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SF Manga 101: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Glenn Hough (gallyangel) is a nonpracticing futurist, an anime and manga otaku, and is almost obsessive about finishing several of the lists tracked on WWEnd. In this series on SF Manga Glenn will provide an overview of the medium and the place of science fiction within it.
And now for something completely different…
I don’t know about you, but I need a change of pace. The things which the top three mangas (GITS, Nausicaa and Akira) have in common is that they’re all heavy, earthshaking, violent, bloody, and transformational. They’re all big, bold, and serious, very serious SF. And since I can barely agree with myself on the pecking order for the top three, trying to do a top ten seems like a doomed methodology. So, change of pace.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This is what the publisher says about volume one, with my notes.
Kyon (1) is your ordinary high school freshman (2) who has long given up on his childhood dreams of encountering the fantastic and supernatural… or so he thought. From the very first day of school, his classmate – the beautiful but eccentric Haruhi Suzumiya – makes it very clear that her only desire is to meet aliens, time travelers, and espers! (3) A chance conversation between the two inspires Haruhi to form the SOS Brigade, (4) a school club created for the sole purpose of getting these supernatural beings together. The initial members consist of the mute bookworm Yuki Nagato, (5) the timid but voluptuous Mikuru Asahina, (6) and the polite and ever-smiling Itsuki Koizumi (7). But it isn’t long before Kyon realizes that Haruhi’s “helpless victims” are actually members of secret organizations – both futuristic and alien – keeping watch over Haruhi, as she is the pinnacle of some major calamity on the horizon (8)…
