The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Title: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Alternate Title: None
Genre: Slice of life, comedy, psychological
Run time: 24 minutes
Episode count: 14
Vintage: 2006
Review:

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a slice of life anime based on a story about a girl who can control the world to make it fit with what she believes is interesting. Nothing is cookie cutter about this anime. To make it even more original there is a trick to it. The first episode is out of sequence. The first episode is really the last episode. This throws off the average consumer, which is really a shame because this anime is so unique. If watched it outshines most other animes in this genre if not all of them.

The animation is relatively well done. They use a few different styles. They use the typical slice of life style animation, a home movie style animation, and an imposed monochromatic video overlay in one episode. This is nice it uses elements not typically seen in anime.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is full of humor based of of characters that are the extreme versions of stereotypes, however each character plays a double role. There is a ditzy pretty girl who is a time traveler, an esper who is part of an elite organization, a bookworm who is really an alien gathering data, a normal depressed male who is the shows narrator, and then the lead is that typical out there space cadet but she controls the world with emotions.

This anime is a constantly changing with unique plots and stories up to the very end. However, there are a couple of things I did not like. I hated the show being driven by the male leads internal narration. It gets old you have to pay super close attention to see when he is actually speaking and the voice is drab. The other thing I disliked was the home movie episode being the first episode. It will make alot of people not watch the series, however after the series is watched you get the joke that is told throughout the home movie and it quickly becomes a favorite episode. I suggest watching the other episodes first or at least know going in that the first episode isnt intended to make sense till the end of the series. For that reason I give it an 8 out of 10.

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