I was pretty bored on Saturday, so I started downloading this show that just finished up on Japanese TV about week or so ago, and my bandwidth just opened up to the heavens! I was getting 190-210kb/sec, and I got the whole 14 episode series in like 4 hours! Yeah, in a few years I'm sure these numbers and times will sound quaint and outdated, but that is some serious speed on my cable modem today.

Anyway, the show was "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya," and it rocked both my and the Rossman's socks off. That's what we spent most of Sunday doing -- watching the whole thing from start to finish... Well, from start to start to finish to finish... See, The Melancholy is a strange strange show, but that's just one more piece of its glorious charm. It's broadcast order is not the correct chronological order, but it is most definitely the right order with which to watch it all in.

See, the first episode is actually a home movie that the cast of characters makes that, chronologically, would actually be around the 10th or 11th episode. Then we get the first two episodes in the right order, then we jump ahead to like 7 or 8, then back to the beginning, then forward to like 9, then back one or two... well, you get the picture.

The timeline is a bit confusing, but it's fun. I honestly do NOT recommend for anyone to watch this in the chrono-order their first time out. You'll miss out on a whole lot of how you're supposed to meet and understand this motley crew. And the main point of this show is the characters. Pretty much all of the humor here is character based, and it is friggin' funny! And I quote the Rossman here -- "This is the most fucking hilarious show I've seen since Fumoffu!... And hell, Fumoffu even had a cameo of sorts in it as well." Well, kind of.

Now to talk characters: Everybody in The Melancholy was brilliant! Haruhi, Kyon, Yuki, Mikuru, and Itsuki... Brilliant! Each was a totally different character, and none of them ever got annoying (very rare in anime nowadays). There's some mystery in this show, but that really takes a back seat to the great adventures that these kids go on. Oooooh, I wish I could tell you more about it, but this is the kind of show that you just want to watch without knowing anything about. Trust me. All I knew was that it had an incredible rating on animenewsnetwork, and that some gals on my message boards were talking it up like it was the second coming of Kimagure Orange Road... Well, it may just be because I just saw it, but I think that The Melancholy actually tops KOR... Yes, I know. That sounds heretical, but the humor is almost constant, the annoying sidekicks are almost nonexistent, the fantasy elements of KOR are tripled, and there's an overlying plot that ties it all together and keeps things from rambling off track. I still love KOR, but The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is just more of what makes KOR great.

The ONLY fault I have with TMoHS is that it's way too short. I think I heard that there were already 8 novels out in Japan, and this series mainly just covered the 1st book with several references to three others... So, Kyoto Animation Studio, GET CRACKIN'! We need more Haruhi!

-Karen