i believe in kyonism
Click to viewstarting@8:48
I'll admit it. I started crying.
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is the best thing that Kyoto Animation has done, ever. Scratch that. It's one of the best anime movies made in recent history. The story was amazing in the novel, but the animation of Kyon's choice proves that Kyoto Animation was and always will be the right studio for this story. This was never a story about love or romance or aliens or sliders or espers or even God. Haruhi Suzumiya was about choices and about being a part of something bigger than just one person. It's about being able to save others by simply believing in them. It's about trust and honesty and not settling for something ordinary just because you know it'll be safe. It's about being unsafe, but in that unsafe-ness, becoming the best you that you can be. And Kyon, who up until Disappearance has allowed himself simply to be dragged from point A to point Z and all the way back to point M, finally has to make a choice in this movie. It's a choice bigger than himself. Hell, it's probably the second most climactic moment in the entire Haruhi Suzumiya canon (Dissociation has to be the most important moment of the canon), because it's the beginning of the end. It's where the story makes a turning point from playful, kind of inventive light novel series, to completely fucking time-space insanity. And it all turns on Kyon's decision.
So how does KyoAni handle it? They actually make Kyon interrogate himself in order to force himself to tell the truth. In that wonderful classroom scene, Kyon throws off the one person who can suppress him. And that person isn't Haruhi or Nagato or the Organization or the Data Overmind. It's himself. He chooses the SOS-dan. He chooses Haruhi. He chooses to save Yuki. And he chooses his world. He chooses Kyonism, pure and simple.
I am an unapologetic fanatic of this series. S1 is still perfect when I rewatch it. S2 has its up and downs. But this movie, this movie. It's everything you wanted from "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody" and "Endless Eight". It's beautiful, flawless animation. It's Kyon being badass, and Yuki becoming human, and Asahina showing her and the Agency's cards, and Itsuki flat-out declaring what is merely hinted at in "Endless Eight", and Haruhi, Haruhi, Haruhi. It's SLEEPING BEAUTY and John Smith and "I put the queen in my pocket" and Asakura and three years ago, that Tanabata, and time-loops upon time-loops upon time-loops. It's revisiting all the places and moments that made S1 great and S2 bearable. It's why we still go back to the chess game of "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody" and the impromptu dialogue in "The Adventures of Mikuru" in order to figure out what is going on in Disassociation and the four year cliffhanger that will finally, finally be advanced this May. It's magic. Really, truly magic.
(It's also a confirmation for me that Mikuru is the least interesting thing about this series a;sdlfkas;dlfj)