Summary:
Everyone is quite shocked at Keiichi’s death and Mikuru even faints. Itsuki notices that the knife pierced through a small notebook, meaning that the culprit has to be someone who has physical strength. He thinks that this is a closed circle, with a murder in a sealed room (the windows and door were locked from the inside). The question is, how did the murderer leave the room? The group returns to their rooms for now and Mikuru is put to bed. Haruhi pulls Kyon outside, but first tells Yuki not to open the door for anyone. In the hallway, a clearly disturbed Haruhi tells him that she really didn’t expect things to develop this way. Kyon, however, still wonders if this occurred because Haruhi had hoped that it would. On the topic of the murder, Kyon suggests that the biggest suspect is Yutaka, since he’s missing. Haruhi remembers that Mikuru had noticed that, earlier while they were playing on the beach, Yutaka and Keiichi were arguing. And then the previous night, Haruhi had overheard Yutaka talking on the phone about his passport and travelers’ checks, which would indicate that he was planning to make an escape. However, Kyon is still confused about the fact that the room was locked from the inside.
Haruhi decides that they should check out Keiichi’s room again, but they are greeted at the door by the butler Arakawa. He says that he’s contacted the police, and they told him not to let anyone in to the crime scene. The police should get here sometime tomorrow afternoon, when the forecast says that the weather would get better. Kyon asks if Keiichi and Yutaka had a bad relationship, but Arakawa doesn’t know. He reveals that he and the maid Mori have only been working here for one week. They’re only temporarily hired employees and their contracts are for two weeks. This new information triggers something in Kyon’s memory from when they first met the butler and maid a few days back. As for Yutaka’s disappearance, Haruhi wants to see if the boat is still at the dock. Mori the maid tells her that she doubts it’ll be there. It seems that she saw Yutaka leaving the house the previous night around 1AM.
Haruhi and Kyon go out into the storm to check anyway, and find that the boat is indeed gone. Haruhi thinks she sees someone in the distance, so the two investigate. However, while braving the cliffs nearby, Haruhi slips and the two fall down to a lower ledge, with Haruhi landing on top of Kyon. She’s worried when he doesn’t respond at first, but Kyon soon stirs. The two take refuge inside a nearby cave and dry off. Haruhi wonders if it was really Yutaka who killed Keiichi. She says that when she touched Keiichi’s body, it was still warm, meaning that he couldn’t have been dead for long – certainly not before Yutaka allegedly made his escape. Haruhi thinks that Yutaka definitely stabbed Keiichi, otherwise he wouldn’t have a reason to run away. However, she hypothesizes that the knife didn’t penetrate through the notebook and reach Keiichi’s heart. Keiichi probably fainted from the shock, so Yutaka thought that he had killed Keiichi. When Keiichi woke up, he wasn’t thinking clearly and had locked the door after remembering that his little brother had killed him. However, he tripped afterwards and fell right onto the knife protruding from his chest. That drove the knife through his heart, killing him. Kyon immediately notices the flaw: according to her story, Keiichi would have landed on his face, but they found him on his back. Haruhi then seems to realize the truth, but when Kyon asks her about it, she says that it’s nothing. Itsuki soon arrives to save them, and they all return to the mansion.
After drying off and changing, Kyon notices that his little sister is trying to raid the kitchen for something to eat. She sees that someone’s already eaten a plate of food (except for the carrots), but Mori tells her that that was Arakawa’s meal. Kyon takes his sister back to their rooms, but finds Haruhi and Itsuki unable to get in. Yuki apparently took Haruhi’s earlier instructions to heart and now won’t open the door for anyone. Kyon finally gets her to open the door by saying that Haruhi cancelled her earlier order. Itsuki then asks Haruhi what she’s going to do now, but Haruhi says that she’s going to stop the investigation and leave it up to the police. Back in their own room, Kyon informs Itsuki of what Haruhi had hypothesized back in the cave. Itsuki disagrees with the last part of Haruhi’s explanation. He says that they had rammed the door down right on Keiichi, plunging the knife into the man’s chest. That means that the real killers are technically Itsuki, Kyon, and Arakawa. Itsuki thinks that Haruhi must have realized that, and that’s why she didn’t say anything – in order to protect them and keep the truth to herself. Something in Kyon appears to snap as his eyes get wide and he reaches over to strangle Itsuki.
Kyon’s little sister goes running to Arakawa to tell him that Itsuki died. After she leads him away, a shadowy figure enters the room and walk up to Keiichi’s body. It’s about to stab him again, but Keiichi bolts up to and stops the person. That person with the knife is actually Kyon and standing beside him are Haruhi and Itsuki. Itsuki says that the play is over and they’ve lost. Haruhi gathers everyone (including Yutaka) in the dining room and is now wearing her Great Detective armband again. Itsuki reveals that this was all entertainment – a surprise party. Kyon suspects that Yuki knew everything from the beginning. Haruhi starts explaining how she figured it all out. First, the door that they busted through didn’t have any scars on it where it would have hit the knife. Second, Arakawa and Mori are supposedly temporary employees, yet Itsuki had said “It’s been a while” to them when they first got off the ferry. Third, Itsuki knew exactly where Keiichi’s room was when they first heard about Keiichi being locked in his room. This was supposed to be his first time here. The final clue rests in the dirty plate and utensils that Kyon’s little sister found. Out of all of them, Keiichi was the only one who used a fork and knife. What’s more, the carrots on that plate hadn’t been eaten, meaning that that meal had to have been Keiichi’s. From all of this, Haruhi had concluded that Keiichi must have been alive and that this was all a play. Haruhi really seems to enjoy playing her Great Detective part and even calls Kyon “Watson.”
On the ferry ride back, Itsuki admits to Kyon that Yutaka, Keiichi, Arakawa, and Mori are all his comrades. When Itsuki asks Kyon when he figured out the truth, Kyon replies that he knew from the beginning of the incident. Kyon also has one more question for Itsuki: was Itsuki responsible for the suspicious shadow that Haruhi saw? Itsuki doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but thinks that maybe it’s something Haruhi had hoped for and created. Which means that it could still be on that island, or maybe it was all just a mistake in Haruhi’s vision. The two look over uneasily at Haruhi, who is talking with the other girls about where they should go next time.

Well, that ended up being quite the mystery story, complete with a scene where the detective gathers everyone and explains everything. I wasn’t surprised that it was all a play that acted as entertainment for Haruhi’s boredom, however the clues along the way were quite entertaining. In trying to follow everything that happened, I definitely went back and referenced the previous episode. Kudos to Kyoto Animation for putting in the small clues that become important (like Keiichi’s eating habits). I also liked how they used the fuzzy live-action re-enactments.
Unlike some past episodes, there were quite a lot of changes this week from the novels. The biggest is probably the inclusion of Haruhi seeing something in the storm, then she and Kyon falling down. They also changed the story so that it was much more Haruhi figuring things out and explaining than anyone else. This took away a bit from Kyon since he didn’t appear to be the one figuring things out. The novel also makes it feel a lot more like Yuki could have explained everything if someone just asked her to. Of course, the novel and the anime are different and both have their strong points, so it’s not really fair to say one is better than the other.
Next week is episode 14. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but Matthew mentioned to me that the Hatena page for this show lists it as having a total of 14 episodes. Which would mean that next week is the sequentially “final” episode… Of course, with Haruhi as popular as it is, it wouldn’t surprise me all if it got another season.

Nothing too impressive on YouTube this week. Notables include the piano version of the opening song along with several short clips of Hare Hare Yukai making Oricon’s number 5 spot.

And finally, in a certain bit of irony, it’s Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday today (May 22nd as I write these words). He’s the one who wrote the Sherlock Holmes detective series.

46 Comments

  1. O_O

    ZA FUCK!!???

    Did they just do ‘it’?

    Please tell me they didn’t just do it.

    What’s with this theme of “I don’t know if we will live so *KISS+JAM IT IN*

    They just did it in Smallville 5-22 and One Tree Hill 3-some ep.

    Please tell me they didn’t do it.

    Demon Eyes
  2. I KNEW it was fake. I had 51% of my brain thinking that. Anyways, EPISODE 14?!!?!?!?!?!…. So episode 0 IS really episode 0… I wished they’d get back on track with the Melancholy story. -__-

    Pakxenon
  3. First time to significantly deviate from the novels, as far as I can tell. They’re bringing some extra romance elements in (along with some tasty Haruhi service).

    Me like, me like ^_^

    Mentar
  4. Romance is no extra in this show. Kyon is Haruhi’s ‘special’ since the start of this series.

    “Gyakuten Saiban/Phoenix Wright reference in the middle picture of the second to last row!!!!”

    Not only. They also reference to Detective Conan with the black figures -_-;

    Rasmiel
  5. You misunderstood what I said. Of course Kyon has always been Haruhi’s “chosen”, but the _deviation_ from the novel chapter (Lone Island Syndrome) were the extra romance elements. The holding hands. Her panicked reaction seeing Kyon lying there after their fall. The rest of the cave scene. The execution of the “slice him up” ploy.

    Mentar
  6. Not to come over as too naggy, but let me quote from the Haruhi TL wiki. That’s not really what was depicted here – totally different mood and meaning. Rewatch the scene, and I believe you’ll understand what I’m referring to. The linking fingers in the anime was a strangely mutual-gentle scene. The novel sounds much less “close” and more forceful, especially with the “higher survival chances” sidecomment.

    ————–

    Though her hair and T-shirt have been soaked so wet that they stuck to her body, Haruhi still bravely walked forward in the rain. I had no choice but to follow her, as she was still tightly grabbing my wrist.

    The wind was so strong that if we had wings, we would be blown off easily. Braving the heavy rain, we finally managed to come to a spot where we can see the pier. If we were not careful, we could fall off the cliff. No matter how brave I got, I started to feel that things were getting bad. I think I would turn in my grave if it was only me that fell off, so I grabbed Haruhi’s hand in return. I felt my chances of survival would be higher if I fell with her.

    Mentar
  7. Then… that means this series is 15 episodes long?

    Melancholy x6 (1-6)
    Taikutsu x1 (7)
    Island x2 (9-10)
    Sign x1 (8)
    Bouken x1 (0)
    Next week’s x1 (14)
    Sighs x3 (11-13)

    ???

    I’m gonna assume next week is the “original episode”, right?

    Pakxenon
  8. We have to wait until next week^^
    This is gettig really weird, when the series is complete Omni, please make an overview which episode tells which part of the story or just the “correct” order. This is really confusing..

    *Chi*
  9. The official site says this series will have 15,498 (that’s right, fifteen thousand four hundred and ninety eight) episodes. Use Ctrl+A (“Select All”) to highlight hidden texts.

    Speculation says that Kyoto Animation’s decision to end this anime at 14 episodes is due to their restaffing of manpower to work on the upcoming Kanon remake. This most likely is not true, however, since most anime episode counts are decided before the anime is aired.\

    that’s what ANN says…maybe they make second season later finishing up if only 14 episodes?

    dac
  10. I personally was sad that went i hear it’s 14eps a month ago, but I am used to it now, cause now I can hope for a season 2.

    But back to ep8, I don’t know how many of you have read the novel, but I did. And I don’t like the translation they did on ep8 from the novel, too many tips off, spoiled the whole story.

    As for timeline of event in the show? I have got one I have made myself based on the novel here
    http://spaces.msn.com/suiseisekispace/blog/cns!71695323462F55C1!4117.entry
    hopefully that will help those of you that are lost

  11. >>This whole thing coulda ended in a minute if they just taken the man’s pulse. >.>

    This was prevented by Arakawa the Butler who butted in with his own ‘check Keiichi’s pulse’ ploy that basically stopped Haruhi from taking his pulse. Remember that Arakawa was in on the ‘conspiracy’.

    >>But back to ep8, I don’t know how many of you have read the novel, but I did. And I don’t like the translation they did on ep8 from the novel, too many tips off, spoiled the whole story.

    Another novel reader here too, but I feel the opposite. I think the changes they introduced made this story much better than the novel one which felt really long and draggy with nothing much advanced in terms of plot or KyonxHaruhi moments. Having Haruhi perceive that Keiichi’s body was still warm and thinking through the events of the ‘murder’ by herself emphasized the intelligence she’s supposed to have (remember this is a girl who aces exams with relatively little effort) instead of having her seems like a dumbass led along the nose by Itsuki giving his ‘hypothesis’ and explaining everything, which was what happened in the novel. Plus they managed to insert Kyon’s sister pretty well into the overall plot instead of having her just as an omake-ish character.

    melange
  12. I never feel that Kyon sister need more role, but that a personally thing.

    But what really annoy me is the fact that there’s too many tips off, and you sort of know what’s going on already by midways. But in the novel, you really don’t know what happen till the end.

    And oh, I have the oppsite as you do, after viewing the anime verison I think it make Kyon less intelligence (in the novel I was like wow by he’s insight) but in the anime I just don’t feel that way. Cause anyone (most) can see those thing too

  13. The show is only 14 episodes?…

    That doesn’t seem long enough. There was never really a linear plot that they followed…

    The show seems more like the exact opposite of a normal show. That is, a bunch of unrelated instances, then bits of plot snuck in there every so often.

    But 14? Can they really conclude the show well enough when there wasn’t any real…BUILDUP…to begin with?

    Kuya
  14. I STILL DON’T GET THIS!!!!!!!!!! O.O;

    Can someone please tell me why keiichi is alive at the end of the episode?
    I will agree that this anime is soooo Fucked up…. but i can’t stop watching!

    Hudson
  15. Nothing on youtube? Damn, with only 2000 views, my GUITAR version didn’t really spread. x_X

    And it’s nice to know that a great writer has the same birthday as me. w00t!

    Pakxenon
  16. Arthur Conan Doyle.. Sherlock Holmes is really one of the best books ever. So he is 147 years old now^^
    That’s really a big irony, because it’s impossible to calculate the airing date that exactly.
    Lol, I’m curious if Kyoto Animation knows this^^

    *Chi*
  17. how is it ironic that it is Doyle’s birthday? I mean it is just as likely as any other day. This is just coincidental. Unless you subscribe to the Alanis Morrisette dafinition, like RAAAIIINN on awedding day.

    ast
  18. @ thenightsshadow

    Yay! Ty for posting the Nanoha-ish link, I enjoyed it ^_^

    And concerning the episode, it took me til the backround behind Haruhi changed to that “moving” backround to notice the Phoenix Wright references… then again, I thought it was funny how Itsuki was bowing like Edgeworth. 2+2=4 😛

    Ryouko
  19. “Gyakuten Saiban/Phoenix Wright reference in the middle picture of the second to last row!!!!

    Not only. They also reference to Detective Conan with the black figures -_-;”

    Hooray for both! They even referenced both with a mix of the Objection theme from PW and the revelation (or whatever theme) from Case Closed.

    LHSM
  20. This whole thing coulda ended in a minute if they just taken the man’s pulse. >.>

    Actually, Haruhi was about to, but Koizumi or the butler told her not to mess with the body.

    LHSM
  21. Sorry to keep commenting a million times in a row, but has anyone noticed the Ouendan reference in the opening of the show, since we’re on the topic of referencing different shows/games? I could just be a little slow with this.

    LHSM
  22. The Phoenix Wright references at the “revelation” from Haruhi at the end were priceless. Pose after pose were directly ripped off (modeled after?) the game. I was ROFL the second time I watched it — didn’t get it until I saw a character motions towards the end, and thought, “this whole segment was written by Capcom, wasn’t it?”

  23. @ demon eyes.

    No.they didn’t do it. Haruhi tried to remove the wet bra, but out of shyness to Kyon, she changed her mind. they just dried off themselves and waited for help.

    knight of one

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