[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Solachinx

Do you read the novels? *not an attack, just an honest to god question* Because if you don't, you'll see why all of this hullabaloo matters (both this and Saggitarius) after the movie is shown. Not saying more for fear of moderation.

Not really the place to be discussing the novels even though I would have answer for you.

You have a point there, and that part was bugging me in the back of my mind after typing it. I meant to type "Or, she's your average Moe Moe Girl. Whichever comes first." after that part, but I forgot it. Oops ^^;

I find her to be the least developed of all the characters thus far other than for her adult counterpart that has very little screentime anyway.

Not you, specifically, but there were plenty of people here who might as well have been crying by the time E8 rolled around.

Could have been, but I didn't really get upset or involved with it, it eventually ended up as a large indifference that just happened to take up the majority of the season.

Well, if you were in that situation, what would you do? Would you shout 'I RAV YOU!,' or would you ask her to go to the beach? Would you think about pleasing Haruhi figuratively or literally? Would you do X or Y? There are over half a million things she could've wanted; Kyon was thinking for anything and everything that could've broken the loop, and homework popped up at the last second. I mean, the subject of homework was only talked about once during the two weeks and after Yuki's infodump I'm sure homework was the last thing on Kyon's mind. Though, it can be argued that Haruhi wanted to do anything on the last day.

The homework popped up because it was episode eight and they needed to bring the arc to a quick and expedient conclusion. A very simple Deus Ex Machina if you will that came very much out of the blue. Though I think they were very much aware of this fact in how overplayed the scene was I still don't think it makes up for the lacklustre conclusion to a series of non-conclusions.

I meant that, while we didn't feel sympathetic for the characters, we felt how they felt. We were tired, and annoyed, and PO'd by the 'Endless recursion of E8' and we wanted it to end. It was supposec to make us feel empathetic, not sympathetic.

I honestly don't think there's any way to tell how the characters felt because they pretty much just sat their and excepted their fate. I also don't see that as a helpful thing either the way it was done because it just feeds back into what I see as a gimmick as opposed to the straightforward short story it was originally. Every way I look at it they just made a decent story substantially worse with the way they chose to go about it and I don't give points for that. It's a matter of failed execution.

Well, Mikuru can't contact the future and doesn't know what the hell to do; Itsuki doesn't want to accidently fuck up the world; Yuki was never given any orders and, thus, can do nothing; and Kyon had to pick one from googles of different things to do or else it's game over and the cycle starts again.

I'm not really saying I expected much from the majority of the cast other than Kyon. He's pretty much the least cliched out of any of them and the one who seems to be able to bargain the best outcome more often than not. The thing is we never once saw Kyon even try to do anything and talk with Haruhi even when he had the wrong answer. Would it have hurt to try? The result would have been the same anyway. The problem is he doesn't even try until he comes up with the homework thing which miraculously just happens to be the right answer. It strikes me as lazy scenario presentation and reminds me of how Kyoani presented things in K-On where the solution to every problem seems to come easy. Not very deep, but rather idealistic.

But those things are archetypes and have been repeated over multitude of series. This is like releasing Groundhog Day 12 or 15 times before the final one where Bill finally sleeps with the chick. Now that I think about it, the only thing really known about this series is E8 and Hare Hare Yukai, so you might be right about the gimmicks. But, the story is really deep compared to what it looks like at face value: it looks like a series for girls, but it's actually a deep elaborate plot that continues to screw with my head. I like series' that turn out to be better than what it looks like, rather than some pretentious series like most teen fodder nowadays. IMHO at least.

The thing with Groundhog Day is that there are more themes going on such as Bill Murray's character being trapped in the same day until he can improve his personality and outlook on life and the whole romantic thing with Andie MacDowell's character who is interested in him, but wants him to be a more compassionate person at the same time. There I can say I got to empathize with his character and actually feel something about what he was going through. At first I disliked his general attitude towards other people, then I laughed at his lame attempts to try and use the loop to his advantage, then I pitied him in his desperate attempts at suicide to try and get himself out of the loop (a dark turn if ever there was one) and then I was happy to see him finally find a way out and improve his quality of life as well as those around him. It was a good tale with some decent morals that wasn't too preachy at the same time.

Endless Eight on the other hand felt like just watching a bunch of people frolic and then frolic again for another 7 episodes to the point of indifference. Unlike Groundhog Day where the tone of the story changed even as the events stayed the same, the tone of the episodes remained the same throughout with the frolicking in bathing suits and such during the first 3/4 and then the exact same attempt at a dramatic twist for the last 1/4 with no resolution. You'd think they would realize that after the 3rd or 4th iteration of the attempted dramatic twist that it would have lost what little impact it intitially had, but nope, it just keeps plowing forward until the 8th episode with the magic ending where instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment, improvement and development in the characters actions like I did with Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, all I'm left with is the chance to say, "oh....so it's over then". Net result, no character development for anybody but for the small amount Yuki get's after 2/3 of a season. Never mind Comedy Network, that's what I call time well wasted. Again it comes down to the execution.

Well, E8 is fairly important to the plot in hindsight after you figure out why Yuki would do what she does in the upcoming arc. That's all I'm saying about that.

The fact that E8 was stretched so could be because that they were planning a Disappearance movie for a while and that three storys needed to be stretched to fit one cour. BLR can't afford to be stretched, and Sigh is a short book and would probably only fit 5-6 episodes. So, there are about 8-7 episodes left and, unless they want 6-7 episodes of filler, E8- given it's story and ability to be produced multiple times because of it's story- had to be stretched.

Let's talk about the future when it comes because I'll have plenty to say then I'm sure. Either way I've seen stories get rewritten because of a movie getting greenlighted plenty of times before (i.e Gundam ZZ) without them having to stretch an arc out to absurd lengths just to make up the time. If this actually is the case though I have to say the manner in which they went about it was incredibly sloppy and it would kind of worry me if a TV series worth of plot got rerolled into a movie just like that. The final question I would ask regarding that would be whether it would it have then killed them to add another arc like the vaunted Snow Mountain Syndrome instead of such a solution as the literal Endless Eight?

I refuse to accept the movie as an excuse for a lacklustre and poor second season either way.