The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

About

One of the most famous anime subcultures. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya had a huge impact from 2006-2009. It became so widespread that a religion, Haruhiism, sprung up from it.

The anime is well known in both Japan and overseas. Not only was it quite popular in Doujin Market from 2006-2008, but also has a lot of fan contribution which still floods the web.

The series sets itself up to be a typical high school slice of life series. However, it left a huge impact on fans when during the course of the series that Haruhi was in fact, God. Though she is completely unaware of it, reality is more or less bent according to her will.

One example is that in the first episode she expresses a desire to meet ESPers, time travelers, and aliens. And as a result, she and Kyon end up being involved with all three of these. Her being bored almost destroyed reality. Even more notable is that Itsuki (ESPer), Mikuru (time traveler), and Nagato (alien) all came from different places to keep an eye on and the phenomena of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Origin

The series started as light novels under written by Nagaru Tanigawa the under the name name 涼宮ハルヒ (Suzumiya Haruhi). The first novel was published in 2003 and is still consider ongoing to this day.

The manga started in November 2005 and was published in the Shounen Ace magazine. The TV anime, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yūutsu), was produced by the Kyoto Animation studio and a total of 14 episodes aired from April 2, 2006 to July 2, 2006. A second season consisting of another 14 episodes was released in May 29, 2009 after a re-airing of the first season and ended in October 9, 2009.

Impact

The series exploded into a huge amount of popularity in both Japan and overseas. One classic example of it’s popularity is a flashmob that occurred in Akihabara on April 8th, 2007. A large group of fans and cosplayers showed up to do a group performance of the Hare Hare Yukai.

They did not get very far into their performance, however, as police showed up to chase them off. There’s two version of this video. One version has 2.5 million views and this version has 2.8 million views. The video was also re-posted onto several other sites.

A good example of it’s popularity overseas is when a group of prisoners in the Philippines also did a large scale performance of the dance.

The search term “Haruhi Suzumiya” brings up 71,800 results on Youtube.^[2]

The series itself left a lasting impact on anime fans. Prior to Puella Magi Madoka Magica, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was the most talked about anime on 2chan. Even though with other series like Lucky Star, K-On, and Madoka springing up behind it, Haruhi Suzumiya still has a large following to this day.

Haruhiism

Not to be mistaken for “Haruhism” which is a state where everything goes your way for no explicable reason,^[7] Haruhiism is a religion in the same sense as other “fan religions” such as the Church of Jedi.^[4]

The shock factor of a high school girl being God left a huge impression on the fans. There are many posters and images about Haruhiism and even a website that claims to be The Official Church of Haruhi Suzumiya.^[10]

A user from Animeblog.net, DKellis, has a very good description as to what Haruhiism is in his article named “The Religion Of Haruhi Suzumiya”.^[3]

"I would argue that the central tenet of the faith is to believe in the possibility, if nothing else, that there are people out there or even right next to you who might be, to put it flippantly, aliens, time-travellers, or ESPers. In other words, everyone may have a story to tell, and that story may be more interesting than you might imagine, even if the way they tell it might need some work. In fact, the best “storyteller” of the SOS Brigade is Kyon, the one “normal person” in the group, and his story-to-tell is based on his interactions with the other more “interesting” people. Maybe that will be your story.

Proponents of the Haruhi-specific faction might also have a belief in a sort of freedom to do what one wishes, provided it is interesting, and where being interesting is the goal of every endeavour. This bears some resemblance to the SubGenius notion of Slack, which has a more anti-authoritarian bent; specifically, Slack encourages one to achieve one’s personal goals, despite (or especially) if it runs counter to “accepted societal limits”."

The theory around Haruhi’s powers changed in season 2 where Mikuru and Koizumi think that she likely received her powers from someone else. As to whether this changed the ideals behind Haruhiism, that is unknown.

Memes

• Hare Hare Yukai
• Mikuru Beam
• Nyoro~n Churuya-san
• The Gender-Flip of Haruhi Suzumiya

Hare Hare Yukai

See Entry.

A famous dance taken from the ending of the series. It has many parodies all over the internet and media along with dozens of fan contributions. It is probably the most famous aspect of the series.

Mikuru Beam

See Entry.

This is a meme taken from the first episode of Season 1. Mikuru who is forced to cosplay a magical girl and act in a movie, does this move as her special attack. It became very famous among fans and has many parodies.

In season two it is revealed that Mikuru’s attack was actually real. Nagato intervened to prevent Mikuru from accidentally hurting anyone.

Nyoro~n Churuya-san

See Entry.

This is a fan comic that later became official. This also has widespread popularity and many parodies.

WaWaWa Wasuremono

See Entry.

This is a very popular MAD fad that came from a clip (looking for episode) of Kyon’s friend Taniguchi returning to the classroom to look for his bag. Taniguchi comes into the classroom singing “Wawawa wasuremono…” before seeing a very suspicious moment between Kyon and Nagato. This clip became a huge hit among Japanese fans and several MAD videos were posted on NND and Youtube.

The whole song was sung during one of the endings of the anime Lucky Star by the voice actor of Shiroshi Minoru, so this meme is also closely related to that character as well.

The Gender-Flip of Haruhi Suzumiya

See Entry.

The popularity of genderbent characters from the series spread so much that there is actually a fandom now for it.^[5] What started as an obsession with genderbent Kyon (named Kyonko) eventually spread to the point where fans actually wanted to see the entire series gender flipped. In 2008, the AnimeSuki forum actually launched a revision project for the series.^[6] There are also many videos on Youtube with Japanese fans dubbing their own versions of the gender flip.

The character names were changed to the following

• Suzumiya Haruki (Haruhiko in the Japanese fandom)
• Nagato Yuuki (also sometimes Yukio)
• Koizumi Itsuki (also sometimes Itsuko)
• Asahina Mitsuuru (sometimes spelt Mitsuru)
• Kimidori (no set name, but “Emirio” and “Eriotto” are common)
• Kyonko

Minor Memes

Endless Eight

See entry.

This is how most fans reacted to the Endless Eight

Season 2 animated the same episode 8 times under the guise of a Groundhog Day time loop. It became infamous for the amount of controversy it spread among fans. It is still widely talked about to this day and very much recommended that one only watches the first and last episode of this arc. ^[8]

Search Interest

External References