Channel: In Japan, Chiba TV; outside Japan, DVD only
Storyline: 8
Suspense: 6
Humor: 9
Originality: 9
Overall: 8
Rated: PG-13 (in USA), 12 (in UK)
Comments: It's the age-old story... boy meets girl; girl creates club for tracking down aliens, time-travellers & espers; girl hijacks other club's room and three more members; other three members reveal to boy that they're an alien, a time-traveler and an esper, all sent to monitor girl because she's essentially God; boy, alien, time-traveller and esper all concentrate on keeping girl occupied enough that she doesn't overwrite the universe out of boredom, while stopping her from discovering her powers or their real identities.
Originally based on a series of books by Nagaru Tanigawa, the series covers the plot (and takes the name) of the first book, plus a few independent chapters from later books.
If you're after long epic story lines, this one might not be for you... the main story arc only lasts six episodes, and the other eight basically consist of stand-alone stories following on from it. (In the original Japanese broadcasts the "epilogue" episodes were mixed in between the "story" episodes, which makes either less or more sense depending on how you look at it...)
Most of the comedy in the series comes from the way Haruhi treats those around her (she occasionally seems to forget that other people, particularly Mikuru, have feelings or free will), or through references to other series (such as two of Itsuki's psychic attacks being named Fumoffu and Second Raid, after the second and third series of Full Metal Panic) and fiction in general, or just through general weirdness (such as Yuki reprogramming a baseball bat so that it always hits home runs) The voice acting's not too bad, although Mikuru's a little high-pitched compared to everyone else, so her voice takes a little getting used to.


The main group (the "SOS Brigade" - SOS apparently stands for "Spreading Excitement all Over the world with Haruhi Suzumiya", and the original Japanese acronym doesn't make much sense either) consists of:

• Haruhi Suzumiya (Brigade leader/"Ultra Director"/whichever title she feels like at the time), who possesses a short attention span, a bad temper, a fondness for tropes and cliches (she recruited Yuki, Mikuru and Itsuki primarily to fill the "creepy silent character", "sex-appeal mascot girl" and "mysterious transfer student" character slots), a fascination with pretty much anything remotely supernatural - oh, and the subconscious ability to rewrite reality at will. The rest of the SOS spends much of their time trying to keep her busy, since if she ever got too bored she'd probably erase the universe and replace it with a more interesting one - it's implied that she's already done this at least once.
• "Kyon" (his real name's never revealed), the sarcastic narrator of the show, who accidentally inspired Haruhi to create the club and got dragged into setting it up for her - the other three are quite curious about why he's involved with Haruhi, since he's the only member who's a normal human. Usually designated as the "Chore Boy" by Haruhi.
• Yuki Nagato, an "artificial humanoid interface" created by an alien intelligence known as the Integrated Thought Entity to monitor Haruhi, after an incident that occurred three years before the start of the series. Previously the sole member of the school's book club, she got dragged into the SOS when Haruhi hijacked their club room. Able to manipulate the data making up the world around her, effectively giving her a limited version of Haruhi's powers.
• Mikuru Asahina, a time-traveller sent to investigate Haruhi after she caused a time-rift three years before the start of the series, making time-travel to before that point impossible. Haruhi conscripts her into the SOS as a sort of sex-appeal "mascot" character, and from then on treats her as a cross between a housemaid and a Barbie doll.
• Itsuki Koizumi, an esper sent by a group referred to as "the Agency" to keep an eye on Haruhi, as she was apparently the cause of the espers suddenly gaining their powers - yep, three years before the series started. Transferred into the school a while after the start of the school year, probably in a deliberate (and successful) attempt to catch Haruhi's interest and get recruited into the SOS. Always appears cheerful and is usually the first to agree to Haruhi's schemes, much to Kyon's annoyance.