Much Ado About Everything

It seems that Haruhi Suzumiya and Ouran High School Host Club are considered the two best anime shows of the spring season, by anime fandom at large. There are polls everywhere trying to determine which one is better.

It’s funny to hear people saying things like “Haruhi Suzumiya is overhyped”. Haruhi overhyped? Uhm, it’s a show that wasn’t even on the radar. The “hype” comes solely from the word of mouth. Which is the best recommendation something can get. The same can be said about Ouran.

Both Haruhi and Ouran are specialty series that don’t appeal to mainstream so it’s hardly a surprise people are divided. For me, personally, Ouran is the one that has less appeal. Haruhi is just so well done. It’s not an amazing show (compared to say Lain or Gundam Seed or FMA), but it shows what can you get when you take a good premise and polish it to greatness by animators, storywriters, choice of music etc. Craftmanship shows in every frame and many little details.

While Ouran… The biggest problem with Ouran is that the lead character (if the girl dressing like a boy is one, that is) is completely flat. We know next to nothing about her/him after 13 episodes. I can’t recall any series of this quality that had a lead so flat. That’s another reason to rate Ouran lower. You might hate Haruhi Suzumiya – and who wouldn’t? – but you can’t deny her presence on screen.
What really sucked big time was School Rumble 2 though. After amazing first season, the utter lack of focus, story and yes even humour in many of the episodes is appaling. The “survival” episode was terrible, never mind having two of them (people say it’s an omage of Battle Royale but I know plenty of anime funs that haven’t seen BR, including me – make a reference if you must but don’t make two freaking long episodes out of it!). Both other shows are way ahead. The ED was pretty nice though.

The show that I consider a gem of the season (not the best show but most surprising) is Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. That anime is freaky. It’s a horror/mystery, and the horror part is mostly psychological – and extremely well done – which makes it quite scary. And the mystery part is, well, as mysterious as any show I’ve seen. The execution, scenario wise and voice acting wise, is perfect.  The rest of it is serviceable though I agree it could use a bigger budget. And all this after only 4 episodes.