The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Seasons 1 & 2 - Essentials Blu-ray + Digital

They need to produce more with these characters. Just a lovable show. I like how the narration is filled with quips and side notes that make you chuckle. If you are a newbie like me, you find the story "Endless Eight" is definitely a marathon. Completely different from the rest of the show and most other anime series in general. It's basically 8 theme and variations of the exact same tale. Even though I wasn't completely sure until the end, I kind of figured out about half way through what was causing the problem. I sort of felt like I was the director or editor after so many viewings. Then the following story actually is about being a director and editor. And I loved watching the film they produced. Then in the last episode, the producers are able to get a chuckle from the viewer watching a character just sitting in a room reading or another one carrying a space heater up a hill. Just a great production with animation worthy of a theatrical release.("ANIME: Storytelling at its best")

Perfect condition. One of my all time favorite animes!

The characters are loveable and the story is weird. No spoilers here but I just love this series and there's nothing else quite like it. I wish there were more seasons made. The picture and sound are great on blu-ray. So good I had to have a physical copy for my collection. Highly recommended!

I couldn't find any details or reviews for the Essentials version of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya so I purchased this product and will share what it entails. This Blu Ray comes with a Funimation Digital Copy and 4 Blu Ray discs. Disc 1 contains episodes 1-10, Disc 2 contains episodes 11-20, Disc 3 contains episodes 21-28, and Disc 4 contains extras. If you were wondering, the episodes are presented in chronological order and not in air date order. The picture quality is sharp and the sound is good. I hope this review helps others looking at this and wondering what's the difference between previous releases of this title.

If you want to revisit this series but are fearing the return of Endless Eight, it is entirely quarantined within 8/10 episodes of disc 2. Conveniently also provides a way to skip most of the Endless Eight episodes on the top menu. A++ wish I could have done this when season 2 aired.

Let's assume you know whether you like the series, and talk about the quality of the Blu-ray transfer itself. It's of mixed quality.The video clearly had some rather aggressive denoising filter applied to it, which results in a kind of blurriness in the lines and it makes the video look much poorer than the medium is capable of. The denoising is fairly bad in flashbacks, which use simulated film grain for creative reasons, because the denoising turns the film grain into a bunch of moving "squiggles" on top of the screen. Fortunately, this is only a small percentage of the scenes, and those of us sitting farther from the TV or who don't have good eyesight won't notice, and it's not distracting if you're paying attention to the story. These squiggles, however, are the first thing you see when you start episode 1. So the video is a bit botched. It's hard to comment on the actual compression quality since any compression artifacts would be hidden under the heavy filtering.For some unknown reason, the Blu-ray disables the "audio" and "subtitle" buttons on your remote. I cannot imagine what kind of satanic witchcraft must have compelled the encoder to disable these features on an imported video. You can change the settings through the main menu or pop-up menu only, and certain combinations are prohibited. For example, you can't enable subtitles for English audio. I guess the concepts of hearing loss and hearing disability are completely foreign to whoever made the video. You also can't disable subtitles for Japanese audio, which is bizarre.Speaking of subtitles, the translation is usually reasonable and flows well, but there are some phrases which aren't fluent English, and some specialist terms which are translated incorrectly. To pick on episode 5, in the conversation between Koizumi and Kyon, 人間原理 is translated as "human principle", which is meaningless in English. The term should be "anthropic principle", which is a well-known term from philosophy and science fiction. Koizumi also says something translated as, "An interesting fact floats up from here." We can figure out what he's saying, but "floats up" is a literal translation of 浮上 which should have been translated idiomatically. No English speaker would speak that way. This scene is a bad example, other scenes were much better.Audio is good, levels are fine, no excessive compression or anything.The episodes are presented in chronological order, which is also the 2009 re-airing broadcast order. This is a good thing, I remember being fairly confused by the original 2006 broadcast order. "Someday in the Rain" is a good send-off to the series.

Also excellent manga. Beautifully written and animated.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Seasons 1 and 2 (Fantastic Series)One of my friends introduced me to this series online and I feel in love with the characters. I had Season 2 on DVD but I could never grab Season 1 for a reasonable price. I'm glad amazon had the series on Holiday sale for $29.99. I love the set I haven't gotten to the extras yet but I'll definitely take a look when I get there. :) I recommend this anime to anyone who enjoys aliens, time travelers and espers. :3