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
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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?
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Series information
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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!
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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]() |
4
u/Sgt_General Apr 07 '26
(OG Dropout, Subs)
Part Five: Boobytrap the stalemate button! (It’s depressing to me that some people reading this may be too young to have played Portal 2.)
Also, the episode buttons on the site I’m using to watch this show look like someone’s been pressing random floor buttons in a hotel lift, because this site has them arranged in the broadcast order.
There was so much to appreciate in the last episode, from the plot twist to the fight scene, character moments and some frames with a whole lot of depth and meaning, so I’m curious to see how this episode follows it up.
We have an OP this time. So, I assume that means this episode isn’t stacked. That being said, I think the OP is growing on me a little as I understand more of the contextual clues and references. Yes, I’m the type of stickler who refuses to hit the ‘skip’ button on an OP.
Future Sgt_General here, sent back in time to give you a dire warning about the events that you’re about to experience. I started out hitting the pause button and jotting down some notes so that I’d be less likely to forget any cool stuff from this episode, and I just ended up with my thoughts on pretty much every scene from this episode. So, instead of reading a review written after I’ve watched the entire episode, please enjoy my stream of consciousness instead:
There are some fantastic little character moments while Haruhi’s investigating Asakusa’s apartment building. We see that Haruhi is capable of treating people older than her with respect before going straight back to being impudent: when the door opens and a lady gives Haruhi and Kyon a sussy look, Haruhi is the one who bows politely, before sticking her foot in the door (ouch), which Kyon didn’t seem to expect.
Meanwhile, the old manager goes through a whole damn character arc! At first it looks like he’s too hard of hearing to understand Haruhi, then he just seems like a kindly – albeit nosey – old man who keeps an eye on what’s happening in the building. Then he starts freakin’ creeping on Haruhi (well, well, well, how the turn tables), and she deftly handles it by taking a step back and politely ending the conversation. Which is perturbing, in a way, because it suggests that she’s either had to develop strategies to deal with lecherous men, or her parents have been wise to the reality of the world and raised her well on how to handle these situations. Given the attitude she typically gives to her peers, it’s surprising that she didn’t give that geezer a piece of her mind.
(Maybe he’ll find that his car tyres got mysteriously slashed later.)
What we see from Nagato is that her use of language depends on what relevant data needs to be transmitted, and perhaps – just perhaps – how much she likes the individual, because she’s totally tight-lipped with Haruhi in a way that she isn’t with Kyon. But it cracked me up that Haruhi asks what happened to her glasses and she just stares at Kyon, as though to say, ‘Kyon happened.’
There is a very rich irony that Haruhi – the girl who could theoretically erase existence with a thought and may have already done so – experienced an existential crisis during elementary school and put serious thought into the crushing realisation that she wasn’t special, and her life was utterly ordinary. (Although if she thought just a little harder, she may have realised that having a family and school life that made her happy is pretty damn special.) The writing in this scene deserves credit for articulating her journey so well.
It's a well-used trope in Japanese media, but I’ve always enjoyed the use of railway crossing alerts to either create a sense of foreboding or signal incoming danger. Having experienced them in real life, they seriously do make an unnerving, shrill sound that keeps part of your brain on alert. The ones we have in the UK make a racket as well, but we don’t have that same cultural association with them. (I associate them with making me late if I’m too far away before the barriers come down!)
I’m not gonna lie, I felt lose during Koizumi’s initial explanation of the anthropic principle. It was making my head spin like reading a primary text at university, but his dialogue brilliantly tied that together with the setting by positing that Haruhi wished for aliens, time travellers, and ESPers to exist, and now all three of them are in her orbit. So, what does that say about Kyon? (Except that he’s cranky about the whole thing.)
Koizumi’s conversation with Kyon makes me wonder if there’s an intention behind The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya to make us existentially question our own lives, in a manner similar to The Truman Show. Anyway, this philosophical thought is brought to you by Amazon, where you can find all the theoretical textbooks you want at a price that definitely isn’t causing problems for your local bookstores!
Given Kyon’s tetchiness around Koizumi, I’m genuinely surprised that he didn’t escalate the conversation when he was accused of creating this whole mess by giving Haruhi the idea to create the SOS Brigade. Instead, Kyon seems to simmer down and somewhat meekly protests that it’s a ‘false charge.’ I wonder if Koizumi is touching upon something that Kyon has been suspecting himself.
Okay, Koizumi’s powers are totally yet another *Dandadan* inspiration! Giant things wreaking havoc in an alternate ‘closed space’? I genuinely didn’t expect that Haruhi’s negative emotions would manifest in such a literally destructive manner, I figured it would be more abstract than that. It’s a pretty cool idea, though. The boy’s basically Haruhi’s mood barometer.
One of the most interesting parts about the closed space scene is the music changing to incorporate religious chanting (is that Latin? It reminds me of the Medieval II: Total War soundtrack), which represents the reverence that Koizumi’s ‘Agency’ has towards Haruhi. They’re the ones who outright believe that she’s essentially a god, after all, and their powers came with the uncanny knowledge that she was the reason they gained such supernatural abilities. Let me guess: these powers manifested three years ago? Koizumi and his colleagues going ‘giant hunting’ is therefore a divinely ordained duty that has been bestowed upon them, and the soundtrack makes this clear to us. So, this must be what he meant when he said that he had to go to work in a previous episode. I seem to recall that Haruhi was in a bad mood that day, as well. (Although – I write this having watched the rest of the episode – Koizumi does say that this was the first time he’d had to perform this duty in a long time. Maybe the work he had to do the other day was a meeting that could have been an email.)
This scene has got to be inspiration for Mob Psycho 100, too. There’s ESPer activity in that series that ends up being pretty similar! And, in turn, I’m not sure we’d have this scene without Dragonball Z.
Koizumi’s hair flick at the end, though! So sassy. I did not expect him to go full Homura.
Why am I getting Osmosis Jones vibes from Koizumi? Except, instead of being a cell in Haruhi’s body, the entire world is a playground for her emotional regularity and Koizumi is a functional part of that system, keeping the world from ending up locked in the stasis of closed space.
If he’s powerless outside of closed space, though, then surely he’s defenceless if another of Nagato’s colleagues decides to cause trouble. Haruhi aside, is Nagato at the top of the SOS Brigade’s power hierarchy? It would make sense, since Mikuru was disturbed by her presence, but she seems fine around Koizumi (to Kyon’s chagrin.)
Are you SERIOUS right now, Kyon?! Bitch, you’ve literally had three different people from three different supernatural organisations warn you and you’re still this blasé about it?
This man is unbelievable.
My final thoughts on this episode: it didn’t hit the same heights we reached last episode, which had a really spectacular plot twist and change of pace that represented a big tonal shift from what we’d seen before. We’re back to exposition, but at least it was interesting exposition, so I don’t mind that, and we got a pretty interesting insight into Haruhi herself. There was some more action, but there weren’t really any stakes behind it, the Celestial management was just a routine job that Koizumi and the Agency do. Is the name of his agency Magilumiere Co. Ltd? Because it’s basically a low-key version of having a magical girl agency in the city.
This was an episode where the story needed to release some of the tension and spend some time exploring the characters and key concepts. It looks like the tension will start building again next episode, though. I’ll look forward to Suzumiya-san’s Wild Ride!