Alright, done watching the episode.
- It's not surprising that Kyon doesn't care about the game very much. I wouldn't either if my TV's picture quality was so bad that it's just a glowing white screen.
- Kyon's growling and yelling from 13:37 through 13:40 is the funniest thing in Haruhi. Seriously, Kyon, what the fuck.
- Yuki's expression from 18:55 through 18:58 is interesting. That might be the most deathly we've seen her yet, and she almost looks as though her feelings are hurt whenever Kyon raises a hand and tells her to STFU.
- The art and locations once again seem a bit more varied this time around than they were from Endless Eight 2-5, but unlike EE6, this version changed up the dialogue to a decent extent as well.
- The opening scene and cafe segment make Endless Eight 4 look downright cheerful in comparison, and Kyon's deja vu spells are suddenly much stronger and more common than ever before (He cites a whole two lines of dialogue along with Haruhi word-for-word at the swimming pool).
This is the sort of thing I enjoy about the arc, and my main failing with Endless Eight as a whole - the emotional progression is unclear and inconsistent. One episode Yuki seems horribly depressed, the next she's relatively normal. One episode Kyon is tired, the next he's a lot more fresh. One episode the mood is somber and dark, the next it's light and normal. If the whole story was a slow descent into madness with Kyon becoming more tired and increasingly deja vu prone, Yuki more depressed, the mood more grim, and things more twisted in general, I'd be having a lot of fun with these episodes. As it is, though, it's just vague signs of progression generally followed by a return to normalcy with the next episode.
That's logical, I guess, since everyone's memories are reset, and people do have temporary rebounds and aren't at constant emotional lows (In regards to Yuki being more content in 5 and 6 than she was in 4), but it's just kind of stale for me without the drama. Endless Eight isn't over yet, though, and there
were some interesting things to happen in this one, so maybe Endless Eight 8 will be a worthwhile episode (Or, God forbid, 9-12).