Review: THE MELANCHOLY OF SUZUMIYA HARUHI-CHAN

 With yet another summer blockbuster season underway that's stuffed to the gills with sequels, it's high time this blog does the same by looking at some of the many manga sequels, prequels, and spinoffs out there.  The most common spinoff manga idea is 'gag manga,' but unfortunately that doesn't mean that the gags will be any good.

THE MELANCHOLY OF SUZUMIYA HARUHI-CHAN (Suzumiya Haruhi-chan no Yuutsu), based on the light novel series by Nagaru Tanigawa and character designs by Noizi Ito, with story and art by Puyo.  First published in 2008 and first published in North America in 2010.

PLOT:

This is the story of all the wacky goings-on before, during, and after the events of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  That includes how far Yuki's fondness for dating games goes, Haruhi's weird ideas about holidays, Mikuru's endless gullibility, and the tiny copy of Ryuoko that's forced to live in Yuki's apartment.

 STORY:

God help you if you stumble across this now, long after the heyday of Haruhi-mania.  Like a lot of gag manga, this one presumes you are already familiar with the source material (be it the novels or the anime).  As such, it provides no explanation beyond the odd blurb on the sidelines.  It flat out refuses to give you any context as to when anything is happening in regards to the original's timeline (which is admittedly pretty flexible to begin with).  Without any context, this series is going to feel like randomness for randomness's sake, an artifact of the "lol so random" internet humor of the late 2000s.

From my understanding, much of the appeal of Haruhi Suzumiya is supposed to come from the characters and their interactions.  You'd think more of the jokes would stem from their personalities, but instead it's just Yuki being stonefaced while playing porn games, Haruhi beating up on Kyon, and Mikuru being dumb and getting molested, all delivered in the most obnoxious tone possible.  The only gag that did work were the ones with Ryuoko getting treated like a baby, if simply because the situation was so absurd and didn't require familiarity with the source material for the joke to land.  It's also one of the few gags they keep coming back to and building upon.  One running gag isn't enough to save this series from feeling like a cash-grab for an eager yet short-lived audience.

ART:

This isn't my first time seeing Puyo's take on the characters from Haruhi Suzumiya, considering that they also made The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan manga I reviewed a while back.  Puyo's art here changes depending on whether you're looking at the full chapters or the 4-komas.  The full chapters look very much like Nagato Yuki-chan: plain flat faces, slightly bobbleheaded, a lot of big facial expressions, and a lot of difficulty visually distinguishing Kyon and Itsuki.  The 4-komas go full super-deformed, with lots of spindly-limbed chibis, big goofy expressions, and...well, it's still pretty hard to distinguish Kyon and Itsuki, save for the fact that it's usually Kyon who's getting hit until he's knocked out.

RATING:

Maybe you just had to be there to get The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan.  You absolutely have to be a fan of the franchise to get most of the jokes, and even then the humor might be too random and dated to land with modern audiences.  Mostly it just stands as a curious artifact of an increasingly forgotten time.

This series was published by Yen Press.  This series is complete in Japan with 12 volumes available.  All 12 were published and are currently in print.