[DonQuigleone]

I think equating Haruhi to LotR isn't corrent as in terms of forms there's a big difference.

LotR is one coherent narative, the books were never intended to be taken alone (the split into 3 seperate books was not intended by Tolkien). Haruhi, on the other hand, is made up a series of books, each with a seperate plotline, tied together only by it's common set of characters, who also have evolving storylines of their own. If we're to compare to classic book series, Haruhi is closer in form to something like The Famous Five. Adapting just one part of the Famous Five without the rest, would not be as much of an afront to the fans as just adapting one part of LoTR. For instance, taken on it's own, the original series, despite leaving a slew of questions unanswered generally feels "finished".


Also, if we focus in on the Haruhi Franchise itself, looking purely at the source material, there's nothing actually particularly remarkeable about it. In the world of Light Novels, Haruhi is not a particularly remarkeable story, and there are many other light novels that are a lot like it.

Personally, what makes Haruhi as great as it is mostly comes from the KyoAni side of the equation. If the show had been in the hands of a lesser studio like DEEN or JC Staff, it would have been just a footnote to 2006's other successful series. It was what KyoAni brought to the table that really made it as great as it was, the non-linear episode order, the catchy ending theme/dance, the movie within a movie, the weird meta humour and sight gags, and of course KyoAni's always high production values.

In a straight sequel, I don't see how KyoAni can easily replicate that. Sure they can straight adapt the source material, but all the variety that made the first series good is going to be very difficult to do a second time around, the first series had surprise going in it's favour, it was very easy for it to endlessly surprise it's viewers, that's going to be very hard to do again, as everyone will be expecting it, and a lot of the fans will have already read later parts of the LN series. Admittedly they succeeded with Endless Eight, though not necessarily in a good way...

Another factor to bear in mind is the way the staff at KyoAni has changed since then. Now I'm not saying it's not a better or worse studio now, but it is a different studio. One of the people that contributed to Haruhi being what it was Yutaka Yamamoto, now his work since leaving KyoAni hasn't been stellar, and I'm no fan of his "Drama" (KyoAni is probably ultimately better off without him), but Haruhi was the way it was in large part due to his influence. Later Haruhi productions made without him have much more played up the Moé elements latent in the series, which wasn't what made Haruhi popular in the first place (arguably it was the way it parodied Moé that made it popular...).

Also, with a 28 episode series, and a near 3 hour movie, we're reaching the stage where we have a lot of Haruhi, but no ultimate conclusion in sight, as the novel series at this stage is going to keep being written until it stops making money. It's gotten too popular for it's own health, so I don't see it ending satisfactorily in the near future.

I'd like to see KyoAni do similiar stuff again, but I won't personally be looking forward to more Haruhi, for the reasons above.

That said, I could also be proved wrong, I liked Clannad After Story a lot more then Clannad, for instance.