“Cult following” really understates how big a phenomenon Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu was. It was an out of nowhere smash hit and pretty much the biggest thing in anime when it aired, in both Japan and the international fan community. It wasn’t as big viewership-wise as, like, Naruto, or Bleach, it didn’t have that big casual fanbase, but for the serious anime fandom Haruhi was the shit.
Haruhi was at kind of a turning point for anime as a whole. 2006 was the year that anime started airing in widescreen HD and Haruhi was the prettiest of that first batch of shows, which probably accounted for its popularity as much as the plot, characters, and humor did. The detailed dance routine over the ending credits, Hare Hare Yukai, was essentially them showing off how pretty they could do animation now that they were in HD.
The dance went viral in a time when we barely knew what going viral was, YouTube had scarcely been born and it was filling up with people doing the Hare Hare Yukai. I’d credit Haruhi with finally ending the split in American anime fandom between “American Anime Time” fans who watched official translated licensed dubbed releases, which could take years to make it from Japan to the US, and “Japan Anime Time” fans who watched unofficial fan subtitled releases that came out within days. If you were on American Anime Time you hadn’t seen Haruhi, and what kind of way to live was that? People would be doing the dance and you wouldn’t know what it was.
So the Haruhi studio, Kyoto Animation, had the hottest property in otaku fandom since Evangelion, and they spent 3 years milking it and teasing the second season. They put out spinoff videogames, published absurd numbers of character song albums, and adapted unrelated properties just to stuff them full of Haruhi references. (Lucky★Star I love you but that was embarrassing.) They kept the fires of the fandom burning over those three years, so that when the second season came it was the long-awaited fulfilment of a promise, the Second Coming of Our Lord and Savior Suzumiya Haruhi.
And then yeah, Endless Eight. The same episode, week after week. Completely reshot, to prove they weren’t even saving money. It was unbelievable. Frankly I can’t even be upset. Yes, I would have loved more episodes of Haruhi, but I respect the commitment to their art. It sure did make the audience viscerally feel what it was like to be trapped in a time loop. Great art isn’t always easy, isn’t always popular, isn’t always not a giant shitpost. It takes massive balls to take a franchise worth tens of millions of dollars and turn it into a urinal in a museum. That director has lived his truth in a way few men have. With its triumph of artistic integrity over even the barest shred of good sense, Endless Eight represents everything beautiful about the doomed optimism of the naughts.
Damn, Haruhi was a good-ass show. I should rewatch it.
2087
blakekathryn
origamiaround
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
romaincrisis
titsay
theartofmadeline
stormborns
kaledo-art
