Haruhi Suzumiya

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Haruhi Suzumiya is a Japanese light novel series by Nagaru Tanigawa, illustrated by Noizi Ito, and it helped solve a math problem that had stayed open since 1993. In 2011, a crowd on 4chan set out to answer a puzzle inspired by the anime's scrambled episode order. The puzzle asked for the fewest episodes a viewer would need to watch to see the original run in every possible order. Their efforts led to a proof of a lower bound for the minimal length of superpermutations. Behind that oddity sits a comedy about a bored schoolgirl and a handful of classmates who know something she does not. This documentary asks who those classmates are, why a run of novels kept producing new versions of itself, and why one stretch of its television history still divides fans.

  926785

• 2. The Brigade

  ›

  Kyon, a sardonic and witty student at North High School in Nishinomiya, once hoped for an extraordinary life. He now considers that wish childish and wants little more than an ordinary one. Then he befriends the girl who sits behind him in class, Haruhi Suzumiya.

  Haruhi is an eccentric who is forever trying to make her days more interesting. She does her hair a particular way for each day of the week, and she searches for supernatural phenomena and figures. One day Kyon accidentally plants the idea of a club for her pursuits. She founds the S.O.S. Brigade to investigate mysterious events, and she pulls Kyon in as a member. Kyon renamed the club on the school's official paperwork. The new name reads "Support the Student Body by Overworking to Make the World a Better Place Student Service Brigade."

  Three more members soon arrive. Yuki Nagato is a laconic bibliophile, Mikuru Asahina is shy and timid, and Itsuki Koizumi is an unflappable transfer student. Over time, each turns out to be exactly the sort of extraordinary figure Haruhi is hunting for. Yuki is an alien interface sent by a hive mind. Mikuru is a time traveler sent from the future. Itsuki is an esper who works for a secret society.

  Haruhi herself is the reason they are all there. She holds the powers of a god without knowing it, and she can create or destroy the fabric of reality on a whim. The powers switch on when she wills something very hard or when she is in a bad mood. Each organization fears that if she learns the truth, or becomes upset enough, the entire universe could be destroyed. So the three members and Kyon work to keep her happy, using the brigade as their cover. They also fight outside threats that want to exploit her, and along the way they become a band of misfits. Their story began in print, in the pages of a magazine called The Sneaker.

  85526

• 3. Novels and a Long Pause

  ›

  Kadokawa Shoten published eleven volumes between the 6th of June 2003 and the 25th of May 2011. The first was titled The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The books alternate between full-length novels and collections of short stories and novellas.

  In June 2011, a guidebook called The Observation of Haruhi Suzumiya appeared. In an interview there, Tanigawa said he had finalized the plot for at least one more volume.

  Then came a long quiet. On the 31st of October 2018, a short story ran in a special one-time revival issue of The Sneaker. In August 2020, a twelfth novel called The Intuition of Haruhi Suzumiya was announced for release in Japan on the 25th of November. That release came after a nine-year break from publishing.

  In North America, the novels are licensed to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Yen Press. They are set to be reprinted under Yen Press's Yen On imprint.

  56874

• 4. Scrambled Order

  ›

  Between the 2nd of April and the 2nd of July 2006, Kyoto Animation's adaptation aired in Japan under director Tatsuya Ishihara. It ran for 14 episodes, and it did not follow story order. The prologue and first seven chapters of the first novel were intermixed with chapters from later novels.

  The previews for each next episode carried two different numbers. Haruhi counted in chronological order, while Kyon counted in the order of broadcast. The DVD releases fix the shuffle. They begin with Episode 00 and run chronologically, with Yuki narrating the previews.

  On the 7th of July 2007, a full-page advertisement in Asahi Shimbun announced a second season. Promotional videos included a live-action sequence inspired by the Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody chapter of the third novel, The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya. It showed Haruhi and Kyon breaking into a school, with the scene presented as surveillance camera footage.

  On the 18th of December 2007, the anime's official website, haruhi.tv, was replaced by a fake 404 error page with five form-input fields. The page referred to the pivotal date in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, the fourth novel.

  In April 2009, a re-broadcast of the first series began. A comment from one broadcaster, Teletama, that it would run 28 episodes set off speculation about a second season. Kadokawa did not confirm it at the time. The first new episode aired on the 21st of May 2009 as the eighth episode of the re-run. This time the order was chronological, with new episodes mixed among the old, and episodes later appeared on Kadokawa's YouTube channel.

  The second season includes the controversial Endless Eight arc. The members of the SOS Brigade are stuck in a time loop that lasts eight episodes, each of them practically identical.

  A teaser at the end of the 2009 re-airing announced an animated film from Kyoto Animation, also titled The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. It opened in Japanese theaters on the 6th of February 2010.

  6768192021

• 5. Parodies and Spinoffs

  ›

  Makoto Mizuno drew the first manga adaptation, which ran in Shonen Ace from May to December 2004. It differed considerably from the novels, with little input from their author, and was partly collected in one volume in August 2004.

  Gaku Tsugano's series ran from November 2005 to November 2013 and filled 20 volumes, aimed at a younger audience than the novels. Most of it adapts the books straight. It also holds 13 new stories, each one chapter long, and most spin off from a light novel story. On the 17th of April 2008, Yen Press announced it had acquired the North American license for the first four volumes, and it promised the manga would not be censored.

  Puyo's four-panel parody, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, began in Shonen Ace on the 26th of July 2007. It reached The Sneaker on the 30th of August 2007. The strip ended on the 26th of December 2018 and fills twelve volumes. Yen Press released the first English volume on the 26th of October 2010 and the last on the 26th of May 2020.

  Eretto's Nyoron Churuya-san began as a dojinshi starring a super deformed Tsuruya who loves smoked cheese. Three volumes appeared in August 2006, February 2007 and October 2007. The series then ran in Comp Ace from November 2008 to October 2009 and was collected in one volume.

  Puyo also drew a manga for Young Ace, serialized from July 2009 to September 2016 and collected in ten volumes. It takes place in an alternate universe of the altered timeline from the fourth novel. There, Yuki Nagato is an accident-prone video game addict. She is neither the shy bookworm of the altered timeline nor the laconic alien of the original one. A further Puyo spinoff ran four chapters in the final issue run of Altima Ace, from the 18th of April to the 18th of October 2012.

  Two original net animation series, based on the parodies by Puyo and Eretto, were announced in the October 2008 issue of Shonen Ace. They streamed in Japanese with English subtitles on Kadokawa's YouTube channel between the 13th of February and the 15th of May 2009. All the voice actors of the original anime returned. The first DVD came out in Japan on the 29th of May 2009, and a Blu-ray followed on the 27th of August 2010. Bang Zoom! Entertainment dubbed the series for DVD.

  Satelight began airing an anime adaptation of The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan in April 2015. Funimation began streaming a broadcast dub the following month.

  1011131617

• 6. Selling Haruhi Abroad

  ›

  After the 2006 anime aired, Kadokawa Shoten received offers to license the novels and their adaptations. In North America, Kadokawa Pictures USA licensed the anime and sub-licensed production and distribution to Bandai Entertainment. Bandai released four DVDs between May and November 2007, then a complete box set on the 29th of July 2008. Each North American release offered a limited edition set. It held the English dub in chronological order, a subbed-only disc in broadcast order, and an official CD of the opening, ending and insert songs.

  The novels also travel widely. Kadokawa Media publishes them in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China, and Daiwon CI handles South Korea. Editorial Ivrea covers Spain and Argentina, Edizioni BD publishes in Italy, Bongkoch Books in Thailand, and IPM in Vietnam. Italy's Rai 4 broadcast the anime between the 24th of October 2010 and the 6th of February 2011.

  Bandai licensed the re-broadcast in 2010 and put out a complete collection in North America on the 14th of September 2010. Manga Entertainment released the season in the UK on the 4th of July 2011, in a 4-disc box set that included the Haruhi-chan mini-episodes. Bandai released the film in North America on the 20th of September 2011. After Bandai Entertainment closed in 2012, Funimation announced at Otakon 2014 that it had licensed the television series. When Sony acquired Crunchyroll, the series moved there, and Crunchyroll holds the license now.

  In December 2006, Bandai Entertainment registered the website asosbrigade.com. It opened on the 22nd of December 2006 with a live-action video that looked like a fan production. Haruka Inoue played Mikuru Asahina, Akiyo Yamamoto played Yuki Nagato, and Patricia Ja Lee played Haruhi. The Japanese-language video confirmed the details of the licensing arrangement. A few days later, a subtitled version replaced it. The site linked to a MySpace blog, which entered the top 50 most viewed MySpace pages within 24 hours.

  On the 30th of May 2007, the SOS Brigade Invasion Tour was announced for Anime Expo 2007 on the 30th of June. Aya Hirano, Yuko Goto and Minori Chihara were billed as "being flown in directly from Japan." Attendees could enter the ASOS Dance Contest on Friday, and the winner would dance on stage with the guests of honor. Advance ticket demand was so heavy that officials cut the number of tickets sold, even though the event was free.

  In 2010, new videos announced the second season of English dubbed episodes. Cristina Vee played Haruhi and Karrie Shirou played Mikuru. Gina Lee voiced Yuki in episode 1, and Alice took over after that.

  230284061

• 7. Games and Soundtrack

  ›

  Six video games have been made from the series. Namco Bandai Games released the first, an adventure for the PlayStation Portable, on the 20th of December 2007. Banpresto followed on the 31st of January 2008 with a PlayStation 2 adventure. It was the 95th best-selling game in Japan in 2008, at 139,425 copies.

  Kadokawa Shoten developed the third game for the Wii, released on the 22nd of January 2009. Sega published the fourth, also for the Wii, on the 26th of March 2009, and the fifth for the Nintendo DS on the 28th of May 2009. In February 2010, Kadokawa Shoten released The Day of Sagittarius III in Japanese and English in Apple's App Store. On the 12th of May 2011, Namco Bandai Games released a PlayStation 3 and PSP game that sequels The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and takes place shortly afterward. The two versions sold a combined 33,784 copies in four days. Haruhi's cast also appears in the crossover PSP game Nendoroid Generation.

  Lantis released a first radio drama CD, SOS Dan Radio Shibu Bangai Hen CD Vol.1, on the 5th of July 2006. Volumes two and three followed on the 21st of September and the 21st of December 2006. A drama CD called Sound Around came out on the 24th of January 2007.

  The 2006 anime has two opening themes. Yuko Goto performed the one used in episode one, and Aya Hirano performed the one used in episodes two through fourteen. Hirano, Minori Chihara and Goto sang the main ending across the first thirteen episodes. Episode fourteen closed with an extended version of "It's an Adventure, Right? Right?" That song later opened the film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, whose theme song is by Chihara.

  For the new 2009 episodes, "Super Driver" by Hirano became the opening theme. Its single was released on the 22nd of July 2009, and a single called "Stop!" followed on the 26th of August 2009.

  Episode twelve features the insert songs "God Knows..." and "Lost My Music," performed by Haruhi, voiced by Aya Hirano in Japanese and Wendee Lee in English. "God Knows..." has since turned up in episode five of Remake Our Life!

  Episode eleven uses segments of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 in C Major, "Leningrad," and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé. Episode fourteen uses Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in E-flat Major, "Symphony of a Thousand."

  On the 18th of March 2007, a live concert at Omiya Sonic City featured songs from the anime sung by the voice actors. The event also appeared in episode 15 of Lucky Star, and its DVD came out on the 27th of July 2007. On the 29th of April 2009, a Tokyo concert paired the anime's songs and background music with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Philip Chu, in arrangements with a classical twist. Its CD was released on the 24th of June 2009.

  The spinoff Haruhi-chan series has a theme and ending performed by Hirano, Chihara, Goto, Tomokazu Sugita and Daisuke Ono, released as a single on the 20th of April 2009. Three singles for Nyoro-n Churuya-san featured songs sung by Yuki Matsuoka.

  4244697071

• 8. Reception and Reach

  ›

  The first novel won the Grand Prize at the eighth annual Sneaker Awards, only the third Grand Prize in that award's history. By September 2007, the series had sold over 4,300,000 copies in Japan. When the tenth and eleventh volumes arrived in May 2011, the total passed 8,000,000, and the limited editions set a record first pressing of 513,000. As of 2017-20 million copies of the light novels and manga were in print internationally.

  In December 2006, Newtype USA ranked the anime the most popular series in Japan. A 2006 online poll of Japan's top 100 favorite anime, run by TV Asahi, placed it fourth. The first two DVD volumes had sold 70,000 and 90,000 units as of August 2006. By the end of 2007, the seventh installment had sold 45,000.

  IGN put the anime fifth in its Top Ten Anime of 2007 feature. The series won the Animation Kobe Award for TV Feature in 2006. At the Sixth Annual Tokyo Anime Awards, it took Best TV Anime Series, and Aya Hirano won the Voice Acting Award. The spinoffs Haruhi-chan and Churuya-san won the Network award at the 14th Animation Kobe Awards. At Anime Expo 2008, the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation honored Tomokazu Sugita as Best Voice Actor, Hirano as Best Voice Actress, and "Hare Hare Yukai" as Best Original Song.

  Over 2,000 clips of the series, including user-made parodies and homages, were posted to YouTube and to the Japanese site Nico Nico Douga. The best-known homage recreated the dance from the ending animation of "Hare Hare Yukai." It drew so much public interest that it was credited with establishing the cover dance genre on both sites. The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) then asked YouTube to remove clips claimed by its members. Business journalist Tadashi Sudo tied the anime's success to its timing. Internet streaming was new, and Nico Nico Douga launched around the same time, so each helped the other grow.

  The series made Aya Hirano one of the earliest examples of the idol voice actor crossover in the late 2000s. The manga Lucky Star makes numerous references to Haruhi. In March 2010, Haruhi, Yuki and Mikuru, voiced by Hirano, Chihara and Yuko Goto, made their first Japanese ad appearance with drama actor Toma Ikuta. The product was Lotte Acuo Gum.

  7473758084