The "Emotional Impact" of Haruhi Suzumiya

Since the first time I encountered The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, I've always wondered why the episodes are ordered in such a seemingly disjointed way. I was kind of lazy on the matter of figuring it out and couldn't come up with any satisfying answers in my head, so I turned to the "experts" in the field. I took a visit to the ever-so-wise /a/ of the all-knowing 4chan. I made a quick post asking for the reason, and they gave me quick answer in reply: poignancy. They told me the episodes were ordered that way to add more of an "emotional impact" to the story. This boggled me a little. Emotional impact? I'd say there's a ton of emotional impact in the story no matter what order you watch it in. In fact, there may even be more in the show when watched in linear order, but perhaps I'm being biased. Though, to be fair I'm not sure which side I can really be on.

My viewing experience was a little different than normal. First, I started watching the series in the original air-date order, but during the third episode, the one with the baseball game, I became confused. Where the hell did all the new characters come from? Why was one of them using magic powers? And since when was Haruhi’s emotional stability an issue of global importance? I was really getting into the story during the previous two episodes, but this newest episode was completely out of left field (an episode about baseball being “out of left field,” coincidence?). It couldn’t be right, so I assumed that the episodes were ordered the wrong way by accident. I took a look at the episode titles to get back on track and began watching them in the linear order, but after watching about four episodes, I dropped watching the rest and completely forgot about the series. It wasn't until a year later that I decided to start over and watch the entire series in the original air-date order, coming full circle.

In other words, I watched about a sixth of the series in linear order and the rest in air-date order. As a result, my judgement of the "emotional impact" is kind of mixed. As far as poignancy goes, my opinion is split in half on which episode order has the better breed. There were two moments in the series that had the most emotional impact on me.

The first was when Kyon was alone with Ryoko in the class room. The sun was setting, so the whole room glowed like a giant pile of gold doubloons. She started saying some random stuff about deciding on whether or not she should do something, desperately wanting his advice about it, and bla bla bla bla bla, a bunch of boring crap. However, she ended her little speech with a curious sounding, "kill you," which immediately got my attention. She revealed herself to be an alien and tried to kill him right then and there, first with a knife, then with her supernatural alien powers, and she most likely would have succeeded, had Yuki not come to his rescue. 

This scene took me by surprise, so much so that it actually scared the hell out of me. It was probably the most unpredictable quick twist I'd ever experienced in cinema. I didn’t expect it to happen at all. There was a beautiful sunset, which implied in my mind that it would be about love, beauty, nostalgia, something like that. And also, based on what I'd heard about it, I thought the series was going to be some sort of quirky, character-based comedy, something like Lucky Star or Azumanga Daioh. The scene gave me an adrenaline rush and put fear into my heart in way I’d never thought possible. It had enough of an emotional impact on me to make me shun the well written dialogue of the show. Why was Kyon making so many damn quirky remarks in his head!? It was absolutely ruining the moment! The haunting scene lingered in my head for a while after I watched the episode.

The poignancy of this scene is definitely complimented by watching the episodes in linear order because, until this point, there are only a few basic hints that the series will delve deeply into the supernatural. At this point, a lot of the talk about magic and extraterrestrial life is just that, talk. It could easily be a bunch of lies. Yuki has only said that she is an alien, Kyon has only hinted that he is an esper, and Itsuki has only mentioned that she is a time traveler. None of them have given any solid proof. Hardly any of the supernatural shenanigans the show is known for have even minimally appeared yet. This setting makes a student, a seemingly normal student who is miles away from the only known alien in both personality and appearance, revealing herself to be an alien, taking out a knife, and attempting to kill off a main character, completely unexpected, an absolute WTF.

Just look at that innocent face. Seriously, what the fuck!?

When the series is viewed in the air-date order, Kyon has already witnessed tons of supernatural antics, enough to make an hypothesis like the three main characters being liars completely preposterous. All of the characters have demonstrated their powers at least once, and most of them, many times. In this kind of setting, a scene like the aforementioned one may be a little unexpected, but in more of a "Huh, I didn't see that one coming." than a "What the fuck just happened?!" 

By the way, I can’t truthfully say whether or not the scene has less of an emotional impact when viewed in the original air-date order because I watched watched these particular episodes in linear order first, so when I re-watched the entire series, I was already expecting it to happen. My judgment, therefore, can only ever be pure speculation, but I digress. Lets move on.

The second emotionally impacting scene was actually half of an episode. It was the final episode in the original air-date order, the seventh in the linear. What made it so poignant was the fact that it was the one time in the entire series that Haruhi herself experienced her own powers, the one time she actually witnessed the other-worldy happenings that existed around her, happenings that had, up until that point, avoided her like the plague. The moment I saw her seeing what Kyon was already seeing daily, a lightning bolt struck me awake. After all those times of her constantly complaining that nothing interesting was happening when nothing but interesting was happening right under her nose, after all those episodes of her being completely clueless to any of the explosions of extraterrestria and magic, after all the annoying persistence the rest of the cast had in keeping that magic a secret from her, she finally saw something. And nearly half an episode was dedicated to it. It was like heaven to me. I couldn't keep my eyes off the screen until the episode ended, definitely emotionally impacting.

As opposed to the previous scene, this one is complimented by watching the series in the original air-date order because it gives the dullness that is the second half of the series a purpose and makes it worth watching. I'm gonna be brutally honest here. The majority of the episodes after the final one in the original air-date are the most boring piles of trite I have ever witnessed on a digital screen. They are so boring, in fact, that I hardly remember any of them. When viewed on their own, most of them have no purpose but to make the series longer than it has to be; most of them are pure filler. Their emptiness is especially enhanced when the series is viewed in the original air-date order because in that setting, the show acts is if it has already given plenty of reasons to care about the characters when it has barely given any.

However, this incredible mundaneness serves a very interesting purpose in the air-date order: contrast, extremely immense contrast. The seemingly endless charade of pointless hijinks that comprises the majority of the boring episodes, emphasizes the final episode into greatness, and hoists it onto the tallest freaking pedestal of all time. It transforms an episode that's already intriguing as hell into the most exciting event caught on animation, making all the trouble getting through the monotonous drull of stolen plots and bland characterization feel completely worthwhile.

This probably wouldn't happen in the linear order. Most of the emotion in the series pervades the first six episodes, so by the time Haruhi finally sees magic, several tantalizing and interesting scenes have not only already shown themselves, but have done so back to back, making the final scene just another one to go with the bunch. 

So which episode order works best? Is it the one that boldly sacrifices intrestingness to try something different, or the one that actually tells a coherent story? Being more a fan of good than of interesting storytelling, I'd have to choose the linear order. Although the final episode in the air-date order is amazing and wonderful, almost every episode in the the linear order is at least good, and a lot of them are great, especially the first ones. But that's just me. In the end, whether airing the episodes in such a strange way was right or wrong is purely subjective; it's up for you to decide. But hey, at least it gave me a few interesting thoughts to write about on this blog, thoughts that I hope you have found at least a tiny bit interesting.

Have a happy anime, folks! Sayonara!