Young Underpaid Professionals

You know I leave Rica with most of the fangirlism in this website (God knows she has enough for an entire basketball team), but right now the gushing fangirl in me has threatened all my other personalities with a megaphone, and thus there will be no peace until this post has been let out. Yes, I’m one of those fans who hasn’t given up on Haruhi even after the Endless Eight debacle/troll.

As you probably all know by now, the fourth novel in Nagaru Tanigawa’s Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series, the Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya or Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu (for the purposes of people who argue that vanishment isn’t a word, it’s alternately called the Disappearance), was adapted into a film released in Japan last February 6. In case you haven’t read the light novels, let me give you a briefer of the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. You can keep your eyes open for this one, kids, I left out the spoiler bits.

The Epic Plot

Place yourself in Kyon’s shoes for a second. One day, you have a relatively normal setup going on for you: Haruhi’s got another holiday gathering planned out for the SOS Brigade, Itsuki’s there inanely smiling as he usually does, Mikuru’s just been forced into a new outfit (a Santa girl one, you know, in the spirit of the season), and Yuki, your rock, is placidly sitting in a corner reading her book. This “normal” scene brings you a twisted sort of comfort.

The next day, you wake up and go to school. Everything seems ordinary up until the point the girl who tried to kill you with a very big knife many months before and has since been zapped into oblivion by Yuki herself, suddenly appears and takes Haruhi’s seat behind yours in the classroom. That’s not all that’s different. Haruhi Suzumiya herself has vanished, Itsuki Koizumi’s entire classroom doesn’t even exist anymore, Mikuru Asahina doesn’t know you, and the most earth shattering blow of them all: Yuki Nagato is a normal high school girl.

As if that wasn’t enough to drive anybody insane, add the return of the murderous Asakura Ryoko into the bin. I’d probably welcome a trip to the loonytunes bin if Rica ever turned normal, or the Overlord suddenly quit being, well, overlord-y. The point is, Kyon’s world is suddenly and quite rudely turned upside down, and nobody but him remembers the world with Haruhi in it (cue Twilight Zone theme). Of course, Kyon complains constantly about Haruhi – both out loud and in his internal monologues – but he doesn’t hesitate to be a dick in trying to find her once she disappears into thin air.

The Movie

Reportedly, the movie stayed true to the light novel and as I would expect, it has a running time of biblical epic proportions for today’s audiences: 162 minutes (two hours and 42 minutes). For some, that’s crazy long for a movie, but for a rabid fan like me, it’s apt for this epic story (Fun fact: this is my most favorite of the Haruhi Suzumiya stories, second only to the first novel, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.). Also, some reports from those lucky bastards people who were able to watch the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya in the big screen indicate that Kyoto Animation outdid themselves animation-wise. Minori Chihara, the voice actress for Yuki Nagato for the series, was pure awesome and stole the show entirely.

On a related note, the soundtrack is already available, and an overenthusiastic Promotional Video from Lantis spoiled the movie for a lot of fans (who haven’t read the light novel). Lantis apparently assumed everybody who were searching for the “Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya video” a. already watched the movie and b. already read the novel; they later corrected the misstep by replacing the spoilerage with a video with less spoilers. Apparently, they didn’t know people can download YouTube videos; click here to see the offending video.

Some Fangirl Notes

I used all of the tricks bestowed upon me to find a video of the Disappearance, unfortunately, one won’t be able to find something that technically isn’t there. Why did I exhaust my Internet-hamster-slash-slightly-blackened-white-hat powers to find this movie? Several reasons, though it’s mostly to see the extremely moe “blushing Yuki” and the long haired, ojou-sama Haruhi (please God, if you’re hearing this, let the ponytail scene be included in the movie) in glorious big screen epicness.

If you want to see exactly what “great lengths” I’ve come to use to find the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie, here’s a chatlog with fellow Haruhi fan, Ahorney to end this post:

Rio: ahorney are you there?
Ahorney: I am here
Ahorney: I hear you loud and clear
Ahorney: And something something
Rio: hahaha
Rio: i have a question
Rio: have you gotten wind of the haruhi suzumiya movie?
Ahorney: Not really? D: The last thing I remember about Haroohee was the Endless Eight debacle.
Rio: T_T
Rio: there was a movie
Rio: last feb
Rio: damn japanese
Rio: they only showed it there
Rio: AND NOWHERE ELSE
Rio: stingy scum
Ahorney: Ah you’ll see the camrips or the rip of the DVD soon enough.
Ahorney: That’s how us Masked Rider fans fare too
Ahorney: When they release awesome movies like that, we only get to watch it after they’ve gone to DVD.
Rio: WALA
Rio: T_T
Ahorney: Hintayin mo kasi D:
Rio: it was released last month
Ahorney: Be patient. We had to wait like half a year for one Kamen Rider Movie to be viewable.
Ahorney: The DVD?
Rio: the dvd hasn’t been even announced yet
Ahorney: Then you have to play the waiting game, Rio D:
Ahorney: Sit your ass down and be patient. That’s all we can do at this point. D:
Rio: i can cry too right?
Ahorney: WHAT
Ahorney: YOU CAN’T CRY
Ahorney: THERE’S NO CRYING IN WAITING
Ahorney: WHAT DO YOU MEAN CRY
Rio: fine fine
Rio: i shall sit on my hands
Rio: for 6 months
Ahorney: That’s what the rest of us do.
Rio: after which, i’m invading japan
Ahorney: Although anime movies are released much more earlier
Ahorney: I’d advise you to at least check out Play-Asia.
Ahorney: You can get a good hint of when the DVDs will be out.
Rio: good point
Rio: thanks ahorney
Rio: T_T
Ahorney: No prob.

*The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya OST can be found on Play-Asia, no DVD though. Blast it.