I’m not saying it was aliens but…
Creative Staff
Story: Nagaru Tanigawa
Art: Gaku Tsugano
Character Design: Noizi Ito
Translation/Adaptation: Paul Starr
What They Say
When a classmate notices that her dog is acting strangely on their daily walks, she asks the SOS Brigade to take on the case—a request Haruhi is more than happy to oblige! After all, any number of supernatural phenomena could be deterring local dogs from a particular area along the riverbank!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Oh Haruhi…
We’re up to volume 16 of the manga adaptation of the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise. I take comfort in knowing that volume 19 is the last of this manga series, and that my drawn out battle with this adaptation will be coming to an end.
This volume is split into two story arcs, the second of which continues onward into the next volume. The first arc is Wandering Shadow, in which a classmate comes to the SOS Brigade looking for some assistance with her pet dog.
The neighborhood dogs are reluctant to walk down certain streets in the area, and Haruhi declares it must be ghosts. The team sets out to find out what is causing the animals distress, and eventually determine that the problem had cleared up on it’s own. Except that now a couple of dogs are acting sluggish and the vet who checked them out can’t identify why. Cue the psychobabble and hidden agendas! The real cause? Space ghosts, and no, not that space ghost. That would have made this story far too interesting.
The artist for this adaptation isn’t great to begin with, but one thing I really noticed in previous volumes was how poorly drawn the animals were. That hasn’t changed. There’s a cover page in this volume where I couldn’t tell Shamisen apart from the dogs. How hard is it to draw a cat that looks like a cat? The dogs don’t fair much better, luckily they’re small dogs so drawing them as droopy balls of fur works out, but it’s terrible. I have a high tolerance for different art styles and levels of detail, but this is pushing me to my limit. It would be one thing if the artist was consistent, but it simply isn’t. Chapters vary in quality as do panels, sometimes hair is depicted well and other times it’s a pile of lines which barely connect. It’s all so… lazy.
The pet problem is solved using some technique only Nagato could come up with, and after the usual teasing and Asahina dressing up for no reason, it’s easily resolved.
The second story for this volume jumps back into main storyline. It’s the beginning of a new school year and the SOS Brigade is holding their membership drive along with the other school clubs. It’s an excuse to stick Haruhi in a Chinese-style dress that shows off some leg for no other purpose than fanservice. The drive is secondary to the real issue of Haruhi becoming unstable because an old female friend of Kyon’s shows up out of the blue. Haruhi doesn’t strike me as a jealous type, especially since Kyon isn’t really interested in her in that way and she doesn’t appear to be interested in him like that either. Which makes the whole situation even weaker. Then again, never count out competition between women, even if it’s happening on the subconscious level.
In Summary
For a series that is supposed to be filled with paranormal activity and unexplained phenomena, Haruhi continues to be surprisingly boring. The ‘maybe they’re all just lying to me’ theory has long been disproven, so now even the head games that Koizumi plays with Kyon feel tired. Kyon just accepts everything as it is now, without tension and with barely any reaction at all. The art continues to be a huge disappointment, and the artist still can’t manage to depict animals in a recognizable manner. But hey, if you’ve made it to volume sixteen then more power to you, I can’t even recommend this adaptation to the devout Haruhi fan. Much like Kyon, it’s just too damn apathetic.
Content Grade: C –
Art Grade:C –
Packaging Grade: B +
Text/Translation Grade: A –
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 29th, 2013
MSRP: $12.99
