I finally watched this movie, as I was kind of waiting for it to be close to Christmas before watching it, since I felt that it might add to the overall mood of the movie if I watched it around the same dates as when the movie's story takes place.
First of all, it was an exceptionally solid job by Kyoto Animation. More than anything else, that's what stood out to me - just that there was no flubs or holes anywhere to be found here. I think that the overall animation quality and visual presentation was
just right. Truthfully, I was worried that they might
overdo it a bit, and make it seem a bit
too glamorous and overly slick given that these are high school settings, and high school students, that we're talking about here after all. I think that a certain "everyday" feel would be lost, which would make it harder to immerse oneself into the movie's narrative, if the overall look and feel of this movie was a bit
too pristine and shiny.
But it wasn't. It was
just. right.
Kyoto Animation has a spectacularly superb sense for dramatic timing, for knowing
just when to add a little bit extra visual depth, fluidity, magic, or spice to a particular scene. As a lover of drama and suspense, this is not something I can stress enough. There is a downright Shakespearean quality to how Kyoto Animation handles its visual and audio presentation. It never misses a beat. It never misses a good opportunity to make a character look good or enchanting or mysterious. What is so intensely incredibly impressive here is how Kyoto Animation actually does this for each and every major character in this movie. Even Taniguchi and Tsuruya are given moments to truly shine, and leave the viewer with a great sense of their characters. And it practically goes without saying that the entire main cast are all handled with such amazingly astute aplomb. All of them have moments where they're simply beautiful and/or gallant. This movie does so much to make Haruhi seem very charming, to make you feel so deeply for Nagato, to make Mikuru look so innocently lovely, to make Koizumi look so, well,
fabulous 
, and to make Kyon seem like such a well-rounded character with an inner Kamina battling it out with an inner cynic.
What I particularly mean by this is that every now and then in this movie, there is something that I would call a "blossoming" eye-catching scene. It is in these scenes where the movements of the characters involved are natural and realistic, yet strangely and paradoxically captivating and exotic. A good example of this is a scene in which we see Haruhi doing an athletic jump in her gym clothes. In such a fitting way given the very nature of this anime and light novel's content, Kyoto Animation has a real gift for making the mundane seem dashing and exciting.
Now, there's one particular character that this anime did such an unreal job with, that even goes above and beyond what I've mentioned so far. And that character is Ryoko Asakura.
I don't say this often, but I am literally
blown away by how well Kyoto Animation handled her. They actually made her seem every bit as important, menacing, threatening, and theatrical as The Joker from
Batman!
I mean, Asakura is not that good of a villain, really (Kogetsu Shirogane has frequently joked at her general ineffectiveness
), but Kyoto Animation made her seem simply sensational in that role.
So, simply put, the visuals
and the audio in this movie were flawless. They were magnificent. They were not too flashy (unless the moment rightfully called for it), and they were just exactly what they should have been.
Now, as for how well the adaptation was... here again, I am amazed by how well it was handled. What amazes me is not just that it was a faithful adaptation, which was probably to be expected. What amazes me is not just that it added some elements that made it stand apart nicely from the source material, which many people (including myself) would hope for. What amazes me is that Kyoto Animation actually does
both, without either detracting from the other, and that is almost unbelievable.
Somehow, while being almost perfectly faithful to the source material, Kyoto Animation manages to smooth over many of the rough edges of the narrative. By that, I mean, while I did like the original novel version of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, there were a few genuine issues I had with it. There were a few scenes in the novel were Kyon seemed overly reckless, or where Haruhi seemed overly harsh, or where I just found it very hard to swallow when it came to basic suspension of disbelief. Kyoto Animation somehow brings this novel source material to life, with almost perfect faithfulness, but while filtering out most of those issues that I had with the novel source material.
For example, they made the scene where Haruhi wakes up next to Kyon's hospital bedside and goes on to actually punish him for daring to get injured (
), seem
so much more charming, and humorous, and lovely. When I read this scene before, I thought Haruhi was just horrible here - I mean, how can you treat a close friend that just woke up from a several days long coma that harshly? But by having her hilariously pratfall around the bedroom in that sleeping bag of her's, and by subtly hammering home (!) how embarrassed Haruhi is, and by having her give this knowing teasing smile while telling Kyon about the punishments he's about to receive, it just makes this scene feel
entirely different and
so much better to me than it did in the novel.
So, whereas I would give the novel version of this a 9/10, I actually give the anime movie adaptation a
higher ranking - it kept (or
enhanced, as Ryoko "The Joker" Asakura demonstrates) all the good parts, while smoothing out the rough edges of many of the not-so-good parts, to make this movie a true masterpiece.
10/10 for
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya anime movie.
Absolutely astoundingly awesome job. Complete and total bounceback from Endless Eight. Best comeback I've seen since the 1993 Montreal Canadiens came back from down 2-0 to the Quebec Nordiques in the 1st round to go on to sweep the rest of the series, win 12 straight playoff overtime games, and win The Stanley Cup. A similar championship performance by Kyoto Animation!
Author
Time out for a second here. I'll stand for the rather over the top praise of the movie and production that I obviously completely disagree with on just about every level imaginable (though I admit I got a good kick out of how you went from the faint praise of "exceptionally solid job" at the start while describing how they played a subdued presentation with the film to the definitive "Absolutely astoundingly awesome job" [hot damn! 
Still, I see some of your points.
