[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

I'm trying to think of a way to say this without sounding condescending, but Tanigawa is an entertainer of otaku long before he's a true artist.

I'm only familiar with some of his Haruhi work, but I was genuinely impressed with his Novel 4 work. Significantly less so with Novel 2, though, where he kind of overdid Haruhi and Kyon's negative character aspects, I think. The anime genuinely improved on the novel here, imo.

However, Novel 4 is a very nice, tight, short read. Now, it's no Citizen Kane, but I felt it was a solid story that did a great job with the genre of sci-fi teenage drama. I still maintain that it's an awesome book for early-to-mid teens that are into sci-fi; I would have loved it when I was a Star Trek: TNG fan back in the early 90s as a Junior High student. At my current age, I like it a fair bit, but I can tell I would have liked it even more as a kid.

What impresses me the most about Tanigawa is how good he is with handling plots, especially given how big a part time travel plays in Haruhi. I also like some of the quirky little stuff, like having Haruhi humming classical music of all things.

I have to wonder at the polar opposite positions that some people can have while ironically aiming at the same goal of defending this series. One group will say that it's art and that's the reason behind the whole Endless Eight idea while another will say that it's just trying to be entertaining and thus people shouldn't get upset when it's marketed so aggressively and or doesn't live up to one's standards. Neither of them make much sense to me personally which is why I still go with the idea that they thought people in the west would all get on the bandwagon no matter what they did with the franchise, which was a reasonable expectation a few years ago during the peak of the franchises popularity, but as has been seen doesn't really work now.

I think that they did overestimate the fanbase's willingness to accept virtually any sort of new Haruhi episodes. Now, it wasn't a "troll"; they really did think that the fans would like it or at least accept it with a slight smile.

There are getting to be less and less guarantees in the industry now on many levels which means things are probably going to start changing soon. I hope it's for the better and that things start getting less otaku-centric as has been the trend for a while now. I agree that a good start is to try and reach out more to the west again instead of giving the impression that they consider it a lost cause. Namco Bandai I think has the best ideas so far in that regard with the simulcasting and consistently strong presence at North American anime conventions. Some easy/west mergers probably wouldn't be a bad idea either. Perhaps Bandai could partner up with Funimation in the mutual interest of saving the North American regions viability as a market.

Anyway that's a lot to say for just a name drop, but I'm in a bit of thinking mood tonight so that's my splurge of text.

Huge agreement with you here Kaoshin. I completely agree with all of this.