Today i went to the Toyokawa Warner Mycal cinema to watch the Suzumiya Haruhi movie that came out this february, following the storyline of the Disappearance (sometimes translated as Vanishment) of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの消失) light novel. It was great. If you’re waiting for fansubbed versions, it’s really worth it. (The above picture is from the movie’s official website. On the left it says “because i’m a member of the SOS Brigade”.)
It’s timeline is pretty complicated, due to multiple alterations of the universe itself and simultaneously occurring time travels. It starts from an ordinary day of the extraordinary life of the SOS Brigade, but then everything changes out of nowhere, of course leaving all the trouble for Kyon to solve. And to do so, he has to go through a lot of trouble (and time planes).
The animation quality is great, as expected from a Suzumiya movie, the story is of the expected quality as well, so i can say, this movie is a success. Of course knowing the two anime series and possibly the light novels as well is very advised.
In the following spoilers may appear, so mind your way.
As i said, the storyline is complicated, but at least it’s moving “straight” together with Kyon for most of the time, so memories and stuff hardly get mixed in. There were only two points where i didn’t get what was going on. First, even with the world returned to the usual abnormal, Haruhi could still choose to go to the elite school (光陽園学院 Kouyouen Gakuin) instead of East High, since there would be still no John Smith there if she checked… Of course, she could as well go East High (as she actually does), but that was quite a risky point in a plan including so much tampering with time travel. Second, what the heck does Asakura do at the school in the middle of the night? I probably missed that part in the dialog (japanese, no subtitles, cinema after all), but reading the manga i bought it was wished by Nagato that she would stop any interruption after the change is done. Also, i don’t really get the intentions of Nagato with messing up the whole world and leaving the whole thing to Kyon (probably i will after reading the whole manga), nor did i like her cute version all that much. Probably got used to the more cool-cute alien. Second time bug is how they managed to do the last falling down the stairs stun. I couldn’t yet figure any explanation for that except for world and/or memory change.
To end it well, i have to say again, this was a great move. You want to watch it.
