Warning: I’m going to be committing murder in this essay, as I will be explaining a joke and that inevitably kills them. However, this is for the further advancement of science, so I hope I will be forgiven.
If you want to start an argument, whisper, “Broadcast order is best” in a room of veteran anime fans. They’ll know what you mean.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Along with the franchise’s penchant for self-commentary and
general disregard for the viewer's comfort, its lack of order is usually taken as evidence that it was done just to mess with our heads. And it was… with neurosurgical precision.
Haruhi S1 is the most delightfully clever series I have ever seen, a cleverness that I suspect springs from inspired necessity. Like many adaptations, the staff could only fit so much from the light novel source. While including the “Melancholy” volume was natural, being the introductory segment, it’s worth only six episodes of content. What to do with the other eight broadcast slots? Curiously, rather than utilizing “Sigh” (the next volume), the rest of the episodes are plucked from different volumes then inserted throughout
[1]:
Broadcast = Chronological
1 = 11 (Adventures of Asahina Mikuru)
2 = 1 (Melancholy 1)
3 = 2 (Melancholy 2)
4 = 7 (Baseball)
5 = 3 (Melancholy 3)
6 = 9 (Island 1)
7 = 8 (Missing computer club prez)
8 = 10 (Island 2)
9 = 14 ("Final" episode)
10 = 4 (Melancholy 4)
11 = 13 (The Legend of the Nagato Heroes)
12 = 12 (School festival, concert)
13 = 5 (Melancholy 5)
14 = 6 (Melancholy 6)
This may seem random, but notice that despite all the jumping around, the six Melancholy episodes remain sequential, spaced throughout the season, with an emphasis on the beginning and end as we’d expect from a progressing plot. Furthermore, this unorthodox structure has a purpose, and that it is the “inspired” part of “inspired necessity.”
Haruhi is a mystery, a mystery that guides an adapting, self-aware joke. If I had to describe its method it would be to create expectations, know that it’s created those expectations, know that
we know that it’s created those expectations, show us that
it knows that we know that it knows that it’s created those expectations… and then stay one step ahead to make it all work anyway. Allow me to enthusiastically demonstrate.
The Setup
1 = 11 (Adventures of Asahina Mikuru)
2 = 1 (Melancholy 1)
3 = 2 (Melancholy 2)
Nagato: “Suzumiya Haruhi and I are not ordinary humans.”
Kyon: “I kind of knew that already.”
Nagato: “That is not what I mean… In more common terminology, I would be classified as an alien.”
It was at this moment
Kyon realized his understanding of the situation had gone seriously awry. As did we. This is not a conversation “either” of us thought was possible. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Starting at the beginning is what normally makes sense.
The Adventures of Asahina Mikuru is a prank, and
a brilliant one at that. You may think I’m referring to its candid introduction of the cast, hiding everything by hiding nothing, all while thumbing its nose at us because we don’t yet know what we’re in for. That’s true and worth a chuckle later on; you might even have an inkling of this yourself as you watch it. If so, all the better, even. Like so many aspects of this show it can stand on its own as a gag, but it’s also the setup for a much bigger question:
What is Haruhi trying to do?
Sure, it might be funny to to subject us to a few minutes of this farce, but twenty-two minutes and seventeen seconds of it? This is so excessive that it demands an answer… we uncomfortably don’t have. What sort of series does this? What’s worse, everything about the episode is subtly contradictory. The poor cinematography belies an expert recreation
of poor cinematography as filmed through a camcorder. We unthinkingly accept the glaring holes as part of its ridiculousness, yet our attention is directed relentlessly to
discrepancies big and small as though we ought to be looking for consistent story. Then, oddly, when extremely unusual things
do happen
sometimes it explains them,
sometimes it doesn’t. And what about the people? They’re all poor actors, so are we supposed to be bothered by their failure to live up to their roles or
ignore that too?
Like Kyon, our longsuffering representative in this misadventure, all we can do is
keep trying explanations and hope they stick, unsure if it matters at all. By the time
Suzumiya turns to address us at the end, not only has carefully watching not answered anything, it has actually left us less sure what is signal and what is noise.
Now having been mildly confused, mistreated, and mocked (
you wanna tell me you didn’t catch yourself staring too?) the series begins “in earnest”: a standard case of a jaded, low-energy male protagonist being dragged around by an eccentric, hyperactive female who instigates wacky adventures for her and her merry friends, all the while peppering in
obvious self-referential comments that make us smart for noticing them. Now it clicks into place.
Haruhi is a comedy, one that is making fun of all the other series in the genre while being a joke itself. The opening movie was just a good, sharp kick in the shin to show off just how funny and different it is.
...except so far
it’s not funny like it’s supposed to be. Sure Kyon keeps up his observations of the weirdos around him, observations that are our own but
better said, but Suzumiya herself is legitimately awful to people. The light-hearted music plays and it fits all the tropes, but
Asahina’s reaction to being groped and publicly humiliated is discomfitingly not that of a comedic side character. And what’s Nagato up to? Rather than being the bookishly shy-but-sweet girl she’s remained sitting in the corner, an unreadable lump with no personality in sight. If possible, everybody is playing their roles even worse than in the movie.
Moreover,
strange things are afoot at the Circle K. It’s nothing we can take to court, but Suzumiya keeps getting her way in the oddest of situations. Random lots gives her the coveted back left corner, with Kyon in easy grabbing distance. Stereotypically the literature club is low on members, and the sole remaining occupant allows her to use the space despite being a patent hermit. She wants a
timid, cutesy mascot, and not only does she locate a perfect specimen, Asahina even chooses to stay despite the mistreatment. Are these just contrivances of the genre or are we
supposed to question what they mean (...
and did she just read our thoughts)?
Which brings us at last back to Nagato’s apartment. When she tells Kyon that she’s an alien we’ve reached a critical mass of uncertainty. It’s not just that we don’t know whether she is telling the truth. That’s not the real suspense that has been building, although we’ve been given conflicting information on this too
[2]. It’s that we don’t know whether we
should be wondering it. Is it even possible? Aliens belong in certain shows, delusional high school girls in others. But what type are we in?
And
Haruhi stares back at us through Nagato’s indecipherable face, playing it straight. It anticipated our first (mis)understanding (“That is not what I mean”) and it knows we want the answer as to what it’s up to. But as the episode ends, it’s not giving any more hints.
Payoffs and Playoffs
4 = 7 (Baseball)
5 = 3 (Melancholy 3)
Now time for baseball! This is… not what was expected. Although not entirely unexpected either, because if its earlier actions weren’t enough to convince us we can be pretty sure now
Haruhi must be going for random nonsequitur.
To not explain itself before moving on seems like just the sort of trick it would pull. It even keeps stringing us along with
more strange coincidences, more
indecipherable references, more cases of
Nagato being weird-but-not-indisputably-alien-weird (which is a great visual gag, I might add)… but something is different.
Kyon: “Hey Nagato. Could you make it rain on the day of the game?”
Kyon, our faithful narrator, has changed his mind; he knows something we don’t. Or does he? Nagato immediately gives him a reason why she won’t do it, so maybe she’s just a dedicated roleplayer and he’s decided to humor her after their meeting. He knew she’d turn him down. ...maybe? We still can’t identify what a “tell” is in this show; how can we when it’s sending signals that are random, discomforting, and funny too? And it just keeps getting weirder, with references to the end of the world piling up and
odd flashbacks that we cannot verify. Then the killing blow:
Nagato: “This [bat] has been modified with a boost in attribute data.”
With the ball flying far out over the field, we now have confirmation: there is something supernatural going on in this series. The rest of it could be explained away, but not this. But here’s the kicker:
“There’s a limit to ridiculousness.”
Haruhi knows it. It knew
precisely up to the point that we would be doubtful and what kind of information we’d accept to make our decision. We didn’t figure it out; we were told.
Haruhi played us, making us think our resolution with Nagato was on hold, only to pitch it to us here. Speaking of which….
We’re now returned to our regularly scheduled programming. The atmosphere, which before was merely suggestive, has become kaleidoscopic, the subtle hints exploding into a
welter of visuals that let us know we’re not in Kansas anymore. But that’s the funny thing: we don’t need it. We’re already convinced. This is almost like
Haruhi is rubbing it in our face that it was here the whole time and we didn’t bother to notice until now. It was also the moment when I fell in love with the series:
Nagato: “[Suzumiya] won’t take the data you feed her seriously.”
Kyon: “You have a point.”
I had to pause the video and laugh until my jaw hurt. I know it’s quixotic to hope to convey comedy, but this was truly one of the most hilarious moments I have ever experienced in anime. In anything. Like all the gags in this show, it’s worth at least a chuckle on its own, a small denigration of Suzumiya’s nature that we can smugly agree with. But that’s the lesser portion. It’s the moment when this entire build up reflects back on itself holographically.
A character, who is being told the truth but doesn’t accept it, is disparaging another who would do the same, while functioning as our stand-in, the audience who was skeptical about what
Haruhi was telling us, in both cases because we “knew” what world we were in, caught in the act of confidently agreeing with his/our assessment of
the foolishness of people who don’t listen to what they’re told. It is in that sudden snag, that snap of dissociation that proves not only that Kyon is an unreliable narrator, but that we are as well, that the waveform collapses in a moment of perfect comedic timing.
The Island: We Won’t Be Fooled Again
6 = 9 (Island 1)
7 = 8 (Missing computer club prez)
8 = 10 (Island 2)
With this "reveal" that we’re actually in a supernatural random-discomforting-comedy the first arc ends and the second begins. Yet curiously little was resolved.
Nagato has demonstrated herself in the way we accept but the other two club members have been less forthcoming with evidence; it’s all <Classified Information> and special circumstances for using powers.
Are they really what they say they are? This series could really go either way, but they’re probably both special.
Probably.
But the central issue is
Suzumiya. Despite all the warnings and hints, we don’t actually know how to spot her powers at work. Apparently she’s omnipotent, but we have only the characters’ word to take for that. That’s fishy. It’s one thing to accept Nagato can bewitch sports equipment, it’s another that Suzumiya can destroy the universe because of a bad mood. And we have no way to prove that
all these coincidences are actually Suzumiya’s fault, especially since
things don’t always go her way. We need more data, and on cue is our mystery scenario:
Koizumi: “[Situations like this] only exist in the unrealistic world of storytelling.”
Haruhi isn’t going to insult our intelligence by trying to hide it a second time. It comes clean up front in an
overstated self-referential dialogue: the only way these sorts of things happen is if they’re rigged. Come on, we can’t miss it; this is the confirmation we wanted, right? Even though it’s
not quite what Suzumiya dreamed of, it’s close enough to her fantasy that it’s clear she’s the culprit. Besides, who else could summon a typhoon from clear skies?
The murder, however, was not expected. Sure there was mention of the apocalypse, but this has all been too flippant to take seriously; random and discomforting aren’t the same as dark.
Haruhi wouldn’t kill somebody… would it? It’s the same conundrum as before with Nagato. We’re faced with a “confession” of sorts, with evidence leaning both ways, and as we wrack our brains we can’t
quite convince ourselves after all its antics that
Haruhi isn’t that sort of show. Maybe it’s just pretending to be dark. Maybe it’s not. Maybe Suzumiya will bring Keiichi back to life or rewrite time or… something. Who knows what she, or this show, can do,
now that we’ve accepted her power. We’ll just have to find out next episode.
…
And now time for giant digital cave crickets! Not only is it the same problem as in episode three, it’s the same low-blow trick to yank us away from the action just at the height of the tension. But we know this song and dance (or, rather, maybe we do in retrospect; I didn’t know it at the time). The last “random” episode was informational, meaning this one likely is as well. So, what does this episode have to say?
Well, to put it briefly, it’s a mystery that is actually an
engineered scenario. At first we assume it’s Suzumiya’s fault, because everything is, but as she points out:
if she does everything then what’s the purpose of the rest of the cast? The real culprit is
somebody else, somebody completely obvious in her
driving of the events and in the
middle of all the action, someone who had even taken the opportunity to
deflect a bored god’s enthusiasm with the scent of the unknown. Just because it
slightly involved Suzumiya’s powers, that wasn’t the real story (she was hellbent on pursuing
her own wrong theory anyway; what an idiot).
I’m pretty sure I don’t have to
spell out the obvious, since reading this far without having seen the series would be daft.
Haruhi is taunting us. Just because the venue changed, the mystery never stopped; the indications are everywhere in this series, and it is even so kind as to
repeatedly correct our key misunderstanding. Yet despite its valiant efforts, we’re more liable to be
distracted by the crazy supernatural events, and so entirely reinforced in our faith that the murder scenario is supernatural too. No wonder
Koizumi didn’t worry about Kyon catching his drift.
The island isn’t done with us, though. Not by a long shot. Having given us innumerable clues (again)
Haruhi lets us try to put it together (again) while we nonetheless remain remarkably confident (again). Why do we fall for it (again)? Because, as always, we think we have the right answer. Or, rather,
the right framework. The real secret here is Suzumiya’s powers, not these pedestrian goings on.
We’ll spare a thought for the murderer, of course, but having established the ultimate cause in our minds we
are not overly concerned about the details; gods, if they want to kill somebody, will find a way. What’s preoccupying us is how to make all these events make sense in
our theory (and patronizing Suzumiya’s ignorance… again).
Again, everybody here
knows the resolution, but I just wanted to remind how utterly delightful our own self-misleading can be. The only way we were fooled was if we obediently learned the wrong lesson from the first arc. Before we discounted signs of the supernatural because we didn’t think they fit; now that we know they fit, that’s all we could see.
In fact, even when they didn’t fit we made them;
did Suzumiya’s face really look like she was guilty? No, she was horrified and distraught, and
told us outright that she didn’t actually think anything bad would happen.
Haruhi would never kill somebody out of boredom. In spite of this, we chose her as the culprit because the evidence to the contrary was just too mundane to make note of in this supernatural random-discomforting-meta-comedy (and we don’t like her very much either).
Meanwhile, it was Suzumiya who assiduously paid attention to the facts in front of her, and who was able to realize she was in a three level mystery: that there was an “apparent” truth (normal island / murder), a “false” truth that acts as a red herring (supernatural island / accidental door murder), and a real truth hiding at the bottom (it was all a play with a purpose, just like we were told at the start). We’re the ones who can’t seem to solve
the mysteries staring us in the face. Of course, it’d be too embarrassing to admit that, so we’ll retreat to
reminding ourselves how annoyingly self-absorbed she still is, and that we weren’t
that clueless (be honest,
you said the same thing).
Haruhi even lets us keep our dignity by pretending we were helpful.
(snerk)
At this point I’m reminded of a short quip from a previous episode:
if Haruhi can only throw straight, then eventually even a child would catch on. We knew
Haruhi was trying to get a ball by us but accepted the soft-pitched, and painfully obvious, metacommentary anyway. That it had the confidence to even
signal (
loudly and repeatedly) before actually throwing a curveball means it thought we never had any hope of hitting it in the first place.
We can gripe that it wasn’t clear, but what’s the point of a mystery if it tells you what the clues mean?
Oh, and since it knows we weren’t really paying attention,
Haruhi will even give us one last hint:
what about that unidentified shadow that led them toward the cave? We thought the mystery was over, but maybe that’s because we never grasped what it was about.
The Final Akanbe
9 = 14 ("Final" episode)
“The SOS Brigade keeps getting caught up in various incidents… Even so, we couldn’t possibly run into situations like that every single day.”
This is it, the final episode… of sorts. It begins before the OP with a tranquil atmosphere, looking forward to the coming winter while happily reminiscing about the past. It’s all so homey. Time for us to kick back, relax, and enjoy one last healing round with our favorite characters...
Yeah, right.
There is no way that this is all there is to the episode.
“Unusually cold day”? What’s the setup this time? Is Suzumiya going to accidentally cause winter to come early? Or is it Asahina’s turn to do something sneaky and leave Kyon forlorn? As the OP ends our eyes are peeled for what’s going to jump out next. The camera thoughtfully obliges us:
a wide-angle that keeps the whole room in view, missing nothing, followed by
God’s-eye perspectives, letting us linger over every detail (taking bets you paused it at least once,
probably on the card game).
It drags on in eerie inaction until Kyon startles and looks up (
does the sun mean something?!?), as though he had just remembered that an episode was supposed to happen. The regular music comfortingly begins to play and he narrates for us as he always has:
“It sure is nice and quiet when Haruhi isn’t around. But I guess it’s a little too quiet, huh? Now that I think about it, it’s already been half a year since I met everyone. We’ve sure been through a lot. Situations where Haruhi was the instigator and a few where she wasn’t. Well, most of them started when we were kicking back and relaxing in the clubroom like so only to be interrupted by her barging in…” SLAM
Remember those times where we weren’t sure if something was going on? Where we were misled by our own expectations, hung up on whether
something supernatural was happening (
or not), and so overlooked important details? Well,
Haruhi Farm remembers; they were great. The series might act like nothing is up, but suspiciously on cue Suzumiya bursts in the door. Something is always up, no matter what the opening told us, and after missing twice we’re intent on not striking out with a third failure. Besides, with more than half the series complete we’re beginning to notice the cross-references and double-meanings. We’re
getting it now.
And this is how the episode mocks us relentlessly for twenty minutes, because nothing happens.
Of course, this doesn’t stop us from trying to find it happening.
Kyon pauses in his walk down the hill and we hold our breath… but it’s only to idly wonder what Suzumiya is doing.
Koizumi’s tea has gotten cold, nothing more. But, wait,
calling Asahina a mascot character is self-aware! It’s just enough to keep us going. Just enough to convince us to sit and listen to four minutes and twenty two seconds of
inane radio chatter hoping to find relevance in the words. It even does it to us a second time, and we’re prepared to listen all over again…
before Tsuruya interrupts. Then it checks if we’ll do it a
third time. Yep, we will. And we think we’re rewarded for our persistence: Nagato
finally stands up, validating our efforts… only for the screen to go black. We were waiting for nothing.
But really, we should have known this.
Did we really think we’d see Asahina in the buff? No? How about
again? And
again? It doesn’t even seem to matter whether we know we’re being tricked, we’ll still fall for it at least three times (first arc, second arc, and now here). And to top it off, not only can
Haruhi get us to do whatever it wants,
we’ll even think ourselves clever when we’re forced to notice it.
In the last few minutes, though, something does happen:
Suzumiya likes Kyon. We probably already guessed this given the
previous indications, or at least the tropes; the manic pixie dream girl is legally required to like the male protagonist, and even if Suzumiya is more “manic” than “dream girl,” it’s still obvious that’s her role. We won’t begrudge the scene though; it’s nice to have solid confirmation of anything in this series, after all. But don’t hope for too much, because Suzumiya will be Suzumiya. Like the last football pulled out from in front of us as we go to kick, she
prances away with the umbrella and ruins any romantic tension that might have existed. After the rest of this episode, the rest of this series, did we really expect anything else?
Strike three.
God Knows How Much She Tries
10 = 4 (Melancholy 4)
11 = 13 (The Legend of the Nagato Heroes)
12 = 12 (School festival, concert)
Before continuing, a brief recap is in order (
everybody likes recap episodes, right?). Bemused by the first episode, we were left off balance and so open to questioning what this series was about. The first few episodes carefully maintained this uncertainty, counting on then cashing in our wariness. The island arc demonstrated that it didn’t matter if we were aware of it, we could still miss the obvious because we thought we already knew the answer. Having been fooled repeatedly, we accepted what the final episode “told” us without question: this series is absurd,
Haruhi sticking its tongue out at us until the last second.
“Perhaps Suzumiya is feeling lovesick?”
As Ryoko speaks this line at the beginning of Melancholy 4, it seems a bit… unnecessary. Yes, of course, we already know this. We just saw it last episode; like any good tsundere, Suzumiya is humorously enamored to Kyon but almost pathologically unable to express her feelings. Watching her
deny it while occasionally being
caught in the act is part of the entertainment. But
Haruhi likes commenting on itself, and we like noticing it, so why not?
[3]
At this point in the essay, I hope the reader has some inkling that we’re being set up. Have been set up all along. We’ve been allowed to think we know Suzumiya: she’s a thoughtless, obnoxious character who, despite being putatively intelligent, is comically delusional. Her feelings for Kyon are just part of this silly contrivance. Similarly, we think we know
Haruhi. Like its titular character, it has been, and will be, one big (absurdist supernatural random-discomforting-meta) joke, and as Suzumiya walks on stage in her now-familiar bunny suit we
groan and
murmur among ourselves at the coming embarrassment. She merely works steadily, solemnly,
ignoring us and making sure everything is ready, before beginning...
It is the
greatest, most heartfelt “prank” of the series:
Suzumiya was a serious character all along. All it took was a
disagreeable nature and
funny appearances for us to not notice. We truly are bad at this. But now, like the beginning movie whose effect could not be faked without being followed through, there is no way to counterfeit the gorgeous animation or mistake the passion and personality of her song. Knowing so well how to toy with us,
Haruhi knows how to prove itself too. The audience is stunned into silence,
mouths hanging open in disbelief at having their expectations defied so spectacularly.
But what I find truly arresting, touching even, about this scene is how it encapsulates Suzumiya at her best, a reflection of her life hidden in plain sight. From the first moment she was on stage, relentlessly expressing herself at maximum volume even though people didn’t understand. It was always a failure of having the right
context. People already “knew” what her behaviors meant, and interpreted her accordingly (sound familiar?). So even as she explains herself (“I run through [life] with a thirsting heart”), her frustrated regrets (“I’m sorry I… couldn’t even share your pain / You wouldn’t let me”) and her fondest dream-memory (“You were there, I was there, and everyone else had vanished”) the audience is none the wiser for it. Except one.
Kyon, our stand-in, at last has the wits to stare dumbfounded at this remarkable girl he had missed all along.
When she is done, Suzumiya looks up as though waking from a trance,
surprised to see everybody cheering. She was so absorbed by her own intensity she wasn’t even watching them. Now, even though they don’t understand, they do appreciate.
She’s not used to being appreciated. An exhausted, joyous smile spreads across her face and she turns to the camera to let us know it. It’s the most tender expression she’s had all series. True she’s often grinning, but to see her like this it makes you realize that she’s not as often
happy. This has been a window into her, a character that, like so many things,
we didn’t pay attention to until we could no longer ignore.
Koizumi: “Suzumiya is quite good, isn’t she?”
The Disappointment of Haruhi Suzumiya
13 = 5 (Melancholy 5)
14 = 6 (Melancholy 6)
Suzumiya: “Say… have you ever realized how insignificant your existence is on this planet? I have. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
Suzumiya has fantastic back muscles. It isn’t apparent until you get a clear look at them, covered as they normally are by a school uniform. She has a good body, fit and taught like a strung bow, poised for action. She isn’t ashamed of it. But like so many things about her, it’s not quite the body people are looking for.
There are clues scattered throughout the series
which only now become obvious. No matter the physical challenge,
Suzumiya was there to meet it. Mentally it was the same.
School isn’t an obstacle, she’s
unusually perceptive, and her apparently-spontaneous schemes are actually quite
well-planned and effective.
If this were not enough, she possesses nearly unlimited energy, enough to
run everybody else ragged, and a strong will to direct and utilize these impressive gifts. All of this was taken to be part of her caricature (what kind of show are we in again?) or covered by our own griping about her personality (because this was all about us), but the evidence was always there:
Suzumiya is an exceptional human being in nearly every regard.
This is why she’s on the lookout for the unusual. She’s on a mission. Normal life and
normal people leave her unfulfilled so she dreams of something more; that she jettisoned the supernatural club as fast as anything else proves it’s not conspiracies that she believes in (she’s too smart for that, ironically), it’s a more interesting world. People think she’s behind when in truth
she’s lapped them.
And she never turned down a boyfriend. Suzumiya, against her
fervent objections, is stuck being a
healthy young female. She’s a bit of a romantic and is desperate to find that one person who will make her feel loved for being the vivacious, but tempestuous, girl that she is. She wants somebody to share her vision with more than she wants aliens, and keeps trying despite the unrelenting failures. Now she’s fallen for Kyon,
the guy she dearly wishes to rely on, and doesn’t know what to do when he doesn’t reciprocate (“I’m sorry I… couldn’t even share your pain / You wouldn’t let me”). She’s scared he’ll let her down too
[4],
afraid that he’ll never take her seriously, and
angry when he expresses the self-satisfied mediocrity that causes her to disdain everybody else.
Disdain. This has been her greatest failing. Suzumiya is not unaware of how to be considerate, nor is she so lacking in self control that she cannot be
civil when she wishes. It's that she chooses not to be, contemptuous of empty social norms, impatient with complacency, and scornful of how everybody has misunderstood her. In time she has come to value them not at all, becoming a disruptive and
uncouth caricature of herself in the process. Suzumiya is genuinely eccentric, yes, but her own act has run away with her and although everything about her behavior radiates a denigration of humanity, Suzumiya is still begging for their appreciation and acceptance.
So as she stands up there after the concert, and the crowd is finally giving her the adulation she has secretly craved... Suzumiya apologizes.
She shouldn't be up there, this was somebody else's concert, but in her rationalized selfishness she was willing to push them out of the way for the chance to prove herself anyway
[5]. To see her unaware victims standing in the doorway later, come to thank and praise her, her
eyes go wide and
she looks away in shame at how she has acted. As long as she felt painfully undervalued she could feel justified in returning the favor, but now the truth is forced: it's not just people's incomprehension that has caused her to be disliked. It has been her own unkindness as well, and
maybe she should think on that. Then the last stinging line:
“We’re planning to put on one last concert. You should come and watch with your… (the girl turns questioningly to Kyon, then back to the camera pityingly)... friend.”
That the crowd still found her acceptable after all her apologies
made her so happy she could cry. That the guy next to her, the one she just sang her heart out for, seems at best to tolerate her,
means it yet went to waste. Suzumiya really is lonely and lovesick, and though not an easy person to be around her feelings are genuine. All of her is, to a fault. And in the background the series winks to let us know that we know it now too.
This is Suzumiya’s struggle of the final few episodes, then. Throughout the series she has frantically tried to get Kyon’s attention in her own stubborn, eccentric way, because that’s how she needs to be appreciated if it is to mean anything. Yet it doesn’t seem to be working;
he doesn’t even seem aware, let alone interested.
Her last hope is failing her. It’s why she even overcame her trepidation to talk
to him earnestly at the railroad tracks.
Haruhi isn’t using a faux-existential ramble to
prove she’s special; we already know that. Nor is it an excuse for pity or bad behavior. It is her beseeching Kyon to understand,
that she knows what she’s doing and why, and an invitation to join her that she would extend to nobody else. The world was never threatened by her boredom, only by the ache that she would be alone in it.
The resolution, though, is happy, and the last reason I value the broadcast order as it is. While the future may foretell that nothing happens, it slips in the side door anyway. We were fooled by not being fooled. It ends up all along, the core of this story really was a romantic high school comedy, and at the conclusion we get our confession (
of sorts) and kiss. Shame on us for doubting. And lest we think
Haruhi would
impishly steal that back to spite us, that moment of annoyed disbelief as Kyon falls out of bed and we fear it was all a dream, the last scene before the wrap-up is Suzumiya with a ponytail.
She won’t face the camera; it’s still hard for her to compromise even a little like this, after all. But...
it really does look good on her.
Conclusion: Haruhi is Suzumiya
Suzumiya: “I kind of wonder if [my song] was really good enough.”
I was originally going to write this essay only on the humor, but in the process of constructing it I realized it was more than the humor that made the series great. It was the intelligent delight of being benignly outwitted, something that is akin to humor in its surprise but which led to a much greater appreciation of
Haruhi’s insight and heart. And to Suzumiya’s insight and heart as well, for as I wrote I formed an impression which became the backbone of this project:
Haruhi is Suzumiya.
At every turn, the series seems to be reacting to us. It’s a character. A character who is cleverer than us, and who despite initial appearances has a method to its madness. It’s trying to show us something, even at times becoming frustrated, mocking our slowness on the uptake and
dragging us along to make its point. There’s also
a core of seriousness to it, but it would be a gross misunderstanding to think
it would mope around too long as a result. And, ultimately, we’ll have to put up with just a bit of abuse to really appreciate it.
Conversely, Suzumiya is more than
just the director. She’s the show. Everything that happens is subject to her will, why she can know secret events and thoughts, and why her greatest power is logic-defying plot contrivance to fulfill her wishes. Even the camera obeys her. Yet this is also why
those powers don’t matter; the point of the show was to understand Suzumiya as a person
[6] not to explain how the author’s pen can puncture space-time. Which brings me to one last peculiarity:
“The director of this film probably thought that there should be an ending, regardless of what that ending was.”
The line above is a throw-away in the first episode. I think that’s Tatsuya Ishihara (the director) speaking directly, that he didn’t want to just partially adapt a light novel and leave it dangling, abandoned to incompleteness as so many series are. Instead, he made
Haruhi S1 a self-contained story, and accomplished it by a very unusual choice: Suzumiya doesn’t develop chronologically, but as
Haruhi does in broadcast order.
In the beginning she is a petulant, angry, standoffish girl who blackmails the computer club out of selfishness and spite. As the series progresses she mellows the “longer” she spends with Kyon. If he wants to do something different after the baseball game,
she’s okay with that. On the island he’s able to
overrule her and she doesn’t object. In the “final” episode
her feelings are starting to peek through (and
she openly acknowledges Kyon is her break pedal). With
Day of Sagittarius she takes a huge step forward,
acquiescing to Kyon’s objection to her selfish usage of the other members and submitting to offering herself as well; this is unbelievable growth.
By the time of the concert, her development has reached a point where she’s
reconsidering how she’s lived her life. Not the willful, unorthodox aspect of it, but her continual insistence on defying everybody else out of stubborn pride. There is regret now over how her behavior has cost people. When Kyon finally kisses her, she’s ready to be anchored, because that’s the truth of it: loving somebody and being in a relationship means
she can’t have it all her way. Maybe she can work on her weaknesses in the future, and that with the last scene
Kyon is there to meet her halfway. I think it’s extraordinarily sweet.
However, I wouldn’t want to end this essay too seriously. It’d be a betrayal of the series to not remember the mountain of
visual gags,
witticisms, and
references that substantiate it;
Haruhi is funny at all levels while also being sincere. That balance is part of what it makes it great, too. But there is one more piece in all of this. In the beginning I alluded to a mystery guiding a joke. The mystery, of course, was
Haruhi Suzumiya sitting in the back left corner of the classroom, waiting for us to realize the truth: she was the all-important main character, not us.
We were the joke.
