I mean, putting aside even the obvious character design similarities, Yurippe did raise the specter of harsh punishment for poorly performing subordinates during the baseball episode, and she also put her subordinates through a lot of pain in the "make Tenshi fail" episode. Both of these are very Haruhi-esque. Making Tenshi fail in horrifically embarrassing fashion to achieve a separate goal is about on the same moral level as extorting the CCP out of a top computer too, imo. In fact, its arguably worse. Haruhi and Yurippe are also both rebellious figures, yet leaders of groups, albeit in different ways.

I think that some Angel Beats! fans are too caught up in trying to defend against the "Yurippe=Haruhi" idea being thrown around by some critics of the show.

Why shouldn't a highly popular anime character like Haruhi Suzumiya be a source of inspiration for other anime characters? What's wrong with it, exactly?

As a Haruhi fan, I find it rather disconcerting how people get upset over a character being similar to Haruhi. I don't recall the masked men of Gundam catching this sort of flak. I also don't recall Lelouch Lamperouge getting much heat for having several similarities to Light Yagami from Death Note. Code Geass was originally described, by many anime fans I know, as "Death Note meets Gundam".

There's nothing wrong whatsoever with Yurippe being similar to Haruhi in a few different ways. They're different enough that Yurippe isn't a clone, but I don't see the point in whitewashing their similarities either. They're about as similar to one another as Lelouch and Light are to one another.


I agree with you on Naoi though. He was so totally forced on the audience and the plot that it wasn't even funny. He should have spent at least one more episode as a villain, imo.