Japanese Novel Review: Suzumiya Haruhi's Depression

[Andrew Cunningham]

By Taniguchi Nagaru. Winner of the Sneaker grand prize (only the third winner ever -- Trinity Blood and Ragnarok are the other two.)
Illustrated by the same guy who does Shakugan no Shana.

On the first day of high school, Suzumiya Haruhi stands up and says, "I'm not interested in ordinary humans. If you're an alien, from the futures, from another world, or have psychic powers, come to me."
She then refuses to speak more than a minute to anyone in the class, since they are all boring. But eventually the sarcastic narrator of the book manages to get her to open up a little, and they form a club filled with crazy other characters, like the expressionless girl who never looks up from her book, the cute little girl who exist only for moe purposes (because this kind of story is actually caused by the moe characters) and a 'mysterious' transfer student.
While Suzumiya herself remains unaware of it, there actually is quite a bit more going on beneath the surface of this book, and a fair amount of Kant philosophy based sci-fi action, as well as a satisfying conclusion. More importantly, it is consistently very funny.

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu will be made into an anime this spring.

[JBourque]

I've got to admit, that's a mouthful of a description in one paragraph... ^^; If I ever get bored with the rest of my life I'll have to find this novel and take a dive into it. Just because, I guess.

[linlinchan]

[ QUOTE ]
Jeremiah Bourque said:
I've got to admit, that's a mouthful of a description in one paragraph... ^^; If I ever get bored with the rest of my life I'll have to find this novel and take a dive into it. Just because, I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

I read the first half or so at work. It's really on the better end of all the light novels I've read/reviewed up until now.

[Andrew Cunningham]

Yeah, it balances humor, sci-fi and action very well, and has a distinctive voice. Easy to see why it was the number one book in the 2005 light novel guide (though this year it was number six.)

[linlinchan]

I have the guide too, it was lower in overall popularity, but many of the characters were still high on the popularity list.