[Kaoru Chujo]

I just had a brief look at 2channel, and there is certainly a lot of interest: over 1000 posts in the 12 hours since the show aired. But there are definitely two camps:

1. "This is stupid. What's going on, why is she in a bunny costume, is she a mahou shoujo? You must have had to read the novel to enjoy this."

2. "This is great. Hilarious. The surface may seem stupid, but there's really a lot there. I'm so excited."

Clearly not all Japanese understand the better class of Japanese humor, lol. This episode reminds me of the smart self-mocking absurdity of British shows like Monty Python and Absolutely Fabulous.

The decision to start with the movie was really genius, like kj1980 said. I've only read a bit of the manga, and found the way it started a little slow-moving. This way, you are drawn into the Haruhi universe right away.

If this keeps up, Ichigo Mashimaro will have a competitor as the funniest anime I've ever seen.

I vote for this being episode 1, and next week episode 2. It's not as if this is a prologue. In any case, it's easier to keep track of the number of episodes if we don't go all coder and number the first item number zero. The file I saw was called "The Unhappiness of Suzumiya Haruhi, episode 1: Asahina Mikuru's Adventure, episode 0."

Oh, and I have a question for kj or someone else: how to translate the title. Is it Haruhi who is melancholy/depressed/unhappy, or is it that she makes the people around her that way?