I just got the new Haruhi book and OH MY GOD THIS IS PROFOUND.

"It's natural to want to know more about something you're interested in. Doesn't matter what, just having the wisdom to stick your chest out and say proudly, 'This is my obsession!' is the important thing. Got that?"
~Haruhi Suzumiya

 

This is officially my creed. This will be the phrase by which I live my life.

Because Haruhi is already a great role model, but this just makes her infinitely more glorious.

 

Got heart, bit wordy.

 

Yeah, but you gotta remember, this girl couldn't say anything without making it wordy

 

True, but it works coming from Haruhi. I don't know if you've read the books or not, but her entire character revolves around the fact that she is exactly as subtle as a brick to the face and although she's had a lot of character development since the anime left off, that part hasn't changed one bit. The fact that any worthwhile quotes of hers are big and unwieldy just feels like an extension of that.

 

Oh yeah... this is a thing.

I watched the first season in, like, 2009 or something and promptly forgot it existed.

Is it good? I don't remember. And I mean actually good.

 

The anime is pretty good, but it's really short and watching it in the order it was intended can be pretty confusing. Endless Eight was the only story that I thought they adapted badly and that's only because it tells the story of several iterations of the same summer vacation rather than just the last one like in the book.

Long story short, the anime is great, but I'd suggest reading the books if you want to get back into it. They're way better and if you like them, there's a lot more of them than the anime.

 

What.... is it? Is it like a collection of short stories about the characters? Because that's how you're describing it but that's not how I remember it at all. And if the anime and manga are different in execution would you mind pointing out how?

 

First, they're proper novels, not just manga. There is a manga that was adapted from the first book, though.

As for the anime, it was originally broadcast out of chronological order in Japan, making it seem more like a collection of short stories. The dub is in order. In total, the anime adapts the entire stories of the first and second books, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and The Sigh, as well as all of the short stories in Boredom (Book 3)and three out of four of the short stories in The Rampage (Book 5). The movie is an adaptation of the fourth book, The Disappearance. Right now there are 10 novels total with the 10th split into two volumes for the Japanese release but combined in the English release.

So as far as it being a collection of short stories, it is and isn't. Some of the books are full novels, but the others are collections of short stories that all take place in the same time period. Out of the ten books, the anime and movie adapt three of the full novels and 1.75 of the short story collections. In total, there are six full novels and four collections of short stories.

In terms of execution, the anime is mostly the same, but there are a couple of minor changes. The first that you'll see is that at the end of the first season is a story that Tanigawa wrote exclusively for the anime. It's a great episode. Some say it's a little boring, but it was written just to show a completely normal day in the life of the SOS Brigade, so that was kind of the point. The other is that Endless Eight is 8 whole episodes, 6 of which are mostly exactly the same. There was only one of the original short story.

 

Excuse me, my ignorance is showing.
I do remember that it was broadcast out of order, though I vaguely remember finding a watching order and following that when I watched it.

wow that's confusing.