I thought I would never be able to shake off the crazy blog hype that surrounded Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, but I forgot about it pretty quickly. Perhaps because my impressions were contrary to most old writing that I saw.

Firstly, the animation quality jumps all over the place. It's not terrible anywhere, but mediocore is certainly not past Kyoto, whenever they think they can get away with it. For example, this is outstanding:

This is not so outstanding:

Even if we agree to abstract away the dubious 3D, let's look at Kyon's face.

The second point is small: the episode order nazis can blow me (please pardon my potty mouth). It's just fine as it is. Shuffle it all you want, it's not going to do squat.

And finally, the biggest point I took away home was that Kyon is no rebel. He not just accepts his own fate of servitude, but rationalizes it ("for the sake of the world!") and gets complicit in it. Perhaps even finds small fun here and there, or tries to ride the dragon. In order to drive the point home, creators trotted out Ryoko, who rebels and dies for it. I thought it was glorious.

This is not to say that Ryoko is good and Kyon is bad. Let's remember that she thought she had a chance, so there was not much of a sacrifice in her, but quite a bit of miscalculation and recklessness. Still, she knew that it was likely to end badly, and stood up to the status quo.

By the way, I thought it was a very interesting use of color to highlight Ryoko's supreme moment. Watch and lean, SHAFT.

There was also a story and the musting about what was happening, but IMHO it was seconday. Jonathan had a good run-down for anyone interested in questions like why Shamisen speaks.

Liked: Sorta.
Rewatch: About 3 for the 1st half.