4 ms·

For those not familiar with the series in question, there's a reason why, if you're going to choose a TV series to discuss permutations, you'd choose Haruhi. "

For those not familiar with the series in question, there's a reason why, if you're going to choose a TV series to discuss permutations, you'd choose Haruhi. "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" is a 14-episode anime adaptation which aired in 2006. Unusually, it broadcast its episodes not in chronological order, but in a mixed order, but for good theatrical reason; the series comprises a main plot arc, and various self-contained episodes which chronologically occur after it. Rather than have the climax of the series come halfway through, the self-contained episodes are distributed in between the episodes of the main plot arc. It sounds mad, but it actually worked very well. This idiosyncrasy was explicitly referenced by the episodes themselves: the "next episode" preview at the end of every episode has one of the characters say "The next episode is episode X", then another character says "Wrong! The next episode is episode Y", where X and Y are the numbers according to broadcast and chronological order. Amusingly the story gets more complicated from here. After the series was unexpectedly popular in the anglosphere, it got licensed for an official release. After the contract was signed and it was too late to change it, the company which licensed it noticed the contract had a stock clause in it requiring the episodes to be released on DVD in chronological order. They were unable to get this changed, whereas the strong fan preference was for the broadcast order. As a partial workaround, I recall they released a special edition with the same episodes on two sets of discs: one in broadcast order and one in chronological order. But the DVD "chronological order" isn't quite chronological either; one of the episodes is a show-within-a-show, a film made by the characters of the series. This happens chronologically late in the show, but it is the first episode in both the broadcast and DVD order (which makes for an extremely confusing introduction to the series). So there are at least three different plausible ways to watch the series: broadcast order, chronological order, and DVD order (which is almost like chronological order but not quite). This absurd legacy makes the series rather the obvious choice for discussing permutations of episodes. (My own preference is for yet another permutation: broadcast order, but with the aforementioned first episode moved to before the 12th episode, which relates to it.)

PurpleRamen 8y ago
> "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" is a 14-episode anime adaptation which aired in 2006. The first version to be correctly. They later added another 14 episodes, but instead of calling it a new season, they mixed in the new episodes between the old episodes and rebroadcasted it as one complete series. As a special "joke", they also had a timeloop-story spanning multiple episodes, with each episodes telling the same story with slight changes in the story, and individual art-style, meaniung each episodes was produced new not just recycled from the first episode. The "joke" with this story was, that of the 14 new episodes, the timeloop-story filled 8(!) episodes and went under the funny name "Endless Eight". I think someone was fired himself for this.
- meesles 8y ago
  The Endless Eight was widely regarded as a rite of passage in anime spheres. A lot of people would end up skipping the second half after they realized what was going on. Great show, and as far as I know the only one to have attempted something like this. I personally didn't like it, it just seemed soooooo long. The only redeeming factor (in my opinion) is that Suzumiya Haruhi is outlandish enough for it to be the perfect vessel for such an experiment.
  - Laforet 8y ago
    The act did have some thematic significance with the movie release in 2010, in which the time loop incident is revealed to be a major reason why the movie's events took place. Besides, it's a little harder to skip all eight episodes in the original weekly broadcast not knowing when the loop will end, so viewers are more or less forced into the cycle.
masklinn 8y ago
> For those not familiar with the series in question, there's a reason why, if you're going to choose a TV series to discuss permutations, you'd choose Haruhi. An other good pick would be Firefly, famously aired in complete disorder by Fox: the broadcast order was (numbers referring to DVD/canonical) 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, 1 (which is two parts) with the series cancelled before 11, 12 and 13 were aired. Not only that, but other broadcasters opted to set up their own wacky broadcast order: * in Mexico, MundoFOX took the Fox order but replaced 1 by 12 * in SA SABC3 used the Fox order but did broadcast 11, 12 and 13 as well (in that order, after 1) * in Portugal SIC used the Fox order followed by 13, 11 and 12 * Australia almost followed the intended order but swapped 1 and 2 * NZ followed intended order until 10 then used 14, 13, 11, 12.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

PurpleRamen 8y ago

> "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" is a 14-episode anime adaptation which aired in 2006. The first version to be correctly. They later added another 14 episodes, but instead of calling it a new season, they mixed in the new episodes between the old episodes and rebroadcasted it as one complete series. As a special "joke", they also had a timeloop-story spanning multiple episodes, with each episodes telling the same story with slight changes in the story, and individual art-style, meaniung each episodes was produced new not just recycled from the first episode. The "joke" with this story was, that of the 14 new episodes, the timeloop-story filled 8(!) episodes and went under the funny name "Endless Eight". I think someone was fired himself for this.

meesles 8y ago
The Endless Eight was widely regarded as a rite of passage in anime spheres. A lot of people would end up skipping the second half after they realized what was going on. Great show, and as far as I know the only one to have attempted something like this. I personally didn't like it, it just seemed soooooo long. The only redeeming factor (in my opinion) is that Suzumiya Haruhi is outlandish enough for it to be the perfect vessel for such an experiment.
- Laforet 8y ago
  The act did have some thematic significance with the movie release in 2010, in which the time loop incident is revealed to be a major reason why the movie's events took place. Besides, it's a little harder to skip all eight episodes in the original weekly broadcast not knowing when the loop will end, so viewers are more or less forced into the cycle.

masklinn 8y ago

> For those not familiar with the series in question, there's a reason why, if you're going to choose a TV series to discuss permutations, you'd choose Haruhi. An other good pick would be Firefly, famously aired in complete disorder by Fox: the broadcast order was (numbers referring to DVD/canonical) 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, 1 (which is two parts) with the series cancelled before 11, 12 and 13 were aired. Not only that, but other broadcasters opted to set up their own wacky broadcast order: * in Mexico, MundoFOX took the Fox order but replaced 1 by 12 * in SA SABC3 used the Fox order but did broadcast 11, 12 and 13 as well (in that order, after 1) * in Portugal SIC used the Fox order followed by 13, 11 and 12 * Australia almost followed the intended order but swapped 1 and 2 * NZ followed intended order until 10 then used 14, 13, 11, 12.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]