[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Heatth

Can't you only say hat the shark was jumped if all that happens after is also bad? The Second Season (you know, the real one) can still be good.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. People who don't know what's going to happen (those casual fans) might genuinely believe that the show has jumped the shark; time will tell if they'll be back. But people who do know what's coming (given especially the hints that have been left), should have no reason to doubt about what this is all leading to. This is why I'm rather surprised that more novel readers aren't just pitching this as a delay or a temporary setback because they should know that the best is yet to come. The world has been taken over by pessimists...

Originally Posted by Triple_R

If this was a lesser anime, I wouldn't be this upset. But this isn't a lesser anime - this is a flagship anime; an anime that became an internet culture phenomena; something with incredible long-term potential; something that even transcended anime itself to a certain degree. [...] Simply put, if handled right, this particular anime could have done loads of good for anime in general - it could have lifted the entire industry a la what Hulk Hogan did for pro wrestling in the 1980s - the potential that I strongly suspect has been lost forever is simply staggering.

So you're upset because, in your mind, this event will forever be seen a blight that prevents the franchise from ever achieving lasting greatness, even once they do return to the main story?

That's a very big worry for one single person. All that truly matters is, "do I enjoy this, or not". The rest follows naturally. But I say this as someone who is quite used to liking some very unpopular shows.

Originally Posted by Akka

Ressources aren't infinite (especially time), and each airing has only very limited time slots, so every week spend on wasting them, is actually permanently lost in a way ^^

Only if you believe that the damage is permanent. There's no reason to believe that these episodes are counting against some master quota of episodes they're going to devote to this show. There isn't some sort of great bargaining going on, like "oh, you spent 8 episodes on Endless Eight, so now that means only 2 episodes for Novel 4..." In that sense, I guess you could see resources an infinite, except for time which stretches further out. In other words, I think it's more like filler than anything else.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

The season will make money sure...but it won't have the cultural stopping power the first one did.

As a reality check, it sold well, but not that well. I don't know about "cultural stopping power". People tend to overstate the show's importance because they want to believe that it's an anime that changed the world... but it's still a little explosion on a remote corner of a distant moon... or something. If a Hollywood movie had the sort of returns the Haruhi anime had, it'd be seen as a colossal failure. Same with a major video game, even. It's all a matter of perspective, cost, and scale.