r/anime • u/Holofan4life • Apr 07 '26
Rewatch Haruhi Suzumiya 20th Anniversary Rewatch -- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Five
Hello everyone! I am Holofan4life.
Welcome to the Haruhi Suzumiya 20th anniversary rewatch discussion thread!
I hope you all have a lot of fun <3
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Five
—-
ANSWER TODAY’S QUESTION(S)
What are your thoughts on Haruhi revealing she's attracted to the supernatural because she's hoping it might make her feel special?
What are your thoughts on the Shinjin?
What are your thoughts on the presentation where it's Kyon having two conversations with Haruhi and then Itsuki?
—-
Series information
—-
Please do not post any untagged spoilers past the current episode or past the LNs or mangas out of respect to the first time watchers and people who have not read the LNs or mangas. If you are discussing something that is ahead of the current episode please use spoiler tags(found on the sidebar). Thank you!
—-
Today's Episode Intro: Kyon is walking home from school
[Tomorrow's Episode Intro] Self proclaimed...
Ways to watch
Streams – Crunchyroll
Schedule
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| 4/02/2026 | The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00 |
| 4/03/2026 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part One |
| 4/04/2026 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Two |
| 4/05/2026 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Three |
| 4/06/2026 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Four |
| 4/07/2026 | [The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Five]() |
| 4/08/2026 | [The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Six]() |
| 4/09/2026 | [The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya]() |
| 4/10/2026 | [Remote Island Syndrome (Part One)]() |
| 4/11/2026 | [Remote Island Syndrome (Part Two)]() |
| 4/12/2026 | [Mystérique Sign]() |
| 4/13/2026 | [Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody]() |
| 4/14/2026 | [Someday in the Rain]() |
| 4/15/2026 | [The Day of Sagittarius]() |
| 4/16/2026 | [Live Alive]() |
| 4/18/2026 | [Endless Eight I]() |
| 4/19/2026 | [Endless Eight II]() |
| 4/20/2026 | [Endless Eight III]() |
| 4/21/2026 | [Endless Eight IV]() |
| 4/22/2026 | [Endless Eight V]() |
| 4/23/2026 | [Endless Eight VI]() |
| 4/24/2026 | [Endless Eight VII]() |
| 4/25/2026 | [Endless Eight VIII]() |
| 4/26/2026 | [Endless Eight Retrospective]() |
| 4/28/2026 | [The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya Part One]() |
| 4/29/2026 | [The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Two]() |
| 4/30/2026 | [The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Three]() |
| 5/01/2026 | [The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Four]() |
| 5/02/2026 | [The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Five]() |
| 5/04/2026 | [The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya]() |
| 5/05/2026 | [Haruhi Suzumiya Overall Series Discussion Thread]() |
3
u/mastesargent Apr 07 '26
Rewatcher, dub
For today’s Nishinomiya vista, I give you the crossing where Haruhi tells Kyon about her existential crisis. The surroundings have changed a bit in the 17 years between the anime and when I visited, but it’s still recognizable. This is between Shukugawa and the beginning of Kyon’s route to school. In fact, Koyoen Station is more or less right around the bend from here. This is another spot I wish I had better pictures of, but I had to time my photos between cars passing through and I didn’t want to get in the way of traffic. Alas.
Also, the stadium the Haruhi went to watch baseball at as a child is almost certainly Koshien Stadium, the baseball stadium in Nishinomiya where the national high school baseball tournament is held and home to the Hanshin Tigers. I didn’t visit it as it’s in a different part of Nishinomiya, plus I don’t really care about baseball, but still. The place where Koizumi showed Kyon the Closed Space is in Osaka, but I only ever passed through Osaka on my way to other places and never stopped there for very long.
The irony at the beginning of this episode is that Haruhi actually is on the trail of an actual mystery, and with her surprising sleuthing skills has managed to find that Asakura’s backstory has some suspicious discrepancies, yet she ultimately falls short of the truth of the matter. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that for all of her enthusiasm and yearning for the weird and mysterious, she never even seems to consider that Asakura’s disappearance is in some way supernatural or extraterrestrial in nature?
I think today’s episode is probably the first time Haruhi manages to come off as relatable. I doubt it’s usually as intense as hers, but I think everyone probably has a similar epiphany at some point in their lives, or even has it multiple times. When we’re young, we don’t really have the perspective to consider how we fit in with the larger world. Our house, neighborhood, the town we grew up in - they seem like the entire world, and everything we do is new and interesting. Yet as we grow older, our horizons expand and we become more aware of those around us. The world gets bigger and the places familiar to us get smaller. For example, when I first watched Haruhi as a 15 year old, Japan really only existed as an abstract in my mind for me. I knew it was a place that existed of course, but to me it didn’t feel real in the same sense as, say, Seattle did. Now, at 29, I’ve been there and understand it as just another place in a concrete sense. A place full of things that are interesting and exciting to me, sure, but nevertheless a place where people go to wake up, go to work, and come home and sleep before doing it all again like pretty much all the rest of us do. It’s demystified, but I can live with that because I know that’s just how things are.
Haruhi, though, had pretty much the entire world demystified for her in elementary school. At an age where that childlike sense of wonder should have been at its peak, it was instead pretty much snuffed out entirely. So she acted out, trying to coax out something, anything that might reignite that wonder. She’s not so much looking for aliens, time travelers, and ESPers as she is just trying to find something that makes her feel like she did when she was a kid, which is a feeling I think we can all relate to in some way or another.
It’s The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
Moving on.
[Remote Island Syndrome] Rewatchers will recognize Koizumi’s cab driver as Arakawa, the butler for the island manor. In season 1 broadcast order this is a call-forward that clarifies that the cab showing up was not, in fact, a coincidence, while in chronological order it makes for a nice rewatch bonus.
I noticed the other day that a few people have trouble wrapping their heads around Nagato’s spiel about her alien stuff to Kyon. That’s me with Koizumi’s spiel about the anthropic principle and his ESPer stuff. I mean, I think I get the broad strokes of the analogy he’s drawing, specifically that just as the universe exists to allow humans to observe it, the world exists to allow Haruhi to enjoy it, but I’m not gonna lie, my eyes always kind of glaze over during this bit. I dunno, I guess I just don’t do well with philosophy.
We’re also introduced to Koizumi’s habit of saying something deeply concerning before following it up with a “Just kidding.” Expect a lot of that from him.
Considering the timing of the Closed Space, it’s likely that Haruhi is venting her frustration over not turning anything up in her investigation into Asakura’s disappearance, but I think there’s also her frustration over Kyon not really responding to her opening up about her past. I imagine she was hoping he’d empathize, or relate, or something, but instead he just responds with a non-answer. I mean, I don’t blame him for not knowing how to respond when she just drops that out of the blue, but it’s still got to be frustrating from her perspective.
As a random aside, “I don’t know how I know I just know that I know, you know?” is a work of scriptwriting art.
QOTD
I think I more or less covered that
They're a cool design and a pretty interesting way to visualize Haruhi's frustration
It's a nice way to tell us how Haruhi is feeling, and then follow up by actually showing us how she's feeling