Anime Pilgrimage RTT

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi – episode 1

April 7, 2006 on 11:58 pm | In Suzumiya Haruhi | 2 Comments

I’ll just call this “The Adventures of Mikuru” for ease of use.

I don’t see the point in really saying anything about this, other than it takes a lot of effort to write something so deliberately bad. This first episode is not a real episode at all but rather a really amateur “student film” made by the characters of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. The film is sometimes amusing but these were among the longest 24 minutes of my life.

The first 22 minutes of this episode details the adventures of Asahina Mikuru, a combat waitress from the future who works part time as a bunny girl. Her job is to protect the esper Koizumi Itsuki from Nagato Yuki, an alien witch.
This melts away at the end to reveal it was all a screening, the work of Ultra Director Suzumiya Haruhi. All involved in the production of the film are mortified by what they have seen before them.

It’s dangerous to do something like this in your first episode: to make fun of crappy anime and films by presenting a crappy anime student film with even greater exaggeration in the shoddy production values. It’s satirical, but a lot of people won’t get that – and a lot haven’t already.
The only real laugh I got out of it – because I found the voice over way too self conscious, pointing out every single flaw before us – was Shamisen doing precisely what he was not supposed to do.

I will reserve judgement of animation, voice acting and, well, everything, until the next episode: I expect that I will still find Goto Yuko’s voice just as annoying. I suppose I don’t really watch this sort of anime any more.

So what the heckfire is this show about? I don’t know. You need to give it two episodes to have any clue, I expect. I just hope they don’t make me watch these experimental films again.