The Endless eight 15,532-time loop in Haruhi Suzumiya was painful

This year has not been great but luckily for anime viewers like myself, we can time travel to any year we want. So I decided to fire up my microwave time machine and head to 2006.�

Kyoto Ani’s masterpiece

When I got to 2006 I found the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya…. and friends of course . This anime had much acclaim when it came out in the late 2000s and thanks to the brilliant animation standards of kyoto animation, it still looks better than most modern anime in this current decade. While we are here speaking about the art I would like to note one very interesting thing about the art style. The anime has two distinct and separate character designs. The teenage girls in this anime are animated in the style of mid 90s magical girls with disproportionately large sparkly eyes. The main character and other males are animated in a more modern realistic style. The character designs are interesting because they theoretically relate to the story concept for this anime. Ill get back to this in a bit

Yes let me talk about the story concept because this is one of the most interesting ones ive ever come across. Gather round everyone and meet GOD. This girl is quite literally GOD of this universe. Anything she ponders on significantly becomes reality. She wished for a world with Espers, time travellers and Aliens and it was made so. Haruhi has the ability to create and destroy the universe at will, the only catch is that she is completely unaware of her ability to do so. This becomes even more dangerous when one comes to understand the character of Haruhi herself, she is easily bored and wishes for the most ludacris things at times just for entertainment. Going back to my earlier point about character design, it would not be unreasonable to say that the girls have the 90s magical girl character design simply because Haruhi desired it and thought it would be more interesting than something more normal. Yea, its getting real meta, welcome to the rabbit hole. 

This idea illustrates the strength of this story concept, it is so flexible that it allows the anime’s content to push into any Genre and present our characters with a myriad of different situations for story telling. Haruhi’s combination of eccentric and morally bankrupt personality combined with her GOD powers make her the ultimate plot device. The characters around her are distinct too with their own ideas and development. The story concept of GOD Suzumiya also works well because of how well the setting is presented to the viewer. The anime itself goes to great lengths to make sure the viewer understands the rules of Haruhi’s universe; they do this through philosophy and dialogue. In episode 5 they reference the anthropic principle.

This is from wikipedia. scientific observation of the universe would not even be possible if the laws of the universe had been incompatible with the development of sentient life. Proponents of the anthropic principle argue that it explains why this universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life, since if either had been different, we would not be around to make observations in the first place. Anthropic reasoning is often used to deal with the fact that the universe seems to be fine tuned. 

So basically we observe the world the way it is, merely because it already is that way. Therefore if some omnipotent entity was making changes to the core principles of the world we would observe it in the new way because it is that way. Confused yet? Me too. But basically we have no way of knowing how many changes Haruhi made to the universe and once she had made a change, all the inhabitants save her close contact circle would accept it as if it has always been so. Haruhi the anime gives itself a strong foundation to build the world on. It does avoid entering into too much details because that isn’t what the plot is about, this is just a story concept to use as a platform for the story telling. It’s not perfect but i do appreciate that they at least attempted to address this early on in the show run. 

Haruhi made the anime herself

Just as Haruhi the character plays fast and loose with the rules of the universe; the anime itself follows the same principles in its directing style and even in the release approach. Haruhi Suzumiya has 4 different watch orders. The initial airing in 2006 saw the episodes being aired in non chronological order. Haruhi episodes have up to 4 different episode numbers based on which airing we are considering. This is not the only confusion the production staff put towards the viewers either. 

I’m of course talking about the endless eight. The endless eight is the story arc that is most synonymous with the Haruhi Suzumiya anime. And I couldn’t possibly talk about it without bringing up this arc.

Spoilers for Haruhi season 1 and 2 as well as the anime film The disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya beyond this point.

The endless 8 – more like The Endless eight 15,532

.The director Tatsuya Ishihara makes an intentional effort to piss off all the fans who were peacefully enjoying their anime experience. I’ve seen time loops in anime before but by far this was the worst one. Other anime time loops usually focus on different aspects of the loops until the main characters become cognisant of what’s occurring and escape the loop, so even though it shows us the same period of time; the content varies like what we see in Re zero or steins gate. In Haruhi, the anime shows us the exact same content in each loop with the changes being so minimal that it feels like you’re watching the exact same thing again and again. We end up watching the same episode of anime for about 4 hours. Its even more annoying because when the characters do become aware of the loop, that doesn’t stop it from occurring, that sequence where they become aware is just added to the loop. Even the dialogue and kyon’s introspection is exactly the same. In Fact the changes are so limited i can tell you in a few seconds. The clothes they wear in each scenario is different, the children Haruhi interacts with at the public pool are different and  some of the camera angles and character position, Yuuki’s mask  changes in each loop as well as a few other very minor adjustments.Re zero tells its entire narrative from time loops but every single episode is different because Subaru is constantly aware of the time loop and therefore approaches the timeline at different angles allowing for good entertainment to the viewers. Haruhi, the anime took a lot of flack for the endless eight arc. Some of the reviews were harsh. I was a bit hesitant to put it down because of how good everything had been to that point. I found it hard to believe that  Ishihara had made a mistake.

I know for a fact that these 8 episodes of the same thing were not included as a cost saving mechanism because Kyoto animation reanimated the same thing in glorious fashion. Different camera angles, clothes and character positions ensured that nothing could be reused.

The disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya – The Endless eight 15,532

 I watched the anime film, the disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and then everything became clear. I understood why Tanigawa did what he did. So while us viewers suffered through the 4 hours of the same episode there was one other person suffering too. A being that haruhi created that transcends time and space. The alien Yuki Nagato. Yuki is able to remember every single time loop, which according to her number is 15,532 reptitions. Now the loop is August 17 to 31. That is 14 days each loop. That’s a lot of time, for simplicity however, i will consider each loop as an episode. This is a fact that I believe Ishihara intentionally setup, since every single one of the 8 loops we endured were confined to 1 episode.  So thats 15,532 * the half hour slot for a regularly aired episode of anime. That’s 465,960 minutes, converting to hours that are 7766 hours or 323 days. In anime terms she spent close to a year watching the same episode of the endless eight with no breaks in between. More like the endless 15,532. at least you had the option of watching something else in between the mere eight episodes. So can you imagine the suffering Yuki endured. This is the primary idea I believe Ishihara wants the viewer to take away from the endless eight. This is done for the viewer to develop a strong understanding of Yuki Nagato’s motivation in the anime film. The ark executes this so well in fact that people were genuinely upset. The idea then is for you to imagine how Yuki must feel if you’re as upset as you are. The understanding for Yuki; at least for me transcends the confines of the anime itself. The Endless eight 15,532 is ridiculous

In the film,The disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, Yuki steals Haruhi’s GOD powers and uses them to turn the world into a normal one. Where Haruhi’s madness does not impact the environment and Yuki herself is a regular girl with a less cold personality. It is a world created in Yuki’s image instead of the crazy machinations of Haruhi. We the viewers who sat through a fraction of what Yuki did in the endless eight can fully understand her motivations. She was tired of Haruhi’s world and wanted a normal one. So she took action. This understanding also allows the viewer to better connect with the decision Kyon has to make when it is placed before him. Kyon has to choose whether to leave the world as Yuuki made it or return it to Haruhi’s world. I genuinely found myself desiring Yuki’s world to be left as is. Kyon chose differently. 

There is some hope however because 5 years later , studio satelight released The disappearance of Yuki Nagato. This is a 17 episode spinoff story which occurs in Yuki’s created universe. It basically tells the story of what would have happened if Haruhi’s world was not restored. To me this entire anime feels like an apology to the fans upset by the endless eight and the disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. The anime is pretty much fanservice, there are many jokes in here referencing the original seasons such as Kyon becoming uncomfortable when asakura has a cooking knife in hand.Or the fact that Asakura is super strong and has sufficient strength to pickup yuki and kyon with one hand. Yuki also has the same super calculator powers with math problems as her alien counterpart. the inhabitants of yuki’s world don’t appear to notice these minor quirks however.  It’s important to note the character designs by studio satelite are far more normal in this production for all the characters. This is inline with my earlier sentiment about Haruhi’s universe. This is a normal romantic comedy with normal animation. This anime then allows the viewer to confirm whether or not Kyon made the correct decision in the 2010 film. We get to experience both Yuki’s world and Haruhi’s world. Honestly the disappearance of Yuki Nagato deserves it’s own video which i plan to make if this one gets enough likes. One more thing on this, can you believe that these people really put a summer episode from August 17 to 31 in this spinoff anime. It didn’t loop but that was one last middle finger to the fans. So 5 years later and we got a 9th episode of endless eight.�

There is some hope however because 5 years later , studio satelight released The disappearance of Yuki Nagato. This is a 17 episode spinoff story which occurs in Yuki’s created universe. It basically tells the story of what would have happened if Haruhi’s world was not restored. To me this entire anime feels like an apology to the fans upset by the endless eight and the disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. The anime is pretty much fanservice, there are many jokes in here referencing the original seasons such as Kyon becoming uncomfortable when asakura has a cooking knife in hand.Or the fact that Asakura is super strong and has sufficient strength to pickup yuki and kyon with one hand. Yuki also has the same super calculator powers with math problems as her alien counterpart. the inhabitants of yuki’s world don’t appear to notice these minor quirks however.  It’s important to note the character designs by studio satelite are far more normal in this production for all the characters. This is inline with my earlier sentiment about Haruhi’s universe. This is a normal romantic comedy with normal animation. This anime then allows the viewer to confirm whether or not Kyon made the correct decision in the 2010 film. We get to experience both Yuki’s world and Haruhi’s world. Honestly the disappearance of Yuki Nagato deserves it’s own video which i plan to make if this one gets enough likes. One more thing on this, can you believe that these people really put a summer episode from August 17 to 31 in this spinoff anime. It didn’t loop but that was one last middle finger to the fans. So 5 years later and we got a 9th episode of endless eight.�

There is some hope however because 5 years later , studio satelight released The disappearance of Yuki Nagato. This is a 17 episode spinoff story which occurs in Yuki’s created universe. It basically tells the story of what would have happened if Haruhi’s world was not restored. To me this entire anime feels like an apology to the fans upset by the endless eight and the disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. The anime is pretty much fanservice, there are many jokes in here referencing the original seasons such as Kyon becoming uncomfortable when asakura has a cooking knife in hand.Or the fact that Asakura is super strong and has sufficient strength to pickup yuki and kyon with one hand. Yuki also has the same super calculator powers with math problems as her alien counterpart. the inhabitants of yuki’s world don’t appear to notice these minor quirks however.  It’s important to note the character designs by studio satelite are far more normal in this production for all the characters. This is inline with my earlier sentiment about Haruhi’s universe. This is a normal romantic comedy with normal animation. This anime then allows the viewer to confirm whether or not Kyon made the correct decision in the 2010 film. We get to experience both Yuki’s world and Haruhi’s world. Honestly the disappearance of Yuki Nagato deserves it’s own video which i plan to make if this one gets enough likes. One more thing on this, can you believe that these people really put a summer episode from August 17 to 31 in this spinoff anime. It didn’t loop but that was one last middle finger to the fans. So 5 years later and we got a 9th episode of endless eight.�

The Endless 9

There is some hope however because 5 years later , studio satelight released The disappearance of Yuki Nagato. This is a 17 episode spinoff story which occurs in Yuki’s created universe. It basically tells the story of what would have happened if Haruhi’s world was not restored. To me this entire anime feels like an apology to the fans upset by the endless eight and the disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. The anime is pretty much fanservice, there are many jokes in here referencing the original seasons such as Kyon becoming uncomfortable when asakura has a cooking knife in hand.Or the fact that Asakura is super strong and has sufficient strength to pickup yuki and kyon with one hand. Yuki also has the same super calculator powers with math problems as her alien counterpart. the inhabitants of yuki’s world don’t appear to notice these minor quirks however.  It’s important to note the character designs by studio satelite are far more normal in this production for all the characters. This is inline with my earlier sentiment about Haruhi’s universe. This is a normal romantic comedy with normal animation. This anime then allows the viewer to confirm whether or not Kyon made the correct decision in the 2010 film. We get to experience both Yuki’s world and Haruhi’s world. Honestly the disappearance of Yuki Nagato deserves it’s own video which i plan to make if this one gets enough likes. One more thing on this, can you believe that these people really put a summer episode from August 17 to 31 in this spinoff anime. It didn’t loop but that was one last middle finger to the fans. So 5 years later and we got a 9th episode of endless eight. this brings the The Endless eight 15,532-time loop to 15533.

The light novels for Haruhi are coming to an end this year, the writer Tanigawa announced as much. With this I hope to one day get a continued adaptation. One thing I want to make absolutely clear is that this anime is weird, its character design, its story concept, its release strategy, its characters and the complex meta around the universe. It is strange by any story’s standard, and I genuinely feel like that’s how anime should be, weird. I loved the experience of diving into this and becoming a fan.