New Haruhi THIS Season!!
Kadokawa has been teasing Haruhi fans about new episodes for a long time now. It's been close to two years now since a second season was announced, but still no official word has come out as to when we can expect to see it. Back in February of this year, Kadokawa announced that Haruhi would "relaunch" in April. But in the end it seemed to turn out as only one giant tease, as Newtype only announced that the first season would be re-airing this April with no mention at all of new episodes. Fans. Were. Angry.
A little later, rumors started appearing online that the new season would actually be airing WITH the old one. Not many chose to believe this rumor at first, but then a trustworthy insider reported on 2ch that this was indeed the case. Hope began to grow. But over the past three days, things have gotten REALLY interesting.
A few days ago, online TV listing sites began to list Haruhi as being new. Considering that the same listings are also listing "Spice & Wolf" (which is also re-airing its first season this Spring) as repeats. On top of that, Yahoo was listing season 2's art director in the credits instead of the season 1 director. Then Japanese site MoonPhase reported that Haruhi will be running for 28 episodes. The first season only ran for 14 episodes. Phone calls to Japanese TV stations have also confirmed that Haruhi will run for two cours (1 cour ~13 episodes). Finally, Aya Hirano has a new single coming out later this month, which is now being listed as related to the Haruhi anime series on some sites. New opening and/or closing theme?
Flash forward to today. Despite the fact that the episode "Asahina Mikuru no Bouken" was scheduled to air today (which is the first episode in season 1's TV airing order), what actually aired was "the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I" (the first episode in chronological order). What could this mean? Well perhaps they'll be showing the series in an order that would include stories from season 2? Adding to that, there was no "next time" preview at the end of the episode. Instead, for the "This program brought to you by" bit at the end, they showed a live-action video of a girl with long hair in a certain middle school uniform looking out a window. You can see a screencap of that above. Very interesting indeed! & finally, Gigazine gave an official confirmation today that Haruhi will indeed be running for 28 episodes. Holy crap.
This whole marketing strategy that Kadokawa is using for season 2 is very confusing though. While a series like Haruhi is perfect for unusual marketing techniques, this seems like a bit much. They were basically hiding the fact that new Haruhi was airing this season for as long as they could. It also seems they purposely tried to piss of the fans by saying this season would only be a rerun. But if you relook at everything & read between the lines, the hints are there. Still though, is this really the right approach for their big A-list title?
Source: http://zepy.momotato.com/2009/04/02/haruhi-is-airing-tonight