First Impressions / Suzumiya Haruhi

Summary:

After the athletic festival in which the SOS Brigade wins a relay race thanks mostly to Yuki’s surprising speed, Haruhi sets her sights on the upcoming culture festival. Unhappy with what her and Kyon’s class is doing, she starts brainstorming and finds out that Mikuru’s class is doing a yakisoba cafe, Itsuki’s is putting on a play, and Yuki’s is doing fortune-telling. Haruhi ultimately announces though that the SOS Brigade will put on a screening of their own movie for the culture festival, and it all stems from how she saw a bad movie the previous night and thought that she could do better. She’s already thought up a script, and her goal is to win the festival’s best event poll so that the student council recognizes them as a club. As for production costs, Haruhi plans to use the literature club’s budget thanks to Yuki.

The next day, Kyon arrives in the club room to find that Haruhi has already assigned roles for everyone. Mikuru and Itsuki are the female and male leads while Yuki plays a supporting character, and Kyon himself is supposed to do all the technical and labor-intensive work. Haruhi then drags Kyon and Mikuru along to go get equipment and props from potential sponsors. Their first stop is an electronics store, and after a discussion with the store manager, Haruhi emerges with a video camera. She doesn’t explain exactly how she convinced the guy, but once Haruhi does the same at another store, Kyon figures out that it has something to do with how she’s pointing at Mikuru each time. Haruhi is thus able to procure some toy weapons for the action scene, and she has Kyon hold onto everything for the time being.

 

Thoughts:

Thanks to Endless Eight for eight weeks, I had a very weird feeling while watching this episode. I had gotten so used to each character’s exact mannerisms in the Endless Eight arc that I had forgotten how they interacted with each other normally. This episode thus served as a good reminder and as a refreshing change of pace. As I said earlier, it was mostly a set-up episode for the Mikuru movie/episode which we’re all familiar with, and, knowing what the final product will be like, it was interesting seeing how everything came together. There was also the athletic festival scene at the beginning that was amusing thanks to Yuki, so overall I thought this was a decent episode. If you hate KyoAni and/or this series thanks to the previous eight weeks, then this episode alone probably won’t make you significantly better about it, but the material might be a good start. In any case, since they’re still going chronologically, the next few weeks should be more of how the movie was made and then finally episode 00 itself.

55 Comments

  2. Thanks for the post! Well. I had pretty much given up on this series, but I peeked at this and found this entertaining. Nevertheless, I generally am not fond of series that essentially rehash old subject matter, which is why I was not a fan of Shuffle Memories. Still, it is good for a laugh or two, and Yuki was a pleasant surprise. And I am dying to know what exactly Mikiru did to help secure the discounts. I’m guessing she looked like she was going to cry or Haruhi did something to emphasize the moe factor.

    Canaan rocks
    Reply

  17. It’s good to be back on track. I like Kyon’s face on the tenth picture and, of course, Haruhi eyebrow action in number 6. Also, where’d everyone go. If this was E8, there’d’ve been, like, 81 posts by now. >_>

    Meery
    Reply

  21. A decent start to adapting the novel to anime. My only complaint was that the toy guns were assault rifles(it’s even an ak-47 in the Mikuru movie episode) so the boxes Haruhi bought shouldn’t have Deagles on them.

    Emphraim
    Reply

  26. Great to see a new episode (non endless 8) of Haruhi. It was pretty good but not quite up to the average of the first season. The last couple of episodes of this season should be pretty good- I have hope again.

    ender650
    Reply

  30. @Jubserz

    Yes probably.. A lot of people here watch RAWs. Including me when I just can’t bear to wait any longer. 🙂

    But I didn’t watch RAW of this ep.

    Anyway… Glad it’s a new episode. Let’s not bring up the dead subject and beat it with a baseball bat again. Smiles everyone. Psychotic ones will do. 🙂

    megalith
    Reply

  32. @S_1

    If we are talking about continuity with the anime then you are indeed right. I forgot they used pistols in the anime and was thinking about the books, in which Mikuru uses a model machine gun against Yuki rather than pistols.

    Emphraim
    Reply

  34. Okay to people having trouble wondering why she has Desert Eagle .50AE’s in her arms was Mikuru had 2 of them during the 00 episode. The AK-47 was the first weapon used, and then when Mikuru was in her cafe waitress costume she dropped the dual desert eagles and did her mikuru beamu technique. Hope that clears peoples minds, besides why people have fascinations with this show is because it’s random and how Kyoto Animation makes 8 weeks of repeats that to me were pretty damn sweet (but that’s just me). It took guts and Kyoto pulled it off good. It’s random and it’s fun, especially 8 weeks of a repreat random! 😀

    Jason Isenberg
    Reply

  38. Has anyone noticed: 1st Season focused on Haruhi, 2nd seems to focus more on Mikuru and timetravelling (Bamboo Leaf Rhapshody time travel, Endless Eight, and now the movie thing). Ergo, the 3rd season will finally show the best of all three: Yuki Nagato.

    magnumslinger
    Reply

  40. @ Spaxey, very true. Just compare to the animation quality to last episode to this one.

    There’s a difference there. Guess they put a lot of work into the Eightless Eight Arc.

    Awesome.
    Reply

  46. No, its not just some folks imagination…. there’s a definite “K-On” art style that’s been creeping into SHnY since the new episodes started. Can’t decide if I like it but it is what it is.

    vexx
    Reply

  49. God… Endless Eight has failed to dull my pure fan-boy love for Haruhi! This episode has reminded me of why I became crazy about Haruhi in the first place!
    …Fan-boy juice refilled!

    SirMuffin
    Reply

  50. Well, I’m glad the plot starts to move again, but I still have my complains.
    One of the things that is burnt onto my heart is Haruhi’s smile. The big arrogatn one she had while walking to sports ground in “Boredom” episode, the one that looks like ^___^. And that is why it hurts me so much to see that K-ON style used on Haruhi. These smiles just do not fit the image of Haruhi from Season 1.I still have hope they will use old-school style in season3.

    Bidlo
    Reply

  55. Well, I’m happy about the continual adaption of the Haruhi light novels, and I do think this novel should be adapted. But I can’t say that this is my favorite novel and I’d be far more pleased if they were adapting the Disappearance. Still hoping that they will create a bonus arc or something. I’ve heard a rumor or two about a movie too.

    innerchihiro
    Reply

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