A timeline of Haruhi season 2 trolls

Since everybody’s already posted their thoughts about the new Haruhi episode, I thought I’d do something a little different…

Anybody who’s been following the Haruhi Suzumiya fandom since the first anime season aired in April 2006 knows that it’s unlike any other anime fandom, especially when it comes to the endlessly clever ways that it’s been promoted by the anime’s creators Kyoto Animation and Kadokawa. For nearly two years these companies have been teasing fans with web site tricks, magazine articles, and promotional art advocating a second season without giving any solid information or confirmed release date. Even the long-awaited new episode that just aired on May 21st was not 100% confirmed beforehand.

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So now that the new episode has finally aired, and it’s likely that more will air soon enough, let’s take a look back at all the teases and trolls that KyoAni and/or Kadokawa have tormented fans with these past couple of years:

– July 2nd, 2006: The first season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya finishes airing

– July 5th, 2007: The August 2007 issue of NewType magazine reports that information about Haruhi season 2 will be announced on July 7th.

– July 7th, 2007: Asahi Newspaper announces the new season without giving any real details about it. However that same day both haruhi.tv and NewType’s web site released a promotion video featuring an event in “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody.” The black and white, live-action video footage appeared to be taken from surveillance cameras of Haruhi and Kyon sneaking into the school grounds at night. With this it’s believed that the new season will feature the important “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” story that was absent in season one.

– December 18th, 2007: The haruhi.tv site “disappeared” and was replaced with an error message stating that the page could not be found. However, the message also prompted a password to be entered. When “KNSAK” (the initials of the surnames of the SOS Brigade members, except for Kyon who uses the “K” from his nickname) was entered as the password, an xterm interface opened and messages from YUKI.N appeared, which stated that the key to the emergency escape program had been found. If enter was hit again, a promotional page with a picture of Yuki and credits for the new season appeared. All this mimicked events from volume 4 of the novels, “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.” From here it’s believed that the second season will indeed focus on “The Disappearance.”

– May 10th, 2008: The haruhi.tv web site updated its homepage with the image of Yuki from the December error message page together with an updated list of some staff members for the new season. Still no release date or further information is revealed.

– June 10th, 2008: The July 2008 issue of NewType featured a lot of promotional art for the new season. It again features images from “The Disappearance” and it gives the impression that rather than make a sequel to the first season, a brand new Haruhi series is going to be made. No release date or explicate details are revealed yet.

– July 7th, 2008: The haruhi.tv site went down again and was replaced with a 404 error page. The only thing displayed along with the error message was a photo of a tanzaku, and later, a series of still images of the school grounds and scrolling text of a dialogue between Kyon and Haruhi. The dialog is the conversation that Kyon and Haruhi had when Kyon had traveled back in time during the “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” story. The site was restored the following day.

– January 2009: NewType reports that its March 2009 issue will have “big news” regarding Haruhi.

– January 23rd, 2009: The haruhi.tv site announces the release date of parody series Suzumiya Haruhi-chan no Yuuutsu and Nyoroun Churuya-san, but still no release date for the second season of the real series.

– February 2nd, 2009: A commercial for the March 2009 issue of NewType states that the true relaunch of the Haruhi TV series will begin in April. At first fans believed that this news referred to the airing of the second season but it actually referred to a rebroadcast of the first series from 2006.

– February 13th, 2009: Haruhi-chan and Churuya-san begin streaming on Kadokawa’s Youtube channel.

– April 2nd, 2009: The rebroadcast of the first Haruhi series begins to air. However, this rebroadcast started with the chronological first episode instead of episode 00 (chronologically episode 11) like the original airing did. The rebroadcast episodes continue to air chronologically.

– April 3rd, 2009: A few of the TV stations participating in the rebroadcast confirmed that it will have 28 episodes even though the original series only had 14. Fans begin to speculate whether a new 14 episodes will air after the original 14 rebroadcast, chronologically within the rebroadcast, or whether the rebroadcast will simply air the original series twice (since 14 twice is 28).

– April 15th, 2009: Magazine promotional art (NewType, I think) featuring images from “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” are released.

– May 8th, 2009: Haruhi-chan and Churuya-san finish airing.

– May 17th/18th, 2009: TV Wakayama, one of the stations airing the rebroadcast, has “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” listed as the 8th episode in the rebroadcast even though it was not in the original 2006 airing. It was later revealed that TV Wakayama was not supposed to release the episode title yet and thus it was removed from the schedule. However, the digital programming guide syoboi lists the 8th episode as “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody”.

– May 21st, 2009: Even though it was still not completely confirmed, the new episode “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” does indeed air as the 8th episode in the rebroadcast, thus keeping the story in chronological order. I think this pretty much sums up how many of us Haruhiists felt at that time ^^

*Thanks to moetron and ANN for the images and info.*

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Wow…so that was quite a journey just to get new episodes of an already immensely popular show! XD I think it’s pretty safe to say that no anime, or even TV show, has ever had the kind of promotion and fandom that Haruhi has. I can see the kind of trolls I’ve described above as being both helpful and harmful to the fandom. It’s helpful in the sense that it keeps fans talking about the series and makes them even more ecstatic once the new episodes are finally released. And some fans are actually amused by these trolls and admire how clever they are; they add an obvious sense of uniqueness and commitment to the Haruhi franchise that can’t be found anywhere else. But they can also be harmful by clearly upsetting fans who want solid confirmation of when new episodes will air and who are not interested in playing these mind games with the creators. I know these teases have succeeded in angering and alienating a number of fans who finally declared that they just don’t care anymore. However, since we are fans whether we like it or not, I’m sure that both the amused and the angry fans won’t be able to resist watching the new Haruhi episodes, and I’m sure that KyoAni and Kadokawa were aware of this from the start XD

As for my opinion about the new episode, as I’ve discussed above, it was quite a long trip getting to it and many times I was also upset with all the trolls. But, knowing how much of a Haruhi fan I am, I knew I would never stop caring about the second season so I just forced myself to be patient. As for the “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” episode itself, I loved it and thought it was an excellent rendition of this very important story from volume 3 of the novels. It was so great seeing my beloved SOS Brigade members again ^^ At first I thought the new character designs might take some getting used to but they really don’t stand out that much. The new ending was a nice surprise too but it can never replace the phenomena of Hare Hare Yukai. There seems to be some disagreement of whether this rebroadcast should be called “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 2,” counting each new episode as a new season 2 episode (so “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” would be episode 1) or simply calling it “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2009)”.

If the new episodes continue to air in chronological order within the rebroadcast, the next up would be “Endless Eight” on June 18th. Rumor has it that this second season will end with “Charmed at First Sight Lover” as episode 28. Even though I’ve already read translations of all the novels, I’m still excited about seeing animated versions of the awesome Haruhi stories yet to come! ^_^

UPDATE 05/24/09: My friend pkjd over at moetron recently came across this schedule on 2chan of how the rest of the rebroadcast will possibly air. There’s been many schedules floating around and this one too is not officially confirmed, but of all the ones I’ve seen, it makes the most sense.

04/02 第01話 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱１ (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part I)
04/09 第02話 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱２ (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part II)
04/16 第03話 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱３ (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part III)
04/23 第04話 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱４ (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part IV)
04/30 第05話 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱５ (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part V)
05/07 第06話 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱６ (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part VI)
05/14 第07話 涼宮ハルヒの退屈 (The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya)
05/21 第08話 笹の葉ラプソディ (Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody)
05/28 第09話 ミステリックサイン (Mystérique Sign)
06/04 第10話 孤島症候群（前編）(Remote Island Syndrome Part 1)
06/11 第11話 孤島症候群（後編） (Remote Island Syndrome Part 2)
06/18 第12話 エンドレスエイト (Endless Eight)
06/25 第13話 涼宮ハルヒの溜息１ (The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya part I)
07/02 第14話 涼宮ハルヒの溜息２ (The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya part II)
07/09 第15話 涼宮ハルヒの溜息３ (The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya part III)　
07/16 第16話 朝比奈ミクルの冒険 Episode00　(The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00)
07/23 第17話 ライブアライブ (Live A Live)
07/30 第18話 射手座の日 (The Day of Sagittarius)
08/07 第19話 サムデイ イン ザ レイン (Someday in the Rain)
08/14 第20話 涼宮ハルヒの消失１ (The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Part I)
08/21 第21話 涼宮ハルヒの消失２ (The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Part II)
08/28 第22話 涼宮ハルヒの消失３ (The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Part III)
09/03 第23話 涼宮ハルヒの消失４ (The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Part IV)
09/10 第24話 ヒトメボレLOVER　(Charmed at First Sight Lover)
09/17 第25話 雪山症候群(前編) (Snowy Mountain Syndrome Part 1)
09/24 第26話 雪山症候群(後編) (Snowy Mountain Syndrome Part 2)
10/01 第27話 猫はどこにいった? (Where did the Cat Go?)
10/08 第28話 消失の後日 (Another Day of the Disappearance) *this refers to the prologue of volume 7, The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya. It was not given a title in the novels but it wraps up The Disappearance storyline