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review 2019-06-28 06:01
Quick Thoughts: The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya
The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya - Chris Pai,Nagaru Tanigawa,Noizi Ito

The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa
Book 8 of Haruhi Suzumiya

 

 

Two stories continue the adventure in Volume 8 of the Haruhi Suzumiya series.

Editor-in-Chief, Straight Ahead!
Since the beginning of the year, the SOS Brigade has been masking as the Literature Club to be recognized as an official high school organization.  But when the new student council president threatens to disband the group, the members must write a collection of literature.  Naturally, Haruhi assume the role of editor-in-chief and leads the team to publication with hilarious results.

Wandering Shadow
From writers to detectives, the SOS Brigade does it all.  When fellow classmate Sanaka comes to the club seeking help, the team (well, Haruhi) is up to the task.  A well-trodden popular park path has suddenly begun to terrify the neighborhood dogs, and Haruhi suspects that its being haunted by animal spirits.  It looks like the SOS Brigade is about to perform its first first canine exorcism!



Normally, I would review each short story on it's own, give it a rating, and then calculate an average when I read anthologies.  But this time I just didn't feel like it.

The Indignation is just a continuation of the Haruhi Suzumiya adventures with her SOS Brigade, told through the snarky tone of our main narrator Kyon.  It's no different than previous books in the series, with both a strangeness to it that really makes you think, and a larger than life feel that makes you shudder a bit.

The first short story had my expectations up, as I looked forward to seeing what kind of stories each member of the SOS Brigade would come up with, but my expectations were a little deflated.  Specifically, I was looking forward to getting to the end of Kyon's "love story" because the characters hinted that there was a bit of mystery embedded... something that I didn't catch while I was reading it.  And unfortunately, I kind of feel like Kyon's story conclusion was a bit disappointing, almost anticlimactic--basically, I didn't quite understand why everyone was so in awe of it.

Nagato's very short stories were all kind of creepy in a Nagato-esque way, and also pretty thought-provoking.  Asahina's short fairy tale was just cute, illustrations and all.  And here's a spoiler:  You don't get to read any of the other stories the brigade puts together, which is a bit disappointing.  I would have at least liked to have read something of the story submitted by Tsuruya which was supposedly so hilarious that it was making everyone laugh like crazy.

So while I DID like the first short, Editor-in-Chief, Straight Ahead!, I was a bit deflated when some of the building up of my expectations wasn't met.  That's probably my fault.

The second short story, Wandering Shadow sounds like it has a very promising premise... but also fell kind of short.  In fact, I found it kind of boring.

Nonetheless, there was a lot of Kyon contemplating certain scenarios in life, which points to a nice improved development of his character from the lazy high school boy he'd been from the first book.  There are bits of continuation of some background, ongoing story with references back to previous books, and the overall mission to study Haruhi Suzumiya by our time traveler, esper, and alien, and the continued need to keep her content.

Overall, a nice book to waste away some time if you're a fan of this series already.


***

 

Booklikes-opoly 2019


Roll #7:
Square: European Vacation 33 | Read a book set i nthe UK, or that was written by an author whose first or last name begins with any letters in the word L-O-N-D-O-N.

How it fits:  Author's name starts with an 'N.'
Page Count:  212
Cash:  $3

 

 

 

Source: anicheungbookabyss.blogspot.com/2019/06/quick-thoughts-indignation-of-haruhi.html
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review 2016-03-24 12:44
Brief Thoughts: The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya
The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya (The Haruhi Suzumiya Series) - Nagaru Tanigawa

The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

Book 6 of Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series

 

 

Wow.

I didn't realize it took me a little over a month to finish this short book. I guess I just wasn't really getting into it... or I just found other books more enticing. The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya is a short story collection of random moments in the lives of our S.O.S. Brigade, and admittedly, it wasn't the best collection ever. In fact, I think I had set it aside for so long because the first three short stories were kind of boring. There were still little elements of anticipatory suspense for some of the mysteries in two of the five stories, but it DID take a little time before I got into the story far enough to become interested.

The last story in this collection, The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina was only interesting after the big climax... but then it went flat again because of the nature of Asahina's character role--that everything in her life is "classified" and she can't talk about it. In essence, because she can't talk about the things going on as a time traveler, we, as the readers, cannot know why she had to be at that particular place at that particular time--we only know it was important. And that's all.

The fourth story, Where Did the Cat Go? was actually the most interesting short story in the collection, if a little juvenile and predictable. Though I guess the whole point was that the "murder mystery" set-up at Snowy Mountain Lodge was supposed to be predictable. I just hadn't pegged it to be kind of tacky as well.

The third story, Love at First Sight was just straight out strange and I didn't know what to make of it.

The first two stories were simply not memorable enough for me to draw any opinions, really. Hopefully the next book in the series will be more exciting... ?


***

2016 Reading Challenges:
Goodreads Reading Challenge
BookLikes Reading Challenge
Bookish Resolutions Challenge
Mount TBR Challenge



Source: anicheungbookabyss.blogspot.com/2016/03/brief-thoughts-wavering-of-haruhi.html
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review 2015-07-23 00:00
Sự Biến Mất Của Suzumiya Haruhi
Sự Biến Mất Của Suzumiya Haruhi - Nagaru Tanigawa,Noizi Ito,Minh Trí (Solarius),Vân Phiên #booksiboughtonsummervacationcuzijustcantresistthetemptationduh no.10

Ah, brought the wrong book in the series. I haven't even read book 3 yet. Oh well.... :/

I loathed the first and second book, I just couldn't like Suzumiya's character. But this was different. Despise not being able to understand some of the events that were mentioned (due to the reason above), this volume was strangely charming. Tanigawa was able to keep record of all of the events in his plot, although the timeline in this book is not at all straight. Also, the characters, and the mechanics behind their power are very elaborated. What excited me the most, are the numorous astronomical references.

About this version

It was such a pain reading this in Vietnamese, due to the science - fiction terms. What the hell does thể ý niệm hợp nhất even mean?

Recommended for

Anyone who loves hyperactive schoolgirls + passive dudes + aliens + book - loving robots.
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review 2015-02-17 08:52
Review: The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya
The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya - Nagaru Tanigawa,Noizi Ito,Chris Pai

The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

Book 5 of Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series

Japan Release: 2004 -- Kadokawa Shoten

U.S. Release: 2011 -- Little, Brown Books

English translation by Chris Pai

Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Humor, Contemporary

 

 

The fifth installment of the Haruhi Suzumiya universe light novel series is an anthology of three short stories, each preceded by a short preface. Once again told in the perspective of our lazy, high school boy with a streak of snarkiness, the narration is enjoyable and snort-worthy at times.

But I have to say that after the fourth book, I feel like Kyon’s lost a bit of his snark and has actually grown quite soft towards Haruhi. I don’t know whether to take that as a good sign or a bad one, but we also note that he’s grown quite an attachment to all of his brigade members. He’s always worshipped Asahina, and there’s a silent, reluctant companionship between him and Koizumi.

But now he seems to have developed more of an understanding of Haruhi. And on top of that, he seems to have picked up a big brotherly concern for Nagato and how she has to constantly deal with all the big messes left in the wake of Haruhi’s irrational demands and behaviors, whether or not Haruhi meant for things to happen and whether or not she was even responsible for strange occurrences.



1. Endless Eight
In the first short story in The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kyon details a strange summer vacation during their first year of high school. Everything seemed like a typical Haruhi Suzumiya motivated “good ol’ time” wherein the Brigade Chief calls everyone out for a meeting so that they can make the most of the rest of their summer.

Of course, once again, Kyon can’t keep up with Haruhi’s enthusiasm nor her logic (or lack thereof). But you have to admit that it’s nice to have someone pulling all the strings to get some activity going when you’re young and you seem to have all the time in the world.

The latter half of August, right before the beginning of the next term, Haruhi has listed activities from going to the pool, to watching fireworks, attending a festival, and star-gazing. It pretty much sounds like a neverending time of fun-filled activity.

Until Kyon’s random flashes of strong deja vu proves that this is indeed a neverending duration of time. The rest of the brigade members call him out to explain that his sense of deja vu is actually significant. And according to our Mastermind of an Alien Being, Nagato (whose job is only to observe, by the way), the group has gone through the same two weeks of August over ten thousand times, in several thousand variations of activities and directions, and are somehow caught in an endless time loop, caused by noneother than Haruhi Suzumiya herself. Of course, she doesn’t know this is happening.

This is further confirmed by our Time Traveler, Asahina, who cannot make contact with the future, because, naturally, when you’re stuck in an endless time loop, there is no future. Naturally…

Their only conclusion is that Haruhi must have created this closed-space like time loop because there is something she still isn’t satisfied with about her summer vacation. And so, in order to satisfy this unknown factor, she has unknowingly fixated on the summer vacation never ending.

So it is our hero’s job to determine what it is that must be done to break the time loop, and save the day. As per usual. With all his snark and lazy high school boy attitude present.


I recall watching the second season of the anime series for Haruhi Suzumiya and finding myself increasingly confused about the several episodes adapted to tell the Endless Eight story. While it was part curiosity that had me viewing the episodes (there were eight of them) with the same plots over and over again with slight variations, I have to admit that it DID manage to start get annoyingly boring. In contrast, the way the story is written in the light novel is a little easier to stomach--we only have to go through the time loop once with explanations abound!

Of course, this wasn’t one of my favorite Haruhi Universe short stories. But it does still reflect a lot of the typical Haruhi Suzumiya elements that I love.


2. The Day of Sagitarrius
This short story takes place during the autumn sometime after the school’s cultural festival (not that that’s important). The SOS Brigade is challenged to an outer space duel… or something like that. Basically, if we recall from the first Haruhi Suzumiya book, when Haruhi created her own personal club, she did it in a rather imperialistic fashion: barging in and commandeering the Literary Club’s club room, dragging unsuspecting members into the room and locking them in, and finally procuring a computer through extortion from the Computer Society next door.

Well, now the Computer Society is back with a plan for vengeance. As computer clubs are wont to do, the Computer Society has created their own space invasion type game, much like an MMO of sorts, but in 2D called The Day of Sagittarius 3. Each side gets five fleets of ships and they do battle in unmapped territory in space until one team or the other is defeated. The game sounds simple enough, and as per Haruhi Suzumiya standards, of course, outrageous stakes are at hand.

Mainly, Kyon surmises that they really have nothing to lose and he feels like they’re going to lose anyway. The Computer Society gets to take back their computer if they win, the SOS Brigade gets four new laptops if they win.

The odds, of course, are a bit uneven.


This short story puts my personal favorite character of the Haruhi Suzumiya world on a pedestal, really. And I’m thinking that it had been this particular story I had seen as an episode of the anime that really cemented my love for Nagato. Because as little emotion as this alien being presents, it is one of few times you get to see her become passionate about something. As Kyon notes:


True, she was able to avoid showing any emotion on her face, but I had come to realize that she still had feelings.

[...]

Nagato had been the most passionate one in our [game] battle with the computer society [...] She looked more enthusiastic when she was punching away at the keyboard [...] it looked to me like she was somehow having fun [...]

The simple fact that, despite being a higher intelligence alien being, she voluntarily restricted her actions to human capabilities at Kyon’s request and still managed to silently win the game in an outstanding display of uber computer skills was pretty amazing. And in the end, despite everyone knowing that she was the mastermind behind the SOS Brigade’s victory, she still quietly sits there and reads her books without any fanfare.


3. Snowy Mountain Syndrome
The last short story in this Rampage anthology was probably the longest short story, but it was also surprisingly the most intriguing one. I can’t recall if I had seen an anime adaptation based off of Snowy Mountain Syndrome, but it’s likely. And so, fortunate, I don’t remember it if I’ve seen it.


A la the summer vacation on a remote island--Remote Island Syndrome from The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya, Volume Four of this light novel series--our SOS Brigade heads out on another fun vacation adventure, this time, on the titular snowy mountain. Unlike the last time, however, Koizumi has already confided that he has planned another “Murder Mystery” game much like the one that had taken place on the remote island.

And so amidst the wintery fun, skiing, and such, the group is ready to spend the end of the year playing along with another of Haruhi’s fun and games demands. At least this time, Kyon doesn’t expect anything supernatural to happen since Haruhi seems pretty content just to ski and participate in a pre-arranged “Snowy Mountain Mansion Murder Mystery Game”.

Of course, no Haruhi Suzumiya story is complete without some strange phenomena occurring; before the gang knows it, they are trapped in some strange eternal blizzard and find their way to an isolated mansion in the middle of nowhere. Stranger still, there are no phones or radios, no means of communication, but plenty of comfort in food, hot baths, and warm beds. To top things off, something doesn’t feel right about the situation, but our ever-powerful Nagato has been incapacitated.

And so it is up to Kyon with the help of Koizumi to figure out what is going on and how to fix it, or forever remain a prisoner of this strange time-space distorted reality.


It wasn’t like this was the most exciting story in the Haruhi Suzumiya world, but after getting to the halfway point, I just kept right on turning the pages and kept right on reading. There was definitely a sense of mystery and an urgency to solve said mystery; although the resolution felt a bit lukewarm, the overall story was quite enjoyable anyway.


Overall Thoughts:
Really, the only thing I have to say about this anthology was that it was entertaining in the same way the rest of the Haruhi Suzumiya books have been entertaining. While the concept and the world continues to intrigue me and draw me in, I’m still not at the point that I’d fangirl the heck out of this series.

Sure, the ideals are clever and the humor is evident; also, reading about a bunch of high school students who learn about more subjects that are vastly more complicated than I remember learning in high school makes me feel a bit inferior.

Heck, Leonhard Euler’s polyhedron theorem? An offhand reference to the Mary Celeste as a comparison to the abandoned mansion our SOS Brigade comes across? Even a lot of the computer and tech jargon and terminology spouted during The Day of Sagitarrius was enough to make my head spin.

Anyway….

 

***

 

This book is a pre-chosen participant in the following Reading Challenge(s):

 

 

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text 2014-07-11 03:52
My next Japanese novel - Any preferences?
Blood+ Volume 1: First Kiss (Novel) (v. 1) - Ryo Ikehata
From the Empire - Sunao Yoshida,Thores Shibamoto
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Nagaru Tanigawa
Chibi Vampire: The Novel, Vol. 6 - Tohru Kai,Yuna Kagesaki
Only the Ring Finger Knows: The Lonely Ring Finger - Hotaru Odagiri,Satoru Kannagi
Cold Sleep - Narise Konohara,Nanao Saikawa,Douglas W. Dlin

I'm not really sure what I'm in the mood for, just that I want to have something going besides The Dry and The Paratwa. Also, I'm procrastinating on my Spice & Wolf review right now. Blah.

 

Here are the books, plus a little info and a sentence from the back covers. I'll probably start reading tomorrow evening.

 

1.  Blood+ Volume 1: First Kiss (Novel) (v. 1) - Ryo Ikehata  - Vampires and action. A novelization of an anime TV series (which I've seen).

From the back of the book: "Saya's journey of horror, magic, romance, and mystery will stretch across time and around the world, expanding on the television series with new characters, new adventures, and breathtaking action."

 

2. From the Empire - Sunao Yoshida,Thores Shibamoto  - Vampires, action, and, if I'm remembering the anime right, science fiction.

 

From the back of the book: "Packed with action, emotion, and artistry, this first volume of Rage Against the Moons contains tales of heroism, sacrifice, and retribution, as the AX agents strive to protect the innocent and keep the peace."

 

3. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Nagaru Tanigawa  - The anime was bizarre - aliens, time travel, and reality-warping.

 

From the back of the book: "Haruhi holds the fate of the universe in her hands...lucky for you she doesn't know it!"

 

4. Chibi Vampire: The Novel, Vol. 6 - Tohru Kai,Yuna Kagesaki  - Romance and vampire fluff. Sort of. The main character is a vampire whose body produces blood when she's excited, which then comes gushing out of her nose if she can't find an unhappy person to bite and give the blood to.

 

From the back of the book: "When a boy named Jake turns up, claiming to be her long-lost brother, Karin's family is thrown into an uproar."

 

5. Only the Ring Finger Knows: The Lonely Ring Finger - Satoru Kannagi,Hotaru Odagiri  - M/M romance. I read the manga adaptation a few years ago but don't remember much about it other than that it was okay.

 

From the back of the book: "The ring on each boy's finger is a symbol of two hearts that beat together despite the prying eyes of classmates...and this is one couple who must weather a storm of scrutiny to discover if their love is truly meant to last."

 

6. Cold Sleep - Narise Konohara,Nanao Saikawa,Douglas W. Dlin  - M/M romance. I know nothing about it.The description mentions a car accident and amnesia.

 

From the back of the book: "Dramatic, heart-wrenching romance and tragedy combine in a gripping story where the past and present are intricately entwined."

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