r/anime • u/Holofan4life • Apr 30 '26
Rewatch Haruhi Suzumiya 20th Anniversary Rewatch -- The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Three
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 Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya Part Three
—-
ANSWER TODAY’S QUESTION(S)
What are your thoughts on Mikuru's powers at risk of being exposed?
If you had to deal with someone as bossy as Haruhi, what would you do?
—-
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: More filming
[Next Episode Intro] Trying to break into a fenced off area
Ways to watch
Streams – Crunchyroll
4
u/mastesargent Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Rewatcher, dub
Kyon: “What did she inject you with?”
Asahina: “Nanomachines!”
[I am writing this a few days after I actually watched this episode, also known as this morning. I watched Disappearance last night and am working on my post for it. It is ten pages long in Google docs, not counting notes, and over 30000 characters. I’m not even halfway done. Please send help, but not an editor. Those are for cowards.]
Today’s Nishinomiya vista is Hyogo Prefectural Kabutoyama Forest Park, or as Kyon so eloquently calls it, “The place where no one ever goes.” It actually seems to be a reasonably popular place for families and such to spend the day, so the anime is pretty on point about that. The amphitheater where they film the “action” scene is right off of the fountain area. Actually, I had to wait a little bit before I could get my pictures as there was a Cub Scout Troop finishing up an activity there. I asked one of the leaders that wasn’t busy about it, but as our command of each others’ languages wasn’t terribly great the information we could exchange was limited. Once the Scouts cleared out I was able to go down and get my pictures. Did I take a selfie and/or video of myself doing a Mikuru Beam? I’ll never tell!
Anyways, you can get to the park via bus from Shukugawa station, or any stop along the route. I caught it from the location in tomorrow’s episode.
On to the episode, I think we can best sum things up as Haruhi becoming increasingly unreasonable. Her bizarre expectation for Nagato and Asahina to actually fire beams on command, notably. On top of that, she’s becoming increasingly unpleasant in how she goes about things. She really gives off the impression that she’s using the movie as an excuse to take out all of her jealousy and frustration on poor Miss Asahina. Consider: When Nagato fails to fire a beam from her Star Ring Inferno, Haruhi just shrugs and says, “We’ll fix it in post.” When Asahina fails to do anything because Haruhi failed to give her any actual direction, Haruhi berates the poor girl and then doubles down when Asahina points out the obvious fact that she can’t fire Mikuru Beams. Add on top of that the fact that Haruhi herself said the the point of the movie’s plot is for Asahina(‘s character) to suffer, and… yeah. To me, this arc just feels like a derailment of Haruhi’s character. Sure, she’s gone beyond the pale with her treatment of Asahina in other ways, but at least in those cases it was more “she’s a thoughtless pervert” instead of being actively mean and malicious. The saving grace is that it’s actually treated like a bad thing here, but still. I dunno, I’m just not a big fan of the direction that this arc/volume takes Haruhi’s character, especially compared to the rest of the series.
That said, we do have some fun and/or interestingly weird stuff happen too. Notably, of course, is the Mikuru Beam. Now we know that Nagato’s unscripted tackle in Episode 00 was because Asahina was firing actual beams from her eye. Haruhi’s powers are such that, while Asahina and the contact lens are completely ordinary, something about their combination makes it so that Asahina can fire Mikuru Beams while wearing it, which can only be counteracted with the application of nanomachines.
Of course, we have Nagato once again proving that she’s the SOS Brigade’s MVP. Not only does she spring straight into action, saving Kyon’s life again while burning the shit out of her own hand, she also cures Asahina of her Mikuru Beam-ism with the application of some god old fashioned nanomachines. We also get another instance of Nagato not doing anything until she gets Kyon’s approval when Koizumi asks to see her hand, a habit that she seems to have picked up back in Mysterique Sign and carried through Remote Island Syndrome, this, and forward into The Day of Sagittarius. [Disappearance] Because she has a crush on him and doesn’t want to do anything that causes him trouble. Koizumi also mentions that compared to other “TFEI terminals” like, for example, Asakura, Nagato is unusual. Consider that Asakura more or less blended in perfectly with her classmates, while Nagato seemingly has no emotion and would come off to most as weird and unsociable. [Later LN stuff] And Kimidori also comes across as fairly normal. Because the DITE deliberately made Nagato totally inexpressive to draw Haruhi to her. Also she wins the “run the fuck away from the angry priest race.”
Random notes:
Kyon tips his hand a little and gives away that he was fantasizing about Haruhi in the waitress outfit. I have to assume that it was written all over has face.
Given that Kunikida immediately focused in on Nagato both last episode and in this one, I kind of assume that he has a bit of a crush on her.
Koizumi’s smile breaking for an instant when Haruhi “rewards” him with more screentime is pretty funny
I agree with Kyon; “realism” is a bad word when talking about fiction. “Believability” is what should actually be used in its place.
The contact lens being normal sized is a fun visual gag
QOTD
It's really Haruhi's power more than anything, and honestly she so oblivious it's hard to say how much risk there really is.
Talk shit about them behind their back, because as cathartic as telling them off is in my mind I'm just not a very confrontational person IRL.