thought Kyoto Animations would record their voices once and then be like, "Okay, you guys go take a break for seven weeks. We'll call you when we get bored of trolling everyone."

It was tedious to watch each week of Suzumiya's EE to see if something would change. At least there was the fun thing of going on the message boards to see everyone's reactions. There are the people who will love Suzumiya, no matter what crap Kyoto Animations gives us. Then there are the people who rage and rage and blame the world for this torture. There are also the intelligent spectators, who very carefully planned out how many more episodes were left and were like, "Kyoto Animations is doing this, so we can understand how Yuki feels." And there were the trolls, they were the most interesting to see. One of my favorites was this youtube video about how Endless Eight will never end with Hitler. And another one was someone putting the broadcasting information and listed Endless Eight until 2012. Oh, I also like Kyon-kun, denwaaaaaaaa~

The other six episodes are actually quality episodes, five of them being Sighs and one being just a one-episode arc. Nothing could beat the Endless Eight arc in discussion though. Kyoto Animations kept the animations high quality and they were able to hire the voice actors to repeat the same lines again and again.

I don't know how I would feel if I was to marathon the entire show at once. I'd probably fall asleep or just stop watching the show overall. I guess this new season of Suzumiya was meant to be taken in slowly, instead of all at once, which most anime watchers tend to do. Since I was watching it while it aired, I was able to break away from watching it continuously and be able to discuss it with everyone online. (MyAnimeList forums were especially fun to visit during this time.)

Would I re-watch this? Ummm ...... no. I could barely make it through the first time. Would I tell my friends to watch this? Ummmm no ...... unless they were die-hard Suzumiya fans. It's very hard to recommend this, but for all you masochist out there I would tell you to watch all of Endless Eight twice, no three times. And everyone else can watch the first episode of Endless Eight, a random episode in between (I recommend the fifth repeat, since Izumi is wearing a speedo. lololololol!), and the last episode. So eight episodes all together for the whole series. Hey, that's almost as long as Endless Eight.

I'm going to say right now that my general review for this will be negative. Don't like, don't read. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

Now as far as I'm concerned, people that reviewed this with an 8, I can only assume they reviewed each Endless Eight episode with a 1, totaling the entire review to an 8.

Well, that would be funny anyways.

Story 3/10: Like most people, I'm going to rate this very badly. There was no story as far as I'm concerned. Aside from the few episodes that were different, the repetition of Endless Eight had no good excuse for even happening. So what if ... they included different outfits each time, different camera angles, and maybe a few seconds of extra scenes. IT'S STILL NO EXCUSE. To be honest, I'll admit that I didn't bother to sit through the entire 24 mins of every episode of Endless Eight. There was no point in wasting my time doing so. So, the story in general sucked.

Art 8/10: I'll admit Haruhi's art level is high quality. First series had high quality, second series had high quality. I give kudos for the poor artists that had to re draw scene after scene for Endless Eight. I would have quit, or bashed my head in. So whatever, the art of Haruhi will be as it is. Good.

Sound 7/10: It's been probably close to a year or over half a year since I watched this, so I can't remember much about the sound. I do like Haruhi's sound though. It's one of the better qualities of the show. Can't have a good anime without good music. It keeps you entertained to say the least. So it was pretty good.

Character 5/10: I guess I'm only giving this half because Haruhi's characters in general are pretty plain. Nothing we haven't seen before. I for one quite dislike Haruhi's character in general. She's too annoying for me to handle. Sorry to any Hirano Aya fans (which I know there are many) but I just can't stand her voice. It drives me up the wall, and Haruhi's character with said voice just has me hitting my head against the screen. Besides Haruhi, everyone else is alright. Except, as I said, it's already been done. I guess there's no such thing as an 'original character' anymore.

Enjoyment 2/10: To say the least, I hated The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2009. As I said before, there were a couple good episodes near the end, but Endless Eight just shot everything down and turned what could have been an okay series, to a dreadful one. I really wasn't expecting them to go as far as to really do 8 episodes of the same shit. It started to seem all too clear as to what KyoAni's plans were when the 3rd and 4th episodes came out for this arc. Terrible.

Overall 2/10: Seriously...there's nothing more to say. If you want to watch it, go ahead. There's no one stopping you. I won't say it's completely unwatchable, but I can't say you'll enjoy it as much as the first series. Just watch the first couple episodes, ONE episode of Endless Eight, and then the last episode of Endless Eight and carry on from there. You don't even need to watch half the series to understand where it's going.