#RISE UP AYAS FANS TODAY IS THE ULTIMATE DAY

[everyday-is-brighter-with-you]

[ID: A small digital fanart of the ship of Matches Malone X Two Face from DC Comics, dubbed TwoMatches.

The comic is named TwoMatches in a deep-red orange color text, with a match that has a split blue and yellow flame with a moustache behind it, like bat-wings. There are simple bouncy swirls in deep red-orange and yellow around the text.

Near this, in the same faintly mild-dark yellow colored patch, there is a bunch of bright yellow swirls. Text on them reads ‘’Happy Birthday Ayas!’’ in deep yellow, orange, and red for the three letters respectively. There is a green heart next to that.

It starts with Two Face spooning Matches some of Two Face’s cookies-n-cream icecream. His face does not show much expression. There is some strawberry icecream smeared near his mouth. Near him is his cookies-n-cream bowl, scattered Oreos, and his mint coin with two ‘’heads’’ on either side, one side crossed out. Matches is beside him and smiles a bit. There is some cookies-n-cream on his nose. In front of him is his strawberry bowl.

They sit on a mildly warm colored bench. There is little of a tangerine tree visible near them. In the background are splotches of green trees with colored fruits and below that is vibrant grass.

Next panel-- Matches flirtatiously says, while flicking the match in his mouth and lighting it up(causing the flame to reflect in his glasses), wiggling his brows, a hand under chin-- ‘’Forget about Spiderman, Superman and Batman-I’ll be Yourman(underlined in wiggly lines).’’ Some of the smoke coming off the match forms a vague heart. The BG is yellow and he is outlined in brighter yellow. 

Last panel placed next to that-- Two Face turns away (there is a red and yellow arrow indicating the action, plus a textbox) blushing red over the face and ears, both hands shaking--one in a fist and the other spread out. He thinks,’’ God hes so stupid I can’t NOT(the ‘not’ is big) kiss him’’. The BG is light blue and he is outlined in lighter blue.

Both their dialog is in a comic-book font. The hard lines are done in deep brown with a thick inky pen. Coloring is done with a soft pencil. The BG and table with icecream, etc, is not lined at all. Overall the art is lightly warm toned. end ID]

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HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY BINCHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!💝💖👉🏼❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️😁🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 @theundeadrobin

GO AND WISH MY FRIEND, THE LIKE 5 PEOPLE WHO INTERACT WITH ME \LH

[ Unedited text: Happy 19th birthday binch! followed by a bunch of exclamation marks and heart emojis, happy emojis, a hand shooting heart emojis. ]

I WAS LISTENING TO SM BOLLYWOOD COLORING THIS AND IT WAS REALLY FUNNY GOD

I AM ENDEARED

DC FOLKS...U GOTTA MAKE MORE TWOMATCHES...!!! 😳

I HOPE YOU LIKE IT...!!! AND I HOPE I GOT THEM RIGHT..??

HAVE A SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS DAY( I CANT BELIEVE I WAS SAYING IT WRONG ALL THESE YEARS

OR ATLEAST! A DAY OF SUITABLE HAPPINESS SUCH AS YOU MIGHT WISH FOR!

***DIALOG&IDEA COURTESY OF @theundeadrobin****

(unedited text says: ****dialog courtesy of theundeadrobin****)

[zachwritesstuff]

Who Killed Suzumiya Haruhi?

It's hard to believe that, back in the early 2000s, the most popular anime were Death Note, Code Geass, and a random quirky show about a schoolgirl. But 11 years ago, a show premiered that seemed to break out beyond it's niche audience inside the slice of life genre, and actually gain a bit of mainstream appeal. It's impact could be debatable, but as a person who lived through it, it was hard not to hear about the phenomenon of Suzumiya Haruhi, thanks in part to it's amazing performances, great use in Key Animation, and of course, it's catchy ending theme, complete with accompanying dance.

With all this hype and popularity, it was pretty much certain that the series would go down as one of the mainstays of Anime worldwide. And yet, in 2018, it's little more than a footnote, at best a forgotten groundwork for things that came after it, at worst, a tarnished collection of broken promises, missed opportunities and terrible decisions.

Strong arguments can and have been made for how it ended up like this. The main culprit, as we will venture into, is the scheduling and release of new episodes. It's a terrible thing that has brought down shows bigger and smaller than it. But to say that it was the only reason for it would be, I believe, an oversimplification of just all that went on from the premiere of Haruhi to now. Hell, if that was the only problem, than there shouldn't have been any issue with the series from a couple years back based on Nagato Yuki. And yet, it ended up as a mostly middling show with very little fanfare throughout.

So what, in the long run, killed this series to the point of near obscurity? Well, let's take a look at some of the suspects...

1. Releases

So let's first talk about the aforementioned elephant in the room: The release of episodes. From the start, the way that they released new episodes for the series was bizarre, but in a fun way. Instead of just doing it normally, they released it in a nonlinear order. And it made an immediate impact too. The first episode, shot in the style of an amateur movie, introduces all of the characters as they are playing other characters, with only hints of the title character Haruhi, who served as the director for this film. From there, we are introduced to her and her quirks, along with the extended cast of oddballs like Mikuru, Yuki and Koizumi.

The first season of Haruhi was, unquestionably, a success. Not only did it bring it fans internationally, it also helped put Kyoto Animation on the map, helping them eventually become one of the major anime production companies in Japan. Though they had some success with shows like Full Metal Panic and Air, Haruhi was the first show that had the success on the level they hadn't experienced before, and influenced all of their shows from then on (not including the Key shows, like Clannad and Kanon, of course).

So that made it even more bizarre that, instead of immediately working on a sequel, there was a three year break between seasons. Other shows take breaks that are that long, and even longer, but what made it so weird is how little information came out between the two. After the release of Lucky Star, which had many references to Haruhi, there was a virtual silence, save for weird clues and ARG-like hints on what might come.

When the second season eventually did come, they did it in their similarly quirky way. Instead of simply airing the new season out of order, like the first season, they instead aired the first season in order, and interspersed the episodes from the second season where they would fit in the first season chronological. A bit irksome, but very much in line with how Haruhi operated up to that point. The first nail in Haruhi's coffin didn't really come until...

2. The Endless Eight

The Endless Eight was a storyline in the novel series that involved Haruhi wanting the summer season to never end, inadvertently causing her and her friends to relive the same eight days over and over again without them knowing. It was a single chapter in the novels, and had a few repeated scenes to highlight the cyclical nature of the eight days. When it came time to adapt them to the anime series, the producers decided to have some fun. Why not take the eight days, and show how repetitive it REALLY was, by making it into eight episodes?

And so they did. For eight weeks, viewers tuned in to see the same episode played time after time, with only the outfits and a couple lines of dialogue different with each episode. The first couple of times, it seemed funny. By the third episode, one would wonder if they were actually doing what we thought they were doing. And after confirmation by the fourth episode, at least personally, myself and friends simply gave up, skipping the rest until the end, when we would finally get the conclusion without the quirkiness.

This sentiment was shared among many fans, and made one thing pretty clear: Though it was in line with the style of the show, fans really didn't want to watch the same episode over and over, especially since it cut a majority of the season out, leaving only six original episode. It also didn't help that the last five episode of the season were a five part miniseries that had it's own problematic scene of the beloved main character drugging her friend.

The second season of Haruhi wasn't fondly remembered, to say the least. Though the first episode of it is considered one of the better episodes of the show, everything that followed was pretty much downhill, with very little rise after the Endless Eight. It also didn't help that there was...

3. Internal Competition

The reairing of Haruhi with the second season started on April 3rd, 2009. The same day, Kyoto Animation premiered another one of it's shows: A fun show about a group of girls starting a band in school called K-On!. Compared to the disappointment of what was going on with Haruhi, the simplicity and overall cute aesthetic of K-On! was a breath of fresh air. It overshadowed it's predecessor and spelled out the next step for Kyoto Animation: A much simpler and straight forward way of releasing their shows, free of quirks and clues.

The reaction from Season 2 of Haruhi also seemed to scare KyoAni from ever making more than two seasons of a show, as they did not do so for the next nine years, only breaking their record in the summer of 2018, making a third season of Free! Eternal Summer.

4. Film, Spin-Offs and Novel Releases

The last hurrah for Haruhi ended up being The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi, the film based on the novel by the same name. Unlike the second season, the film was pretty well received, considered one of the best showings of all of the characters. It, along with the showings of the side adaptions of popular fan series Nyoron Churuya-san and The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, gave the fans some modicum of hope that the series could build it's way out of the hole that Endless Eight dug.

And then another problem arose.

The writer of the original novel series, Nagaru Tanigawa, wrote the novels pretty consistently, starting in 2003. He would release 1-2 novels a year, up until 2007, roughly a year after the first season ended. Not much is really known about the whole situation, as no one has really come out to talk about it. All that is really known is that, after the end of the first season, there was a gap of all Haruhi related content for a few years, until the second season and movie premiered. The next set of novels wouldn't come out until 4 years later, in 2011, before leaving off on an open ending that, to this day, has never been resolved. Tanigawa has not stated that the series has ended, but at least at the time of this writing, there have been no plans for anymore novels.

And that was pretty much the last anyone heard about Haruhi for several years. Little hints and clues would pop up every once in a while, but they ended up being new products and blu-ray releases of the older series. It wasn't until 2015 that another series based on Haruhi was released, this time based on the universe set up in Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi and focusing on the side character Yuki. It was the first time the original cast had been together since the movie back in 2010, which was especially surprising when you consider the fact that the actresses behind Haruhi and Mikuru, Aya Hirano and Yuko Goto respectively, had serious health issues that threatened their careers.

The combination of gaps in productions, memories of the Endless Eight and the constantly changing anime industry spelled out the unfortunate truth for this new show: no one really cared about Haruhi anymore. A series that started as a cultural phenomenon ended with barely a wimper. A truly sad sight.

So now the big question posed by the title: Who Killed Suzumiya Haruhi? Well, looking at all of the evidence, it seems that the ultimate answer is simple: Time. The long gaps and slow followups caused the world to change around it, leaving it behind. Make no mistake, Haruhi was and is great, even today. But you can't fumble too many times without eventually losing the ball all together. It's completely possible that there might be a resurgence of Haruhi in the future, and I would welcome it, just as I welcomed the original show over ten years ago. But for now, we will leave it as a sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, memory of the anime industry, and let it's catchy ending song and dance play it out...