Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Beach Blanket Bunnygirl – episode 6

May 12, 2006 on 11:26 pm | In Suzumiya Haruhi | Comments Off

“Remote Island Syndrome”

So, we’re all well acquainted with the fact that the main story of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi is being stretched across this series, with stories taken from other books in between.
Judging by the preview, this two parter won’t be resolved until the episode after next! You can’t leave us hanging on a fluffy murder mystery, folks: it’s just fluff, after all!

Itsuki has organised the SOS Brigade’s summer trip: to his uncle’s manor on a deserted island. When they get there, they find that it’s not strange at all. Then typhoons start up and, well, it’s all downhill from there.

I think I’m getting sick of metafiction: if you lay out all of the rules beforehand, then we know precisely what to expect. You can approach this as if you were ticking off a list and chortling at each expectation met, or you can simply be bored because there are no surprises left in store.
The mundanity of the whole situation did not work in favour of the show itself because there’s only so much “Haruhi says something outlandish” and “Kyon narrates ‘That’s stupid, but I don’t have the courage to be incisive to your face'” you can take.

The episode was okay, and the beachball part was funny, but I was struck by how visually unimpressive the whole affair is becoming. The characters are static and the shot composition is generally boring. If you take caps of this show, you can only really get interesting shots of Haruhi looking pissed off.

On a final note, one that I’ve meant to raise for a while: I can’t be the only one who thinks that Hare Hare Tsukai is not a good son. It has a semi-catchy tune, but it’s ultimately a cacophony. The seiyuu’s voices do not complement each other, and the instrumentation sounds like … I don’t even know what it sounds like. Is it electronic glass scratching?
I took some gratification in reading the opinions of people who have downloaded the full size version of the song and wrote “I don’t know, it’s just not that good any more”.
The appeal is the dance, people. All of you who have watched that dance 100,000,000,000 times (that’s one hundred billion by the American system) … you separate that dance, and what are you left with? You’re left with the standard industry “let’s team up seiyuu” level junk we’ve been fed for at least the last five years.

This is not, of course, to say that Hirano Aya cannot sing: Bouken Deshou, Deshou is still an eminently listenable song, and I much prefer the OP to the ED as it actually means something to me.

So we’re off to the desert next time. I can’t believe they’re sidelining a side story. So much siding.