Otaku Surf

The Rebellion Against Haruhi Suzumiya

Posted on 06. Sep, 2009 by admin in Anime/Manga

Kyon in the latest episode of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya."

If you’ve been watching the new episodes of “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya,” you’re well aware of the Endless Eight arc that wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s eight episodes of the same episode with some slightly different animation and dialog, but everything else is the same. The characters are essentially doing the same day over and over and over and over and over. And when the next episode starts the following week, they have no memory of the repeated day. And they do everything again and again.

I wasn’t that enthused as much as the old series when the new series started in late May, but the Endless Eight arc was just killing my devotion to watching Suzumiya and the gangs hijinks until I watched  the episode “The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya Part 4,” the latest episode. 

Suzumiya continues to direct her movie letting nothing get in her way.

Suzumiya's production group for the movie, you can see Kyon's enthusiasm for the whole project.

Mikuru, the hesitant star of Suzumiya's movie.

Kyon, the normal high school student of the group, is once again participating in one of Suzumiya’s ill-thought out ideas of making a movie, a movie which was seen in it’s entirety in the first season. This episode deals with how the movie was made and what lengths Kyon is able tolerate Suzumiya and her treatment of the star of the movie, Mikuru.

Early on in the episode Kyon begins to rebel against the idea of throwing Mikuru into a lake for the sake of the movie, and we do see him get a bit angry and rebellious with Suzumiya, but Koizumi is there to remind Kyon that they should do what Suzumiya wishes rather than forsake the entire universe.

Suzumiya has been given god-like powers, to which she is completely oblivious to, and it has been told to Kyon to keep Suzumiya happy or there could be dire ramifications for that said universe. But in this episode, and a few others, he begins to rebel and get angry, which takes me to one of the most interesting and surprising moments of the series.

After learning that Mikuru has been given some alcohol in her drink, to make her more sexy and possibly amiable to Suzumiya’s requests, Kyon begins to get angry. Suzumiya then begins to bonk Mikuru on the head with her plastic horn, in order for Mikuru to focus. At that point Kyon raises his fist at Suzumiya.

Kyon attempts to hit Suzumiya.

Koizumi stops Kyon from hitting Suzumiya.

Suzumiya angry and confused about Kyon's attempted action.

Luckily for both, Koizumi stops the action by holding onto Kyon’s fist. I was pretty surprised that Kyon would actually do some physical harm to Suzumiya. Sure she’s a spoiled little brat and made Mikuru cry, but I think the audience was as surprised as Kyon that he would actually consider hitting Suzumiya.

The episode continues with Kyon trying to rationalize what he attempted to do and becomes enlightened to his actions when he speaks to one of his classmates about Suzumiya. Kyon doesn’t exactly apologize to Suzumiya at the end of the episode, but reinforces his willingness to her to continue along with the production of the movie, and just like that everythings back to normal.

After a few days everything's back to normal with Suzumiya in control.

After the “Endless (Needless) Eight” arc, this episode gave the series a well deserved “bonk on the head” to liven things a bit. The way everything was done during and after Kyon’s confrontation with Suzumiya in the episode was very dramatic and something that I hadn’t seen in the series which equaled some interesting anime.

I’m not going to debate whether who was in the right or wrong, but I enjoyed the interactions of the characters and the storyline and did something I haven’t done since I started watching the new episodes. I watched it again.

Tags: anime, haruhi suzumiya