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A certain anime, which I personally thought it was an okay show but some people love the hell out of it……at least, until the second season and here we are now......

Like I said before, I don’t love this show that is based on (THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA) but I found it to be okay (My rating would be Solid B. for the 1^st season; 2^nd season would be An Acquired Taste) and I happened to like slice-of-life anime and I had fun with that show albeit I don’t get that who would think a bitchy 16-year-old Japanese girl would be considered a God or the universe would turn into hell whenever she’s bored and the ones who are keeping their eyes on her have to keep her ass happy. But if you are wondering why I don’t rank the show that high, well, if you can guess the second season (I.E. Endless Eight) has something to do with it, you are correct, sir.’

What bothers me about that how lazy was Kyoto Animation with their budget and why did we need to see the same damn episode EIGHT TIMES?!?!? I wasn’t mad about it, just disappointed and later episodes of that season were just as lackluster as the previous ones. But enough about the TV series, let’s get on with the movie.

The story starts off with your typical show opening for this series as Kyon (or John Smith, voiced by Crispin Freeman, who naturally gave a good performance) narrates about what’s going on with his life and it’s the same typical formula for this series as it goes along but then, one morning, when Kyon woke up and notice something very, very different with usual ritual. The SOS Brigade doesn’t exist, Yuki Nagato (the mute of the group, voiced by Michelle Ruff) is still in the literary club, has emotions and not an alien, Ryoko Asakura (voiced by Bridget Hoffman) is still in this school, even though she transferred to another one in the series, Mikuru Asahina (the fanservice moe bait…..and possibly one of the reasons why I look onto this show…and also voiced by Stephanie Sheh) is still her usual self but she’s not a time traveler, Itsuki Koizumi (voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch) and Haruhi Suzumiya (voiced by Wendee Lee) are not students of North High School and there is no existence of the SOS Brigade or any of their misadventures. He discovers he is not in his own world and nothing is gone right at all and must find a way to return there before

Now, in the movie, it has gotten more into a serious tone than the show but still has their usual charm, humor, and even their opening song….at least, in the beginning. Of course, the animation by Kyoto is their bread and butter and they excel at it and the acting and character development (especially from Nagato, who actually show more emotion than she did previously) was actually the best thing going on in this movie. The only flaw in this movie for me is the length of the movie. I didn’t expect for it for to be 2 hours and 44 minutes but, yeah, it’s that long of a movie…..when most Studio Ghibli movies don’t last that long. I don’t know if this movie is an improvement over the first season but it is definitely an improvement over the second season, especially that one. If they would have cut it to 6 or 7 episodes and call that the second season, it would have been HALL OF FAME, but no, I’m not rating it that high.

FINAL VERDICT: This is definitely something I would recommend, but to either old or new fans of the show, it’s a maybe for casual or wandering viewers like me but everyone else…..it’s a 50/50 or lower chance. Like I said, this movie actually improves on the Haruhi franchise on a storytelling level and it didn’t faze me most of the time except the time length and the only thing something against it.

Until then, I’m MAK2.0 aka HybridMedia, bringing all the elements of one format.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA – animation by KYOTO ANIMATION, released by KADOKAWA PICTURES & distributed by BANDAI ENTERTAINMENT.

(On one note: I was sad that Bandai is now joined the likes of ADV Films & Geneon as defunct anime distributors considering favorites of mine like Cowboy Bebop, Eureka Seven & Code Geass were a part of their catalog. Let’s hope those get picked up by other growing anime distributors.)

Therefore, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya gets the final rating of:

9/10  -  Low First Class