“The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” U.S. premiere and movie review

This past Friday I took a relatively short trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, CA, to attend the U.S. premiere of “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.”

The first part of this post is my description of the actual premiere event itself, and the second part is my review of the movie. Since it’s basically two posts in one, I apologize in advance for the length…

The event:

I attended the premiere with fellow blogger Ultimatemegax. Although the movie was scheduled to begin at 7pm, we arrived at the New People building (which contains the Viz Cinema) at about 5:30pm.

As people began accumulating outside the theater room, one of the Bandai staff came by with a video camera and started filming us. If this video appears as an extra on the movie DVD and I’m in it, that will give me even more incentive to buy it XD

The Bandai folks started letting people into the theater room a little after 6pm. Before entering, each person got to choose a free copy of either volume 1 of the Haruhi novels or the first volume of the manga. They also got a raffle ticket which would be used for the Crunchyroll giveaway later.

Before taking our seats, we each got a free large movie poster autographed by Christina Vee (who plays Haruhi in Bandai’s promotional ASOS Brigade videos).

Rather than autograph the poster, some people, myself included, had her autograph our free novel or manga copy instead. The movie poster is the same size as the other large autographed posters that Bandai has given away at past Anime Expos.

I was actually able to make space for the poster on my walls

Tickets for the premiere showing had sold out earlier that week. The theater, which seats about 140 some people, got completely filled shortly before 7pm.

The premiere actually started around 7:15pm. It began with a brief greeting and performance by Christina Vee. She sang shortened versions of four Haruhi songs – in Japanese, “Bouken Deshou Deshou?” and “Yasashii Boukyaku” (which is the ending song for the movie), and in English, “Super Driver” and “Hare Hare Yukai” (of course she did the dance with this one, as did a few other people in the theater). As she was singing, video footage for each song appeared on the movie screen.

Christina Vee sings “Yasashii Boukyaku”

The movie began after her performance.

Watching anime on a big screen together with a bunch of other fans, whether at a convention, school club, or a theater like this, is a great experience that should be tried at least once. Especially for the premiere of a movie like this, the passionate vibes in the theater were great because you know that only the most serious of Haruhi fans would make the trek all the way out to this single theater to see the movie. Having read all the novels and watched the camera rip, I already knew what was going to happen in the movie, but it was amusing hearing and seeing the reactions of fans who didn’t know, especially when they would laugh at the funny parts, “awww” at the touching parts, and gasp at the exciting parts. As expected, a lot of them made humorous comments throughout, though some were a bit obnoxious. It was completely contrasting to the camera rip I had seen, where no one in the Japanese theater made a sound throughout the entire thing (besides some random coughing or shuffling). Just goes to show the differences between Japanese and American fans.

The subtitle quality for the movie was very good. The subs were by someone who does work on Crunchyroll. The translation was not too literal nor too loose, and the honorifics were left intact. I noticed maybe a couple of errors in the subs, but nothing glaring. Kyoto Animation is known for their attention to background details, so it’s definitely worth it to see a movie like this in the theater to get the full impact. The only interruption was that about a quarter through the movie, the screen suddenly shifted up and down, cropping some of the picture and subtitles. It only lasted for a minute though.

“The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” currently holds the record for the longest animated movie of all, clocking in at 162 minutes. I heard that one of the biggest issues for Japanese fans was not going to the bathroom during the movie, so I made sure to go a short while before it started. Even though I took a few sips of my water during the movie, I was perfectly fine not using the bathroom again until we were ready to leave the theater.

When the movie ended and the credits started to roll, there was a round of enthusiastic applause. However, there’s still a quick scene of animation after the credits, and I wonder if the Bandai staff themselves even knew this because they started setting up for the raffle before it ended (everyone just kinda froze and hushed up when the final scene after the credits came on).

Afterward, they raffled off a number of free Crunchyroll subscriptions (3 or 10 month ones), but since I have a knack for not winning raffles, I didn’t win.

One surprise guest at the premiere was a 2chan user, Takahashi-san, who had seen the movie 99 times in Japan, and the U.S. premiere became his 100th! A few people had heard that he was coming, and the Bandai staff were so impressed, they called him up and gave him a commemorative badge. He quickly became quite the celebrity as fans leaving the theater asked for his autograph on their poster or book. I asked him how he had managed to see the movie so many times in just a few months, and he said he usually sees it once a day or up to six times a day. Perhaps he sees it once or twice on weekdays and then more times on weekends.

Some people were still hanging around the theater, but we left around 10:30pm. All in all, it was an amazing experience that was definitely worth the expense. A once-in-a-lifetime treat for any Haruhi fan.

The movie review:

Before “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” even premiered in the U.S., the camera rip alone brought it up to the #1 rated anime on MAL and the #9 best rated anime on ANN. I won’t blame you if you say I’m a biased Haruhi fan, but this movie deserves all the praise it’s getting.

Volume 4 of the Haruhi novels, which the movie is based on, has proven to be the most popular one. With such a long running time (equivalent to about 6 episodes), the movie is a brilliant adaptation that does an excellent job bringing this novel story to full animated splendor.

The reason “The Disappearance” is the most popular novel is because it’s much more plot-centered than many of the others, and it also unveils major character development for Kyon and Yuki. What happens in this story, to the two of them in particular, will be very important for the stories that occur after. The incredibly written self-realization that Kyon reaches at the movie’s climax, as well as a startling revelation about Yuki’s character, are extreme turning points for the series.

“The Disappearance” is also the most suspenseful and mystery-laden, requiring the viewer to use their knowledge of all the previous Haruhi stories to figure out what’s going on. Another of its good points is that it offers something for everyone – not only do all the characters, major and minor, appear in the story, but it has a balanced mix of humor, drama, mystery, suspense, beauty, cuteness, and sci-fi amidst a complex, intricately woven plot, with none of these elements seeming out of place.

I’d also like to say that the movie would not be as amazing as it is without Kyoto Animation. Their smooth, detail-oriented, high-budget animation is simply a joy to look at. This movie in particular showcases how attentive they are to backgrounds. Not only do they design their background settings to look real, with proper lighting and backgrounds based on actual locations in Japan, but in almost every scene that focuses on certain characters, you can see other characters doing interesting things in the background. Scene transitions will focus on fully animated people or objects not important to the story, emphasizing the realistic atmosphere of the setting. KyoAni is also top class when it comes to conveying character expressions. To me at least, they have a talent for making their characters look very anime-ish in design, but in movement, expressions, etc., they look incredibly realistic. These are great attributes that KyoAni has and is why I love their work.

While the visual aspect of the movie is breathtaking, audio is not too shabby either. I’m not one to notice background music much, but I did notice how fitting it was at certain scenes and how it never seemed obtrusive. The opening song used in the 2006 series, “Bouken Deshou Deshou?,” is used as the movie’s opening, with new animation of course. The ending song, “Yasashii Boukyaku” by Minori Chihara (Yuki’s seiyuu), is a gentle, beautiful song (though no animation is shown with it during the credits). Voice acting is beyond good, with many of the seiyuu bringing out tones and emotions for their character that they never had to use before.

All in all, by anime standards, or really any other, this movie is fantastic. Though you probably have to be a Haruhi fan to love it, I don’t think you have to be one in order to appreciate and enjoy it. Since the movie has a little bit of everything, as long as you don’t dislike the Haruhi series, I can’t imagine not finding anything to like about this movie.

Additional reading:

Anime Diet and iSugoi have posted excellent reviews (much better than mine!) of the movie here and here. Cartoon Leap also has coverage of the premiere and a movie review here and here.