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krpalmerBy and large, I'm not in the habit of chasing the very latest anime through the murky water of "fansubs"; instead, seemingly too busy watching my way through officially licensed DVDs, I let others do the "trend-setter" work for me as I pick up on the slow percolation of message-board "buzz." I suppose this means missing out on the shared excitement of tracking a series week by week, but I may perhaps just feel I'd rather let my reactions be my own... and avoid any risk of that "shared excitement" twisting into "complaining sessions."
A while back, though, I began to pick up on what seemed an especial amount of "buzz" about one new anime series. It was called "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya," and I heard that it opened with a peculiar first episode that turned out to be one of those "show within a show" deals, specifically a hilariously amateur student video, and then moved on to the titular high-school character declaring she was only interested in "aliens, time travelers, and psychics..." A noticeable part of the interest in it did seem to be about nothing more complicated than a catchy and well-animated dance in its end credits, and there were those who made the inevitable declaration that the show's popularity was nothing more than a bandwagon effect proving that it didn't deserve attention at all, but all of it caught my attention. I never quite got around to trying to find the time to locate and watch its "fansubs," though, instead deciding that I would just wait for the official release... and then, things started getting complicated.
It seems that when originally airing on Japanese television, which is where "fansubbers" get their raw material from, the show was being presented "out of chronological order." When the DVDs started coming out, though (and in Japan as well, mind you), the episodes were rearranged into that chronological order hinted at in the original broadcast. The effect, so far as I could tell from what bits and pieces I picked up here and there, seemed to have been that the "big climax" wound up in the middle of the DVDs, and many people complained that the series just sort of petered away from there... but some also resorted to the stronger complaint of beating up on the Star Wars Special Editions to invoke dark intimations to the whole issue of "change." That, as you might imagine, is not the way to make me sympathetic to someone's complaint.
When the North American licensing and release of the series was announced with a fair bit of marketing surrounding it, there were numerous pleas for the DVDs over here to be in "broadcast order." In the end, deluxe editions were scheduled alongside the regular versions, editions containing extra DVDs with that precious order, something I gather Japan hasn't had at all... but also fairly expensive editions, with a lot of gimcrack tossed into the boxes in my opinion. People kept complaining, now bringing up the eventual DVD release of the Star Wars "Vintage Editions..." which is also not the way to make me sympathetic to someone's complaint. Even so, I suppose I did wonder about shelling out for the deluxe editions... and then a new thought came to me. For someone who sits down and watches two hours of anime at a time, trying to "watch the series the way I first saw it" while using the regular DVDs would be a frustrating exercise in disc-swapping. I tend to watch just one half-hour episode of a series at a time, though (if I have time, I'll watch another episode but from a different series), and so I was left with the impression that I wouldn't be putting DVDs into my player and taking them out any more times than I usually did. As a tiny but also supportive note, I had the impression that I liked the DVD covers of the regular editions a little bit more than the covers of the deluxe editions. It meant waiting until all four DVDs of the short series were out and ordering all of them at once when they were on sale at a particular online store, but I supposed I was in no particular rush to see the show now. Eventually, I had the DVDs, and eventually, I managed to find a list of the episodes in "broadcast order" that didn't give too much else away. Even so, I suppose there was a sense of uncertainty to begin with, wondering if I could watch the show without all its baggage weighing me down...
As I watched the "amateur student video" and moved on, always careful to skip the "next episode" preview (after finishing the whole thing, I discovered that the "original previews" seemed to be in the DVD extras anyway), the experience began to seem a little peculiar. One of the points of the series was that the other students Haruhi Suzumiya assembled around herself as she searched for the peculiar were a bit peculiar themselves, presented as if the series was "aware" of some of the more notable recent cliches of anime (and yet I didn't quite get a sense of the series really subverting those cliches or anything), but whatever mystery surrounded them seemed to be settled to my conviction in the first few episodes that I saw. Then, I suppose, a deeper question about the reality within the series began to impress itself on me... and yet, the idea I was forming about it was perhaps not quite as interesting as my first ideas had been. A different initial thought that I'd had was that Haruhi, who outrageously torments and harasses her friends and acquaintances in direct proportion to how poorly they would seem to take it on general principles, reminded me of some of the particulars of another short series of anime OVAs, "FLCL," and that reminded me of how that particular series had once reminded me of some of the particulars of the comedic young-readers novels of Gordon Korman, books I'd read all the way back in elementary school. Fortunately, I didn't wind up concluding Haruhi was just plain unlikeable.
I suppose that with a clear sense of how the series was arranged in both variants, each leap in time began to seem less a leap into the unknown in the vague hope of a further explanation than a way of just plain stretching things out before grand promises of "something really big." Too, seeing the "final episode in chronological order" made me wonder if you just had to be in the right state of mind to appreciate a sort of "understated finale," a change of pace looking back all the same on the mayhem Haruhi had caused. However, there were some interesting touches all the same approaching the "finale in broadcast order." It may yet be that I'll try rewatching the DVDs in "chronological order" to see if they feel like a "short series" with "follow-up episodes" loosely connected to the end, a bit less outrageous than "a series that has to be watched this way"... but perhaps I always would have agreed with those who were willing to consider watching the series in "chronological order." They seemed a bit more willing to adapt to and accept things that are, not throw a tantrum when things don't go their way.
Still, I think that "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" had advantages when compared to other anime series I've watched basically because everyone was telling people to watch it. It wasn't long, and taken pieces at a time it was generally entertaining and enjoyable.
A while back, though, I began to pick up on what seemed an especial amount of "buzz" about one new anime series. It was called "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya," and I heard that it opened with a peculiar first episode that turned out to be one of those "show within a show" deals, specifically a hilariously amateur student video, and then moved on to the titular high-school character declaring she was only interested in "aliens, time travelers, and psychics..." A noticeable part of the interest in it did seem to be about nothing more complicated than a catchy and well-animated dance in its end credits, and there were those who made the inevitable declaration that the show's popularity was nothing more than a bandwagon effect proving that it didn't deserve attention at all, but all of it caught my attention. I never quite got around to trying to find the time to locate and watch its "fansubs," though, instead deciding that I would just wait for the official release... and then, things started getting complicated.
It seems that when originally airing on Japanese television, which is where "fansubbers" get their raw material from, the show was being presented "out of chronological order." When the DVDs started coming out, though (and in Japan as well, mind you), the episodes were rearranged into that chronological order hinted at in the original broadcast. The effect, so far as I could tell from what bits and pieces I picked up here and there, seemed to have been that the "big climax" wound up in the middle of the DVDs, and many people complained that the series just sort of petered away from there... but some also resorted to the stronger complaint of beating up on the Star Wars Special Editions to invoke dark intimations to the whole issue of "change." That, as you might imagine, is not the way to make me sympathetic to someone's complaint.
When the North American licensing and release of the series was announced with a fair bit of marketing surrounding it, there were numerous pleas for the DVDs over here to be in "broadcast order." In the end, deluxe editions were scheduled alongside the regular versions, editions containing extra DVDs with that precious order, something I gather Japan hasn't had at all... but also fairly expensive editions, with a lot of gimcrack tossed into the boxes in my opinion. People kept complaining, now bringing up the eventual DVD release of the Star Wars "Vintage Editions..." which is also not the way to make me sympathetic to someone's complaint. Even so, I suppose I did wonder about shelling out for the deluxe editions... and then a new thought came to me. For someone who sits down and watches two hours of anime at a time, trying to "watch the series the way I first saw it" while using the regular DVDs would be a frustrating exercise in disc-swapping. I tend to watch just one half-hour episode of a series at a time, though (if I have time, I'll watch another episode but from a different series), and so I was left with the impression that I wouldn't be putting DVDs into my player and taking them out any more times than I usually did. As a tiny but also supportive note, I had the impression that I liked the DVD covers of the regular editions a little bit more than the covers of the deluxe editions. It meant waiting until all four DVDs of the short series were out and ordering all of them at once when they were on sale at a particular online store, but I supposed I was in no particular rush to see the show now. Eventually, I had the DVDs, and eventually, I managed to find a list of the episodes in "broadcast order" that didn't give too much else away. Even so, I suppose there was a sense of uncertainty to begin with, wondering if I could watch the show without all its baggage weighing me down...
As I watched the "amateur student video" and moved on, always careful to skip the "next episode" preview (after finishing the whole thing, I discovered that the "original previews" seemed to be in the DVD extras anyway), the experience began to seem a little peculiar. One of the points of the series was that the other students Haruhi Suzumiya assembled around herself as she searched for the peculiar were a bit peculiar themselves, presented as if the series was "aware" of some of the more notable recent cliches of anime (and yet I didn't quite get a sense of the series really subverting those cliches or anything), but whatever mystery surrounded them seemed to be settled to my conviction in the first few episodes that I saw. Then, I suppose, a deeper question about the reality within the series began to impress itself on me... and yet, the idea I was forming about it was perhaps not quite as interesting as my first ideas had been. A different initial thought that I'd had was that Haruhi, who outrageously torments and harasses her friends and acquaintances in direct proportion to how poorly they would seem to take it on general principles, reminded me of some of the particulars of another short series of anime OVAs, "FLCL," and that reminded me of how that particular series had once reminded me of some of the particulars of the comedic young-readers novels of Gordon Korman, books I'd read all the way back in elementary school. Fortunately, I didn't wind up concluding Haruhi was just plain unlikeable.
I suppose that with a clear sense of how the series was arranged in both variants, each leap in time began to seem less a leap into the unknown in the vague hope of a further explanation than a way of just plain stretching things out before grand promises of "something really big." Too, seeing the "final episode in chronological order" made me wonder if you just had to be in the right state of mind to appreciate a sort of "understated finale," a change of pace looking back all the same on the mayhem Haruhi had caused. However, there were some interesting touches all the same approaching the "finale in broadcast order." It may yet be that I'll try rewatching the DVDs in "chronological order" to see if they feel like a "short series" with "follow-up episodes" loosely connected to the end, a bit less outrageous than "a series that has to be watched this way"... but perhaps I always would have agreed with those who were willing to consider watching the series in "chronological order." They seemed a bit more willing to adapt to and accept things that are, not throw a tantrum when things don't go their way.
Still, I think that "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" had advantages when compared to other anime series I've watched basically because everyone was telling people to watch it. It wasn't long, and taken pieces at a time it was generally entertaining and enjoyable.