December 31 (5M^_^: TJI)

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by NAHTMMM

Don't know the series in question, but I'm guessing this is a dig at it.

Oh-ho yes. See, the fifth Haruhi light novel has a "Cause and Effect"-type story in it, with two major differences: the number of repetitions is absurdly large although we only see one (our resident AI lifeform Yuki Nagato counts 15,498 iterations), and the solution is really lame.

Now, Kyoto Animation scored the biggest anime hit of the decade with Haruhi's first season, based on the best-selling light novel series. Nothing about Haruhi is unprecedented in anime or sci-fi, but it seems to have come along at just the right moment to get mass appeal. KyoAni played it to the hilt with viral marketing and gimmicks (such as the alluded-to "anachronic" airing order).

That was in '06; since then, the fans have been increasingly desperate for more. And for whatever reason, KyoAni has taken the opportunity to mess with them. First there were a couple of fake-outs about when the second season would start. When it finally did, it was in the middle of a repeat airing of season one. And then... then they really got nasty. They adapted "Endless Eight", the story I just mentioned... eight times. The characters first find out they're in a time loop in the second one, but it still takes them six more to find a solution (meaning they have to find out about the loop six more times, too).

The animation was almost all new each time, so KyoAni wasn't doing this to slack off. Clearly they just really felt like screwing with the audience. Understand, there was no indication of how many times the loop would repeat. Some viewers were pleasantly surprised when the first "Endless Eight" episode ended without the loop being discovered, and figured we'd get one more, maybe two. Nobody expected, when that first one aired, that the whole thing would go on for eight weeks.

I hope KyoAni enjoyed the stunt, because they burned every bit of their credit on it. They must have thought the gimmicks were what made season one great, when in fact a lot of us just put up with that part. They're now back to square one where most anime fans are concerned. Their next Haruhi project will be viewed with great skepticism.