tek's rating:

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
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This film is a spin-off of the TV series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It was released in 2010, but I didn't see it until 2021. (I ordered the movie on what was supposed to be Blu-ray + DVD, but what came was only a Blu-ray, and because of that I finally bought a Blu-ray player. But that was before I actually opened the Blu-ray case, at which point I saw that it did include DVDs, despite not saying so on the cover. Oh well, I'm grateful for the motivation, anyway. And I did watch it on Blu-ray instead of DVD.) I watched it on December 18, because that's an important date in the movie.

It starts on December 16, and the SOS Brigade is planning a Christmas party. Everything is pretty normal, until Kyon wakes up on the 18th and discovers that Haruhi and Koizumi are no longer in his school, and no one's ever heard of them. And neither Mikuru nor Nagato know Kyon. So of course the SOS Brigade doesn't exist. Also, a certain enemy they had defeated in the TV series has returned and was never an enemy at all. There are some other changes, like a bad cold going around, but that's of no consequence. (Though watching this in 2021, seeing people wearing masks couldn't help but pull me out of the film a little to think of Covid-19.) Anyway... Kyon is desperate to figure out how everything has changed, and how to change it back. I don't want to spoil anything about that, but I will say that ultimately he has to make a pretty serious decision, which could completely change his outlook on his life.

Well, it's a pretty good movie, though it does kind of rely on the viewer already being a fan of the series. And that's all I can think to say, except that there's a brief post-credits scene that I don't really know what to make of.


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