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Jan. 3rd, 2011 11:37 amI was lent The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya months and months ago, but put off writing it up until I could read The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya in the hopes that it would clarify my thoughts.
My thoughts: only sort of clarified! In that I quite liked Disappearance but that doesn't help me have much to say about Boredom. I mean, part of that is Boredom is all short stories I'd seen done fairly faithfully by the anime, so I have no actual new feelings about any of them.
The thing about Disappearance - which, hilariously, is billed by the publishers as a HEARTWARMING CHRISTMAS STORY a la "It's a Wonderful Life", mostly because it features Kyon in an alternate universe where Haruhi goes to a different school - is that the format Kyon gets to express sneaky warm and fuzzy feelings for everyone, while nobody actually interacts with anybody else and therefore nobody has a chance to be horrible to each other. This makes it by far the least frustrating of the books. Also we get to see explicitly the changes in Haruhi, Yuki and Kyon as far as socialization and investment in other people go, which is heartening and also provides reason to believe that they will continue to develop as people and be less horrible to each other in future. The less Haruhi is portrayed as a blatant sociopath, the more I am able to enjoy the series!
My thoughts: only sort of clarified! In that I quite liked Disappearance but that doesn't help me have much to say about Boredom. I mean, part of that is Boredom is all short stories I'd seen done fairly faithfully by the anime, so I have no actual new feelings about any of them.
The thing about Disappearance - which, hilariously, is billed by the publishers as a HEARTWARMING CHRISTMAS STORY a la "It's a Wonderful Life", mostly because it features Kyon in an alternate universe where Haruhi goes to a different school - is that the format Kyon gets to express sneaky warm and fuzzy feelings for everyone, while nobody actually interacts with anybody else and therefore nobody has a chance to be horrible to each other. This makes it by far the least frustrating of the books. Also we get to see explicitly the changes in Haruhi, Yuki and Kyon as far as socialization and investment in other people go, which is heartening and also provides reason to believe that they will continue to develop as people and be less horrible to each other in future. The less Haruhi is portrayed as a blatant sociopath, the more I am able to enjoy the series!
