It has been revealed that the popular light novel series "The Haruhi Suzumiya" by Nagaru Tanigawa, published by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko (KADOKAWA), will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of its TV anime broadcast in 2026 with the full-scale launch of the "Haruhi Suzumiya Gratitude" project. The first part of the project will be a revival screening of the film "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" for a limited two-week period starting February 6, 2026. To commemorate the launch of the project, original author Tanigawa has provided a comment.
The "Haruhi Suzumiya" series is a story about a high school girl named Haruhi Suzumiya who loves aliens, people from the future, psychics, and paranormal phenomena, and her friends Kyon, an ordinary high school boy, who get caught up in a series of strange events... The first volume, "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya," was published in 2003, and the TV anime aired in 2006 and 2009, while the movie version, "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya," was released in 2010.
◇Comment from Nagaru Tanigawa
I can't remember when I first heard about the anime adaptation from the editor, but my first visit to Kyoto Animation was in early spring 2005. I'm pretty sure it was because "AIR" was currently airing at the time. At the time, I thought my job was all but done once I bowed my head to the executives and staff and said, "Thank you very much," but I was surprised when the meeting suddenly and seamlessly began with, "So, what kind of anime should we make?" and that it seemed they were looking for my opinion.
Is it really something I should be thinking about? That being said, it's not like I had no plan at all, and the first thing I said was, "Can't we just do one season of the first volume, 'Melancholy'?" The reason is that I quite liked that final scene, and I thought it would be just right to end the final episode with that. The staff seemed to ponder for a while, saying "Hmm," but eventually they replied something along the lines of, "It's not impossible, but it would become noticeably drawn out and lose the good tempo that was in the original." That's certainly true.
So I suggested, "Well, what if we inserted short episodes in between the 'Melancholy' episodes, out of order, and without any consideration for chronological consistency?" It seems like they were determined to make the ending of 'Melancholy' the final episode no matter what, but I feel like I was just voicing an idea that came to mind on the spot. A few months later, a planning meeting was held in a place that looked like a training center by the lake. Before we knew it, the idea had been decided, and the focus shifted to which short episodes to insert and when. Some people might think that the broadcast order was decided on haphazardly, but in fact, everyone thought about it so hard that their heads nearly exploded. Seriously.
It's been 20 years since then, and even after all that time, we can still see Haruhi and the other characters moving and hear their voices, all thanks to the people who were involved in the animation production back then and everyone who enjoyed it. Once again, I'd like to express my gratitude. Thank you very much.
(c) 2007, 2008, 2009 Nagaru Tanigawa, Noizi Ito/SOS Brigade (c) 2009 Nagaru Tanigawa, Noizi Ito/SOS Brigade (c) 2009 Nagaru Tanigawa, Noizi Ito/SOS Brigade
