The Haruhi Suzumiya series’ watch order is as eccentric as the show itself, confusing a lot of first-timers introduced to the franchise. Here’s a guide to help!
Haruhi Suzumiya is a light-novel series written by Nagaru Tanigawa and illustrated by Noizi Ito. It gained a lot of popularity and was eventually adapted into an animation series by the famous Kyoto Animation studio, known for Clannad, Air, and Full Metal Panic! at the time of release.
The story is about Kyon, a guy who considers himself to be an average high-school student, who starts becoming bored with his routine life but is too lazy to change anything about it. He meets his seat-mate Haruhi Suzumiya, an overly-eccentric and bossy girl only interested in the supernatural (i.e. UFOs, espers, time-travel, aliens, and more). Haruhi is also bored with her mundane life so she decides to create a club with Kyon for investigating these supernatural entities, coining the club name “SOS Brigade.” With her excessive pushing and charisma, she gets three others to join and they go on all sorts of adventures, solving mysteries, and encountering things that Kyon would never imagine witnessing.
At first glance, this seems like a normal, high-school slice-of-life anime but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The three new members turn out to be exactly the strange entities that Haruhi is looking for. Itsuki Koizumi, a mellow, soft-spoken guy who always wears a smile, is actually a real esper. The terse, bibliophile Yuki Nagato is an artificial-intelligence android from a planet system beyond Earth. Lastly, the timid and beautiful Mikuru Asahina is a time-traveler from a certain number of years in the future. These three have traveled at the same time to the same high school to observe Haruhi, an omniscient, omnipotent being capable of creating dimensions and altering reality. Haruhi is unknown to this fact so the SOS Brigade does everything in their power to combat excess leaks of Haruhi’s power and other phenomenon that happen around them. It truly is one of biggest catfishes of anime.
Haruhi Suzumiya has two ways to be watched: broadcast order (recommended for first-timers) and chronological order. There is also a broadcast order that will be broken down by episode.
Recommended TV Show Order for First-Time Watchers
On most streaming sites or if you buy the DVD sets for this anime, the order presented by those sources is the recommended order to watch the Haruhi Suzumiya series. I would recommend watching it like this for the first time because it presents all the events as a jigsaw puzzle and piecing together the story from the episodes is what makes the experience of enjoying this series that much better.
Here is how each season is broken down by episode:
Season 1
- The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya II
- The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya III
- Remote Island Syndrome I
- Mysterique Sign
- Remote Island Syndrome I
- Someday in the Rain
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya IV
- Day of Sagittarius
- Live Alive
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya V
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya VI
Season 2
- Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody
- Endless Eight I
- Endless Eight II
- Endless Eight III
- Endless Eight IV
- Endless Eight V
- Endless Eight VI
- Endless Eight VII
- Endless Eight VIII
- The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya I
- The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya II
- The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya III
- The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya IV
- The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya V
The Haruhi Suzumiya Chronological TV Show Order:
This order can be given for first-time people as well as people who want to rewatch the series. The chronological order doesn’t remove too much of the luster that the anime offers but there will be the section of mystery and piecing events together that is lost from the enjoyment. The chronological order basically feeds you the plot as is and makes the series a lot easier to understand.
For someone who wants to just know the story and not bother with the external elements like mystery and constructing the story themselves, I recommend this order of chronology to you.
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I-VI
- The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody
- Mysterique Sign
- Remote Island Syndrome I and II
- Endless Eight I-VIII
- The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya I-V
- The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00
- Live Alive
- Day of Sagittarius
- Someday in the Rain
The Haruhi Suzumiya Movie:
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is the iconic finale for the entire series. It’s chronologically and broadcast-wise last of all the Haruhi Suzumiya anime adaptations. The Suprise of Haruhi Suzumiya is technically the last light-novel and last bit of the story however it has yet to be animated.
Haruhi Suzumiya is one of those series that is known for his eccentricity and unique nature of how the show is presented as well as the plot. A seemingly peaceful slice-of-life anime that turns out to be a sci-fi adventure mystery will make you love the series even more. By putting episodes out of order, Tatsuya Ishihara – the director of the series – implemented the perplexed aspect that surrounds sci-fi tales and time-travel, depicting events that happen jumbled in other worlds and times. This really is a must-watch show but beware, Haruhi is definitely a girl of an acquired taste.