Haruhi Suzumiya and her Oblivious Brigandiers
I haven't posted in ages, but I'm excited about the new season of Haruhi Suzumiya. What the animators are doing is incredible, and of course the fandom has been completely flummoxed by it. Michael at Low on Hit Points had already written about the new episodes:
I fully approve of what KyoAni is doing with Endless Eight.
Not only do they have my approval, but they also have my respect! Where do I start? I've mentioned before on how it's a brilliant (yes, crazy like a fox) marketing move, how I personally don't mind rewatching good content, and how I appreciate ballsy moves like this one.
But before EE 4, that all was just a slight counterbalance to what I found to be an awkward direction. But now I get it. It is a very artistic and unusual direction. We are a part of that recursion. We are affected by it like the very characters we are watching. And more and more, I am being drawn into their plight. I love it!
Yes! Someone else who gets it! In fact, I should thank Michael for expressing what I've been feeling. Now I've been able to gain a more concrete understanding of what's going on. These animators have demonstrated before that they have a special understanding of the otaku perspective. What we know, intuitively if not explicitly, is that the temple of anime is built on vividly outrageous characters. When KyoAni adapts a set of novels like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya they do not want to simply transfer the events & dialogues from books to TV.
Can you imagine how Haruhi would react if she saw them doing that?
I've seen projected schedules for the second season by otaku who've read the novels already, and felt non-plussed. What does it mean to read a story as if it were a series of parcels at a warehousing distribution center that one needs to relocate from train cars to a fleet of trucks? Isn't that a little impersonal? What if those parcels contained your entire household? Would it be natural to feel a bit apprehensive about some callous strangers hauling around the contents of your life? Imagine if you were a head of state, or a royal monarch... This is brand management raised to Art.
Kyoto Animation knows that they've got Haruhi Suzumiya herself to bring to anime. They extend the SOS Brigade to include all her fans, just as they did with the first season. KyoAni has been simulating a relationship with this very dominant person since the very first episode, when she took over the direction herself. Even after relinquishing that role to them, she continued to insert herself by reordering the episodes. Now she's at it again.
You may blame KyoAni now, but we know who's truly at fault. But Haruhi is more practical - and compassionate - than she appears at first. I believe the animators recognized a value in expanding this particular story which originally was much shorter. This arc's not just about showing how revealing how obsessive Haruhi is. The resolution rests on an important character point which in the novel may pass so quickly some readers could overlook it. The hidden information here is so subtle that neither Haruhi nor her best friends were prepared to recognize it.
And so that's why I think this Endless Eight is so cool.
I fully approve of what KyoAni is doing with Endless Eight.
Not only do they have my approval, but they also have my respect! Where do I start? I've mentioned before on how it's a brilliant (yes, crazy like a fox) marketing move, how I personally don't mind rewatching good content, and how I appreciate ballsy moves like this one.
But before EE 4, that all was just a slight counterbalance to what I found to be an awkward direction. But now I get it. It is a very artistic and unusual direction. We are a part of that recursion. We are affected by it like the very characters we are watching. And more and more, I am being drawn into their plight. I love it!
Yes! Someone else who gets it! In fact, I should thank Michael for expressing what I've been feeling. Now I've been able to gain a more concrete understanding of what's going on. These animators have demonstrated before that they have a special understanding of the otaku perspective. What we know, intuitively if not explicitly, is that the temple of anime is built on vividly outrageous characters. When KyoAni adapts a set of novels like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya they do not want to simply transfer the events & dialogues from books to TV.
Can you imagine how Haruhi would react if she saw them doing that?
I've seen projected schedules for the second season by otaku who've read the novels already, and felt non-plussed. What does it mean to read a story as if it were a series of parcels at a warehousing distribution center that one needs to relocate from train cars to a fleet of trucks? Isn't that a little impersonal? What if those parcels contained your entire household? Would it be natural to feel a bit apprehensive about some callous strangers hauling around the contents of your life? Imagine if you were a head of state, or a royal monarch... This is brand management raised to Art.
Kyoto Animation knows that they've got Haruhi Suzumiya herself to bring to anime. They extend the SOS Brigade to include all her fans, just as they did with the first season. KyoAni has been simulating a relationship with this very dominant person since the very first episode, when she took over the direction herself. Even after relinquishing that role to them, she continued to insert herself by reordering the episodes. Now she's at it again.
You may blame KyoAni now, but we know who's truly at fault. But Haruhi is more practical - and compassionate - than she appears at first. I believe the animators recognized a value in expanding this particular story which originally was much shorter. This arc's not just about showing how revealing how obsessive Haruhi is. The resolution rests on an important character point which in the novel may pass so quickly some readers could overlook it. The hidden information here is so subtle that neither Haruhi nor her best friends were prepared to recognize it.
And so that's why I think this Endless Eight is so cool.