Haruhiism Tracker

This was probably an inevitability on this time plane, but it seems like I am not as hyped with this anime, as compared to all the other new recruits of the SOS-dan… or should I say, the new religious converts of Haruhiism. Granted, really, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu is a freaking good show, no doubt. But I think we (or some of us) may be getting too overboard with all this.

I ate my words.

I was initially going to be a bit skeptic about it (the original title was Haruhiism Atheist), but by episode 4 (or episode 7, or whatever), I immediately became a convert. On the other hand, saying stuff like “Haruhiism rocks!” or “Haruhi rulz!” or something like that would make me a mere fanboy. Doing long posts of episode-by-episode summaries and analysis would also be better left to the anime blogging experts. So I decided to just observe from the sidelines.

This post is about The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, as seen from an observer like me. In this page, you may see lots of links, lots of useless chat from me, and other points of interest in and around the Suzumiya Haruhi phenomenon. This post may be updated as time goes by, so please do come back for more. Newer updates are posted on top.

Well, if you live in a cave (or only know about ninjas and shinigamis), let me tell you that Suzumiya Haruhi is a “phenomenon in progress”. Time to change your religion.
(that was a half-meant joke, haha)

===================================================

Aya Hirano in HEY! HEY! HEY!
Aya Hirano appears in HEY! HEY! HEY! Music Champ, which is a kinda popular musical variety show. It’s a mainstream TV program, which means Haruhiism is being preached to people who don’t even care. Unprecedented.

I don’t watch the show, but I would assume that this is kinda rare stuff. Having all three (consecutive) Haruhi singles strike consistent Top 10’s in weekly Oricon charts, I think the mainstream are virtually intrigued on what it’s all about. With the anime already over, I think this is the highest peak of popularity Haruhiism will ever get. Enjoy the clip.

Mikuru’s Hidden Gallery
Remember Kyon’s hidden mikuru folder?

Haruhi “Live Alive” Single at #5
Quite strong, the Suzumiya Haruhi single that coincided with the Live Alive episode ranked #5 at the Oricon Weekly Chart. Smart move releasing this single at the same time as the episode broadcast. Not to mention that they are good songs too. That Mikurun-run song is so bad it’s good as well.

Haruhi Timeline

Format:
Kyon says – Haruhi says – Episode Title – Novel chronology
Episode 1 – (Episode 11?) – Asahina Mikuru’s Adventure – Volume 6
Episode 2 – Episode 1 – The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi I – Volume 1
Episode 3 – Episode 2 – The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi II – Volume 1
Episode 4 – Episode 7 – The Boredom of Suzumiya Haruhi – Volume 3
Episode 5 – Episode 3 – The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi III – Volume 1
Episode 6 – Episode 9 – Remote Island Syndrome (Part I) – Volume 3
Episode 7 – Episode 8 – Mysterious Sign – Volume 3
Episode 8 – Episode 10 – Remote Island Syndrome (Part II) – Volume 3
Episode 9 – Episode 14 – Someday in the Rain – (original)
Episode 10 – Episode 4 – The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi IV – Volume 1
Episode 11 – Episode 13 – The Day of Sagittarius – Volume 5
Episode 12 – Episode 12 – Live Alive – Volume 6
Episode 13 – Episode 5 – The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi V – Volume 1
Episode 14 – Episode 6 – The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi VI – Volume 1

This is possibly the final timeline assuming that the anime will run for 14 episodes. If I’m not correct on Asahina Mikuru’s Adventure placement as episode 11, there may be a DVD-only special episode. Also, a second season is highly ‘likely’, judging by the weird scope of chapters (in volumes 1, 3, 5, 6) that it covered. You go hope for that after KyoAni finishes [Kanon -> kanon-prelude].

Staying Power
Come to think of it, this Harehare Yukai single is quite good to boot. Usually at its second or third week of release, some obscure anime single just bows out of the Oricon weekly music sales chart… but then I saw Harehare Yukai lasted for four weeks:

Week 1: 5
Week 2: 13
Week 3: 20
Week 4: 28

Yup, an entire month in the chart. That is staying power, with a magnitude typical of mainstream if you ask me. I doubt it will stay for longer with the down trend, but I assume it had favorable sales… for an obscure anime single.

EDIT: Bouken Desho Desho single also lasted for four weeks. Impressive too.

Haruhi.tv craziness
The site seems kinda crazy at close inspection. In the activity log, when you do a select-all (ctrl-a), you’ll find some hidden text, including the episode guide which goes from 1-3 to 4-6… to 15498! More crazy is the front page, where the SOS logo and other text are garbled, in much the same way as what happened in episode 7 (8) of the anime. Here’s the even crazier part, try refreshing the page many times, you will come to a point where the garbled SOS logo becomes Yuki’s ZOZ logo! And page seems to be normal, with counter at 29819, all of which are the same as in the anime! No surprise with all those… yet.

Apparently you can view the source HTML of the page, and you’ll see some interesting stuff, like this set of Javascript:


<!--
if( Math.random()


So at random, the page will load up with the ZOZ rather than the garbled SOS pictures, and the edited counter instead of “AIR HUH” (reference?). The counter doesn’t count. Also, there’s this little cute thingie () that escapes and appears at random places everytime you put a cursor on him (mouse-over).

Oh, and the final comment line apparently can be translated to “Data edited by Nagato Yuki” if you change the EUC-JP text to SHIFT-JIS. Dunno anything about those text encodings.

Pretty interesting stuff I should say.

Yuki’s 100 Books
Jason of AoMM has listed Nagato Yuki’s 100 Books. Pretty interesting lineup… but then again, how would I know? I can only read a handful of novels…

Final Verdict: Harehare Yukai is #5 on the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart

Make Haruhi #1 doesn’t want to quit quite yet

Let’s recap:
Day 1: 15
Day 2: none
Day 3: 18
Day 4: 2
Day 5: 10
Day 6: 16
Day 7: 13
What a stock market of a ranking.

More Haruhi On Location
Main page here.

Say goodbye to Make Haruhi #1

#15 in its first day of release.

Hare Hare Yukai

Here it is folks. Will this single make anime history by outselling mainstream artists… for at least 1 week or even just 1 day? We’ll have to find out soon enough.

Make Haruhi #1: Maybe in other parts
People have been telling that the novels are selling like hotcakes (do hotcakes sell?)… Firstly, some shops in Akihabara have been telling that they’re losing stock of the Haruhiism bibles, er… volume 1. Similarly, Amazon.jp seemingly has lots of religious items for sale, er… I mean those novels, singles and DVDs. DVD preorders seem to be high, but that’s usually the case for popular anime anyway.

Make Haruhi #1: Chances are slim

If this is any early indication, the Haruhi ED single won’t even stand a chance for the mainstream. So the Haruhi OP single is a new entry at #10 in its first week of release. Next week it may be out of the charts for good.

2chan Haruhiism converts rise to an all-time high
Some folks at AnimeSuki Forums have been monitoring Haruhiism activity at 2chan, the premier Japanese forum. It is said that the number of posts related to the Suzumiya Haruhi anime is going at an extremely frantic pace. So fast, it managed to overtake the number of Fate/stay Night posts in mere three weeks (F/SN was already on since January). More details here.

Bokuen Desho Desho

OP single of the anime, sung by Aya Hirano. YouTube has a commercial for this. While cute, I don’t get the gothic outfit. I’d like to see the PV. Why not make this #1 first, then we move on to the ED?

haruhiism.com
moy apparently is so rich, he can buy an entire religion! Or maybe at least its domain name. Still under construction.

Who is Aya Hirano?
Not to be confused with a popular Jdorama actress, Aya Hirano voices Haruhi in this anime. I remember her voice as Lumiere in Kiddy Grade. She’s rather cute. She also stars in Haruhi commericials (See YouTube). I want Suzumiya Haruhi Live Action.

More Make Haruhi #1 Project
Apparently these websites are promoting it. Site1 Site2

Make Haruhi #1 Project
This looks like yet another Haruhi ED parody, but it’s actually trying to promote the upcoming ED single so that it may reach #1 in the Oricon music sales chart. For the record, except for certain mainstream anime with mainstream jpop artist tie-ups, no anime single has ever reached #1 in the sales chart. [Mahou Sensei Negima->] singles almost made it, but never did #1 (I think its peak was #3).

Haruhi On Location
This site shows some real-life locations depicted in anime form through Suzumiya Haruhi. Haven’t updated the [Anime On Location->] page for a while.

Suzumiya Haruhi novels translation project
Some nice folks are currently translating the original novels for us to enjoy. Thanks!

YouTube and Haruhi
Go to YouTube and search for “haruhi” or any keyword, and you will find a rather huge mix of haruhi-related videos, like the episodes itself, TV commercials, and OP/ED videos. This also includes a rather large number of Mikuru-beam spoofs, and more importantly, the dancing ED parodies. Since the Haruhi ED is arguably the best dance sequence in all of anime, some rather ‘interesting’ parodies exist, like doing the Haruhi ED with Gundam figures. Go figure.

SOS-dan fansite
A rather nice fanpage about so many miscellaneous Haruhi stuff. Includes a step-by-step on how to do that infamous dance sequence.

Official Site
Seems to be the official site, apparently the front pages are modeled the way the fictional SOS-dan site was described in the story.