Subjectivity and Perspective, Truth and Lies - The Power of Observation. A Quick Review on the Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya

This one caught me by surprise. So a little context, before I started to read this Light Novel series I watched the anime. So as of reading this Novel I have knowledge of up to disappearance.

Now when I watched this Arc, it didn’t stand out to me all that much, I definitely enjoyed it don’t get me wrong but from a writing perspective it was a lot more laid back compared to Melancholy so my expectations were a lot lower when compared to reading Melancholy…. And then I read it. Wow.

This Volume really shocked me. One thing I’m beginning to see is that Tanigawa is a very talented Author who continues to blow me away. The way he’s able to keep a balance of fun slice of life whilst incorporating intriguing philosophy is just so captivating.

•Is Haruhi affecting the world or is the world affecting Haruhi?
•Is the World as one person perceives or is it how the majority perceive it?
•Is there an objective Truth and does the truth really matter at all?
•In a world seemingly full of the “supernatural”what exactly becomes “natural?”
• Does Kyon even see the world for what it truly is?

And all of this is tackled in an Arc about the S.O.S Brigade creating a Movie for a Culture Festival.

The Movie motif is perfect for when tackling perspective. Haruhi as the Director played into her core characterisation whilst simultaneously exploring the main theme of perspective. To Koizumi, she’s a God who possesses the power to create anything she wishes for and that this world was created by her, represented in this volume by her being the director for the movie. However, Asahina has her own Viewpoint on Haruhi and the World, suggesting that the World actually wasn’t created by Haruhi, but by a different creator. This can be interpreted as Kyon, as at the end of the Novel, we see him be given the duty of editing the movie together, adding CG, Voiceovers and placing all the clips together to make one coherent movie. So who’s viewpoint is right? Koizumi’s? Asahina’s? Nagato’s? None of them?

The seeds of distrust are also planted in this volume, with each of the brigade members telling Kyon to not trust the other’s, with Nagato telling Kyon to not even trust her. Why? Because no one knows what the real truth is.

What I Love about Tanigawa is how much he leaves to interpretation, creating mystery that gets added to with future instalments keeping us guessing. He also doesn’t spell things out for the audience, which is something I appreciate. Like in this volume for example, A volume about perspective and observation, Schrodinger’s Cat is relevant, and yet even with all of Koizumi’s Dialogue, not once is it outright stated that Schrodinger’s Cat is a theme to the audience, instead he drops subtle hints such as there being two different versions of Hamlet & Kyon adopting a Cat. Nothing Extreme but these techniques are what shows an authors quality. He could have very easily just given Koizumi some more expositional dialogue so everyone would catch on.

Lastly (since I need to stop writing now?), reading these Light Novels with Future Context helps me to appreciate Tanigawa even more as his foreshadowing and character development are disguised well. My favourite from this Novel being when Koizumi says to Kyon

“I wonder, who was really the one having fun?”with Kyon relying with a simple “beats me”.

What a simple exchange, I wonder if it’ll ever be really relevant again in the future……..?

Overall, It was a really good Volume that really caught me by surprise with how deep it got. Tanigawa is a great author and Haruhi as a series continues to move up my list. Next is The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya ?.

10/10