This movie was a menace to my principles; it brought me closer to my utter nightmare, finding the perfect work worthy of my perfect score. The reason I am scared of anime this powerful is because if I do find a perfect work, anything I will watch after it will seem boring, prehistoric or otherwise not as good. This anime challenged this principle of mine that a perfect work cannot exist. Even having said all that, I am still hesitating on the final score since it was without question one of the best works I have seen; I will remember it for a long time.
The first thing that should be mentioned about this movie would be that fact that it is imperative that you watch the first episode of the second season of this series, you will still be able to enjoy the movie if you do not see that episode, but the experience will less likely be as pleasurable as it could. The story in this anime is actually pretty complicated, simply because is has to be more deduced and guessed rather than it being simply thrown on the spectator, making it a very interesting and developed story. This said complexity pushes you to theorise and elaborate on things you took for granted or thought were immutable if you are a suzumiya fan. Sadly, to comprehend the actual movie you have to have watch at least the first season of the suzumiya chronicles, else you will not understand a thing and will be lost by the time the two and a half hours are finished, then again, even if you have seen the suzumiya series, you will probably still be slightly lost by the time the credits roll. And that is the only thing i can actually criticise, the fact that this movie was so complicated was what made it so enjoyable but so confusing and sometimes irritating, that is the beauty of this movie, it confuses you to a point you are forced to reflect to comprehend and actually made it a very enjoyable experience. Unsurprisingly, the mood of this movie drastically changes from the anime to this, being less of a comedic parody and focusing a lot more on character development and on the drama part that was slightly showed in the anime, yet, this change only positively affects the overall outcome of the movie. I have read some complaints everywhere on the net about the fact that hahuri suzumiya wasent present enough in the movie and that it made it boring, if you are such a person, i will be pleased to refer you to the actual title of the movie (hence the disappearing part) and gently ask you to shut up. The main aspect that i found interesting was the character focused story rather than event focused story, plus we actually got a focus on kyon’s character which is simply amazing. In the end, all the changes made in the story rendred it amazing, all the changes from the anime we loved absolutely fitted in the movie I now adore, it was simply amazing.
Ps: question everything, especially kyon’s origins. It might bring you interesting reflections.
Obviously enough, the characters in the movie were as breathtaking, if not more, than the characters in the anime. The story shaking the very foundations of the anime actually did the same thing to the characters, ever so changing them and revealing a part of them that was left unexplored (as i mentioned in my first Haruhi suzumiya review). The fact that we are shown this new aspect of the characters refreshes the subject and actually made the whole experience not only as breathtaking as the anime but surprisingly traumatic and even odd. Then again, that weirdness only complemented the actual beauty of the final work. Also, the fact that we are shown this new side of the characters permits us to define their personality and their background a lot more, it permitted us to completely redefine the characters and make us bond with them again. In the end, I was not only entirely astonished by the characters; it also brought me back to the point of worship of Haruhi I was before the endless 8.
I don’t know what to say about the artwork. By that I mean, isn’t it obvious that it is simply amazing? It was detailed, beautiful, smooth, nice, magnificent, and almost made me depressed because it was realistic and made my world look like total crap for a second. The real beauty of the movie was actually the details of the facial expressions and the care they took to make it representative of the emotions lived by the characters.
The music was also obviously amazing, but better than that the movie actually exploited almost perfectly the impact of silence. The music was excellently placed and very emotive, it stated perfectly the emotions shown in the scenes. It was perfect.
In the end, this is definitely one of the best works I have ever seen. It was complicated, yes, but it was wonderfully special. There is no way comprehend how I appreciated this anime. I recommended it to anyone.
Best quote:
Ryouko Asakura: hey... Hey! What’s wrong? I was trying to talk to you before but you’re acting like you have just seen an alien or something.
Kyon: -seeing an alien wouldn’t be unusual, I saw something far more ridiculous.
Entertainment: 10/10
Value: 10/10
It was that good to me, and I would recommend it to anyone.
