“Zen zen. Aho ka. Dozo. Wakarimashitta. Personnel assigned the above code words are to report their mobilization centres immediately. Civil resource owners are to report with their equipment to their designated marshalling zones immediately.” It’s open mobilization for the S.O.S. Brigade!
Based on jason and Kurogane’s glowing reviews, I decided to give this series a try even though the new season has been t3h overwhelm. The start of the first episode was sheer “WTF?” - sooo excruciatingly bad that my suspicious nature was entertaining the possibility of some kind of collective joke being played, along the lines of “Let’s talk up some ultra-craptastic show and laugh as the suckers waste bandwidth and time on it.” (Another marvellous joke that was played on me, in the past, was being given only Ep 1-2 of Kiminozo and told to expect a harem comedy. Thanks ah, Stripey, thaaanks.)
First thing that grabbed me was Kyon’s voice-over commentary. Utterly brilliant stuff. They should have “Kyon does voiceover” for all the crap anime shows. I enjoyed Tomozuka Sugita as Rin Tsuchimi in SHUFFLE! but he’s even better here. The second was the ever-present Haruhi whom we first glimpse, repeatedly, in the opening credit lines and the awareness that the ‘movie’ was her handiwork. Besides employing a ’start in the middle and fill in the back story later’-type structure to get things off on a running start, the hiding of the main character was a brilliant stage setting tactic. For me, it built up anticipation and engaged my imagination that was so much more fun than the usual blatant straight forward introduction. (And sometimes hidden characters can exert a huge influence e.g. Niles’ (ex-)wife in Frasier, Samuel Beckett’s Godot or Motoko Kusunagi in GITS:Innocence.)
The resulting interaction of these two factors, between Crazy Girl and Straight Man, make for classic boke-tsukkomi comedy and the dynamic looks sustainable. The energetic ED with the dancing girls then sealed the deal. (And from now on, whenever I condemn someone as a moron, I’ll do Mikuru’s twirly finger gesture.)
Though mostly it’s because I have fallen head over heels in love with Haruhi’s hair toss. (;^_^)
Hahaha, yeah, the first episode was really a “WTF?!!” thing for me. It did catch my attention though, and the 2nd episode won the whole show for me. Being a worshipper of tsunderekko’s, Haruhi wins me, a lot.
Oh, yeah, Haruhi’s hair toss is pretty classic. I’ve been rerunning the OP and ED seqeunces like crazy…. damn, their dance is strangely hypnotic.
seems like it’s going to be a really great series, love the voice acting and the animation’s great..
the story’s turning out to be pretty…out there(to say the least) but seriously who wants another yuri/mecha/etc anime when you can have this :) i agree the first episode was pretty…unappealing..but you can pretty much skip right over that and start from the 2nd one. just hope that episode didn’t dissuade people from watching the rest of the series!:(
LOL! you are most welcome bro! :) Myself, I was drawn into it immediately with Mikuru’s out-of–this-world singing. It takes talent and raw seiyuu power to sing like that. Mikuru should be classified as a weapon of mass destruction (insert Rahxephon reference here)
Kurogane - I’m not sure about calling Haruhi a tsunderekko because I still haven’t seen the deredere side of her yet. Right now, still thinking of her as an eccentric extraordinaire.
Batt - Actually the first episode is what made this series special for me. The no-holds-barred parody, Kyon’s sarcasm and exasperation as well as the irony of the ’show within a show’ idea were brilliant. This will sound rather arrogant of me to say so (but then again I am an arrogant person): People who couldn’t appreciate the humour of the first episode probably don’t have a very subtle sense of humour. *does Mikuru twirly finger gesture* (;^_^)
Stripey - Yeah, that was probably the first time I wanted to kill you over something anime related. The second being when you went on a crazed siscon rant - kept saying ‘daisukidayo’ at the end of every sentence after watching the first ep of Scrapped Princess. X_x And the third (my fault) over a Lunamaria figurine booking at KKnM. LOL
I second your opinion about Mikuru’s singing being a true marvel. It’s actually almost impossible for someone who can already sing well to sing badly. The difference between the first ep OP and ED showed the contrast even more starkly.
Are we sure, that makers of this series didn’t implant any subliminal messages in the real OP and ED? I, myself, wants to watch them at least once per day, if not more.
LOL! Yes, your’s was the 2nd death threat I received over Kiminozo… :)
1st episode was kinda strange for me:they were shooting a movie?and the narrator is a little…um…sacarstic…
2nd episode was funny,like the part when she think of opening a new club,she pulled the guy’s shirt and he hit the back of his head at the edge of the table…or the ‘MOE’ factor of her upperclassman…and she intruded the literary club room…but this is one anime that must not be missed,,,unless you want to miss out on alien,time travellers,ghosts,demons and espers… XD
Erm…
I tried, reaaaly tried to watch this thing but it just couldn’t grab me. The first ep was like…urg. I just didn’t get hooked. I love normal comedy like Ouran but this movie-within movie thing got on my nerves.
I just deleted the two eps after watching 01 subbed and 2 raw but seeing as Zyl likes it, I will un-delete it and bare the pain.
So that I might have a say of “Have Withstood Pain to Watch Suzumiya Haruhi”
(;^_^) Demon Eyes, I take back some of what I said. More specifically, my Mikuru twirly finger gesture was meant more for people who say that Haruhi is a sucky series because the first episode was so badly done - such criticism missing the whole point, failing to realize that it was deliberately bad and that the fun was appreciating and picking apart its sheer awfulness.
I still think that an ability to appreciate irony is an important component of a GSOH but, of course, that’s subjective since my favourite non-anime comedies then to be British rather than American.
Huh?
Can you say that in english please?
Let me try it again. (;^_^) If Suzumiya Haruhi causes you pain, you really shouldn’t have to make yourself watch it no matter what smart arses like me say.