Catalyst Castle

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is an anime series about an eccentric and hyper-active high school girl who is bored with her life and the world. While Haruhi is the central character in the plot, the story is told from the perspective of Kyon, one of her classmates. The anime is an adaptation of a series of Japanese novels. The first six episodes of the show adapt the story of the first book, while the next seven episodes adapt random chapters of later novels, and the final episode is an original story written specifically for the anime.

The story begins with the beginning of a new school-year. When Haruhi has the opportunity to introduce herself to the class, she flatly declares: “I'm Haruhi Suzumiya, from East Junior High. First off, I'm not interested in ordinary people. But, if any of you are aliens, time-travelers, or espers, please come see me. That is all!”

Haruhi quickly imposes her forceful personality on Kyon, a rather easily overshadowed guy, and draws him into her wacky antics and her search for the mysterious and abnormal. Together they form a school club called the SOS Brigade with a mission statement of: “Spreading Excitement All Over the World with the Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade” They quickly build the cast of supporting characters by enlisting three more students into their club: a quiet, brainy girl who seems to do little but read, a meek girl who Haruhi bullies into cosplay hijinks, and a ‘mysterious’ transfer student with a carefree attitude.

Gradually, Kyon discovers that Yuki, the brainy girl, is in fact a “humanoid interface,” or an artificial human, created by an extraterrestrial supercomputer in order to interact with organic life-forms. Mikuru, the meek cosplayer, soon reveals to Kyon that she is actually a time-traveler from the future. And finally, Itsuki, the easy-going transfer student, shows Kyon that he is actually an esper, a human gifted with psionic powers. All three of them have been assigned by their various agencies to observe Haruhi whom they each believe is critically important for various reasons. Yuki says that Haruhi’s existence produces contradictory data in the universe, Mikuru says that Haruhi disrupts the time stream, and Itsuki claims that Haruhi may be more than human, and that the entire universe may exist in its present state because of her. Haruhi remains, and must remain, unaware of her importance, and Kyon must now help the other three prevent one crisis after another, as Haruhi’s reality-changing powers threaten to destroy the world if left unchecked.

Now, when I first began watching this anime, I knew nothing about the novels it was based on, or about the plotline in general. All I knew was that it featured a young, spunky female lead. Any of you should know by now that those kinds of characters appeal to me (witness Ahsoka Tano, Rosetta Passel, Rani Dashel). Haruhi doesn’t quite shine as bright as she could in this way, however, because she pushes the paradigm just a bit too far, to the point of obnoxiousness. She does soften up a bit in the latter part of the series, but I would have liked to see her do so just a bit more, and maybe form some more obvious attachments with the supporting characters.

Likewise, I was pleasantly surprised by the wacky sci-fi elements, but was a little disappointed by the way that, after the first six episodes, the show abandons any over-arching plot and simply becomes “what crazy story can we tell this time?”. Also, the series lacks a satisfying conclusion, though supposedly there is a second season in the works.

However, after doing a little more research and learning about the show’s origins, I can understand why the show turned out somewhat dissatisfying. I think they would have done better to fill the second half of the show by completely adapting another one of the books instead of grabbing random stories from the rest of the series. I think I might be interested in getting the complete story from the novels if there is an English translation.

As far as production values go, it’s a newer anime from a good studio, so overall the art, music, etc. was very nice but not ground breaking. Some of the writing was hilarious, especially some of Kyon’s internal narrations. The Japanese voice-acting was good, but I didn’t listen to the English dubs, so I can’t say anything about them. The show featured some perverted humor/fan-service, but it wasn’t a pervasive element, and only appeared periodically.

Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to watch most movies and shows with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Here are some ideas from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Non-serious Sci-Fi: I’ve only ever explored this once in RPGs with the game InSpectres. This show definitely has fun with its mix-match of sci-fi tropes, and I think running a sci-fi game that’s loose and zany could be fun.

A Supporting Character's Narration: I think it’s interesting how this show is obviously about Haruhi even though it’s narrated by her friend Kyon. This might be challenging to set up, but I think it could be interesting to play a game where the player characters are the supporting cast through whom the life of the main character is explored. This goes against the grain of RPGs in general, where the PCs are supposed to be the stars of the show. It also threatens to leave the players feeling bored and disaffected. If it could be pulled off it would require a central NPC character with a really dynamic personality that could capture the players’ interest and affection, and the PCs would have to be allowed to have an important impact on the story even as supporting characters. Perhaps the central character could even be a sort of “communal” PC that the players share, while they each also have their own side character.