[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya episode 5: Questions…and answers
If there’s one word that can be used to sum up this show it’s ‘unpredictable’. In this episode there are countless bits of info thrown from all sides, plus a bizarre jump back in time. Remember the baseball game from the last episode? That hasn’t happened yet: this might explain why it felt disjointed and why I felt like I’d missed something because it explains how Itsuki was dragged into the SOS Brigade, in a very literal sense (second pic). But I’m getting ahead of myself…the ep begins with Yuki elaborating on what she explained to Kyon in episode #3. Through a major infodump and some animation work that thumbs its nose at serious science fiction she outlines who she is, why she’s here and so on. After a second viewing and some freeze framing I more or less got my head around it.
The conversation with Yuki gives way to something even stranger: while on club day out that takes the form of an active mission to seek out strange phenomena (aliens, epsers and time travellers don’t seem to have access to the SOS Brigade’s homepage to alert them to their presence, oddly enough), Mikuru has a confession to make to Kyon. Not that sort of confession, either. Yep, you’ve guessed it, even the moe girl is important to the story. At that point I breathed a sigh of relief, just as I did when Kyon makes a more vocal protest at Haruhi’s self-indulgent tormenting a few minutes earlier.
Then we meet Itsuki. He too has an interesting load of info to share with Kyon…see a pattern yet? I sure didn’t at the time but it was quite fun to look backon afterwards. So, there is not much in the way of comedy in this episode but plenty of exposition that, while it doesn’t explain why the series is so strange per se, gives plenty of scope for any weirdness that is to come. It gleefully jumps all over the genre boundaries too, apparently not paying attention to whether it’s a comedy, sci-fi or fantasy show. Unfortunately this makes it damned hard to review because I don’t know whether it’s a piece of subversive genius or something that will turn into an overrated mess by the end; I’m hoping for the former.
At the end of this outing we learn more about the characters’ motives, who they are and, erm, timequakes. Once again Kyoto Animation has done a great job with the visual side of things and I can see scores of people at conventions this summer trying to do the dance that goes with the closing theme. No, really.
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