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Suzumiya Haruhi
alt title(s): The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya; Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu; Haruhi Suzumiya; Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuuutsu; Haruhi
A group of average Japanese high-schoolers. From left to right: Kyon; Haruhi Suzumiya; Mikuru Asahina; Itsuki Koizumi; Yuki Nagato.

"I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, sliders or espers here, come join me. That is all."

Haruhi Suzumiya is the central character of a series of Light Novels by Nagaru Tanigawa featuring illustrations by Noizi Ito. A first year high school student (equivalent to 10th grade/sophomore year in the USA), she is considered beautiful, athletic, intelligent, and extremely eccentric. Haruhi has come to the conclusion that ordinary humans are, as a whole, utterly boring, and that she would rather hang out with aliens, time travelers, espers, and the like. In her quest to find them, she promptly joins all the clubs in school for exactly one day... and quits them all just as rapidly. One day, her classmate Kyon (the Narrator) unwittingly gives Haruhi an idea: if there aren't any decent clubs, why not make one of your own? Haruhi instantly switches from an irritated, sociopathic, pompous brat to an irritating, sociopathic Genki Girl who vows to allow nothing to stand in her way. She conscripts Kyon to help her set up the club: the SOS Brigade, whose mission is to find aliens, time travellers, and espers, and have fun with them. Kyon quickly learns an explosive secret that must be kept from Haruhi at all costs, the details of which must be seen to be believed.

The story is notable for having no definite genre — it convincingly uses comedy, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance and Slice Of Life in one of the most typical anime settings: an ordinary high school, all the while with well-developed Genre Savvy characters. The SOS Brigade is made up of five members that represent a spectrum of anime character types, both in their identities as high school students and their secret identities...

The novel series contains the following titles:

  1. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yūutsu) (JP June 2003/EN May 2009)
  2. The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Tameiki) (JP September 2003/EN October 2009)
  3. The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Taikutsu) (JP December 2003/EN July 2010)
  4. The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Shōshitsu) (JP July 2004)
  5. The Rashness of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Bōsō) (JP October 2004)
  6. The Disturbance of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Dōyō) (JP March 2005)
  7. The Scheme of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Inbō) (JP August 2005)
  8. The Anger of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Fungai) (JP May 2006)
  9. The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Bunretsu) (JP April 2007)
  10. The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Kyogaku) (JP ...in progress: 2010)

The first two novels are available in English from your local online bookseller; previews (the prologue and first chapter) of both can be read at the English novel/manga website.

An anime series based on parts of the novels was released in 2006, titled after the first novel. Cries for a second season seemingly went unanswered until mid-2009, when several brand-new episodes popped up in the middle of a supposed re-run of the first season (this time done in chronological order). These new episodes constitute the "second season", and are interspersed among the old episodes according to where they chronologically belong in the plot. An English dub of the first season was produced by BANDAI Entertainment, showcasing five of the most well-known names in ADR acting. An English dub for the second season has been announced, with Cristina Valenzuela as the new Haruhi of the ASOS Brigade.

Also, a movie has been announced for novel four (The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya), which may very well be the most popular one. A trailer has appeared as well.

There is a manga adaptation by Gaku Tsugano (there was an earlier adaptation by Makoto Mizuno that was discontinued/disowned after one volume). There is also a self-parody gag anime released on You Tube called The Melancholy Of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi-chan no Yūutsu) based off an official self-parody manga; this aired in tandem with a spinoff, Nyoron Churuya-san, based off a certain Yonkoma that's been subject to Memetic Mutation. There is also a Spin Off called The Vanishment of Yuki-chan Nagato (Nagato Yuki-chan no Shōshitsu) featuring Yuki Nagato as main character of a romantic Slice Of Life comedy.

If the length of this page is any indication, the anime in its first season became such a hit that it spawned unthinkable levels of praise (with resulting amounts of Hype Backlash), a globe-spanning Cash Cow Franchise, probably the largest body of Internet Backlash in the history of all anime, and made Kyoto Animation a household name.

The novels vary between several short stories and one story of several chapters, and have their differences from the anime. Usually because of the time limit the anime has, it compresses Kyon's narration process as well as the romantic focus and the character insight one would usually get from the novels, at the cost of saving comedy and the plot. While the plot alone is interesting, it leaves many actions and motives to the interpretation of the reader (often triggered by Kyon being an Unreliable Narrator), which makes you think about it long after you finish the book. However, the realistic Character Development of the Brigade members is also impressive.

If you check out the impressively big character sheet, please beware of spoilers, even if you've finished the anime.

There is also a rather substantial collection of Fan Work known collectively as Suzumiya Haruhi No Seitenkan (The Gender-Flip of Haruhi Suzumiya), which posits what would happen if all the characters in the series exchanged genders. It's worth checking out, but prepare to be confounded.

This show also provides examples of:

  • The Abridged Series: The Abridging Of Haruhi Suzumiya
  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: In the novels, Itsuki creates one to give Haruhi a foil and thus something to do. It quickly gets filled with members of at least two of the factions.
  • Accidental Pervert: Kyon
  • Action Survivor: Kyon
  • Adam And Eve Plot: Brought up by Koizumi at the end of the first season. Kyon is not amused.
  • Adaptation Decay: Both manga; the first one was just a lot more unbearable.
  • Adaptation Expansion: "Endless Eight".
  • Adaptation First: The anime and manga were licensed and began release in English before the first novel was translated (about two years before and about half a year before, respectively).
  • All Just A Dream: Subverted in the "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya VI," and discussed by Koizumi in "Sigh V."
  • All There In The Manual: You're not going to understand everything in the anime if you're entirely unfamiliar with the books. Then again, you might not even if you have read them...
  • All There Is To Know About The Crying Game: Even without having ever watched/read/anything Haruhi Suzumiya, thanks to this series' raving fandom, it's pretty well known in anime communities that Haruhi is an omnipotent god. Though it is in fact Fanon.
  • Alone With The Psycho
  • All Psychology Is Freudian: Kyon, when he wakes up from his "dream" in episode VI:
    Kyon: What kind of dream was that?! Sigmund Freud's gotta be laughing at me!
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: It would be faster to list characters who don't have followings with widely varied opinions. Not even those two guys are immune; Epileptic Trees for everyone!
  • Alternate Universe: The subject of Vanishment.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Itsuki seems to like invading Kyon's personal space, and there are several lines in the novels that seem like outright flirting. He also alludes to having to wear a mask of sorts so that his personality matches Haruhi's expectations.
  • Anachronic Order: The anime practically revolves around this, with in-joke references to events that have transpired but that aren't shown until later episodes — for example, having random items lying around the club room that are obtained in later (earlier?) episodes. Several episodes in the first season even include set-ups from earlier events whose episodes didn't get animated until the second season. Not as hard as it sounds, since the novels were written before the anime, but still shows very remarkable attention to detail on the animators' part.
    • The Rebroadcasting of Haruhi Suzumiya mixes old and new episodes (including Episode 00) in the order that Kyon experiences them — chronological for the most part, but not in every instance. Thus the so-called "second season" is, strictly speaking, neither a sequel nor a prequel to the first, but more of an "interleafquel".
  • And I Must Scream: "Endless Eight". Yuki, who is supposed to be an Emotionless Girl (or at least really, really bad at expressing herself), is shown to be visually bored and possibly sad from having to re-live the same two weeks over and over again for over 595 years worth of time. (This reaction from her is comparable to a screaming hair-tearing fit from anyone else.) She's the only one who realizes that they're looping and she can't do a thing about it because her job is to "observe."
    • Thankfully, for the viewers it's (only?) 8 episodes.
  • And Then There Were None: "Remote Island Syndrome"
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: Kyon's little sister, to him at least. Everyone else seems to think she's adorable, but then again, that's how it often works out in Real Life.
  • Anthropic Principle: Koizumi's explanation behind Haruhi's power.
  • Apocalypse How: The possibility of Haruhi having a bad day and unconsciously recreating the universe, or a certain someone hijacking Haruhi's power. The former seemed to be creating a new separate universe rather than rewriting the old one.
  • Apocalypse Of The Week
  • Aside Glance: Kyon, when exasperated.
  • Arc Fatigue: The appropriately titled "Endless Eight".
  • Arc Number: The eight endless episodes of "Endless Eight."
    • The tragic thing here is that it's only a reference to the endlessly repeating August. There is no actual significance to this Arc Number!
      • Well, an 8 is an infinity sign sideways.
  • Arc Words: After a point, it starts to seem like every past-tense sentence in the Myth Arc contains the words "three years ago."
    • Eventually subverted when Itsuki starts a sentence this way, and Kyon interrupts him with "Screw three years ago!"
    • Dissociation takes place a year after Melancholy, so the Arc Words have appropriately changed to "four years ago."
  • Art Shift: "Remote Island Syndrome"
  • Arthur Dent: Kyon, quite obviously. He's quite Genre Savvy about it, too, although having a world-changing demiurge as a friend/boss kinda forces him to be.
  • Artificial Human: Yuki, Ryoko and the others of their kind.
  • Ascended Meme: Nyoron Churuya-san.
  • Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Tsuruya's fang.
  • Author Avatar: One fan theory is that Kyon is Nagaru Tanigawa himself.
  • Aw Look They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite arguing every other minute, Haruhi and Kyon are shown to care for each other in the last chronological episode of the anime. Nothing of this sort has been shown in the Light Novels...at least, not yet.
  • Badass Adorable: Yuki
  • Badass Bookworm: See above.
  • Bad Bad Acting: The SOS Brigade's film.
  • Barehanded Blade Block Subverted. During the fight between Yuki and Ryoko, Ryoko dashes at Kyon with full force, blade extended. Yuki halts her charge by grabbing her combat knife by the blade. Subverted in that she takes visible damage.
  • Beach Episode: "Remote Island Syndrome".
  • Beehive Barrier: One of the more tangible forms of Yuki and Ryoko's powers.
  • Beleaguered Assistant: Kyon
  • Better Than A Bare Bulb: Kyon's unsuccessful attempt to explain the student film's plot; the irony here is that he did it this way on purpose to prevent Skepticism Failure.
  • Beware The Nice Ones: Kyon finally snaps and actually tries to punch Haruhi after she takes her abuse and assumed ownership of Mikuru too far during her movie's filming.
  • Big Ol Eyebrows: Ryoko Asakura, not in a manner which is particularly egregious, but definitely more so than the rest of the cast.
  • Bishonen: Itsuki and possibly Kyon.
  • Bishoujo: The series has posters and articles serialized in Megami, as well as far more bunnygirl Haruhi figures than any in her other outfits. Mikuru is a sendup of the whole concept.
  • Black Hole Sue: Haruhi according to Alternative Character Interpretation.
    • Or alternately, she could be called an in-universe example. Seeing how she's something like a god, the world has to revolve around her.
  • Bland Name Product: Espon laptops, Sicao cameras, and the characters eat at WcDonalds. Also done with brand logos: one episode shows a box with a logo shaped like an unbitten apple.
  • Bling Of War: In "Day Of Sagittarius"
  • Blunt Metaphors Trauma: Yuki
  • Book Dumb: Kyon comes across as very smart and well-read (even though he isn't quite sure who Shakespeare is), but is barely above average in school, to the point that Haruhi's had to help him out with schoolwork.
    • I don't think Kyon needs help doing his homework right as much as he needs help just doing it.
  • Bowdlerize: "Remote Island Syndrome" is changed from the book through the addition of Kyon's little sister, who in the novel attempted to come along, but was discovered and left at home. Once on the island, the SOS Brigade members avail themselves of as much alcohol as their host can muster, which can't be shown on Japanese TV, since the characters are still in high school. The TV show has them doing things appropriate for the presence of a grade-schooler instead. Minus the murder-mystery part, anyway...
  • Boy Meets Girl: Essentially.
  • Brainy Specs: Yuki, though she stops wearing them later.
  • Bread Eggs Milk Squick: Asakura complains about how Haruhi is not doing anything interesting and talks to Kyon about whether or not it is all right to enact a change to get a result, even if it is dangerous, right before trying to stab Kyon with a knife to get a rise out of Haruhi — all without changing the pitch in her voice.
  • Broken Base: ENDLESS EIGHT. To summarize each side's arguments: those for "Endless Eight" argue that the episodes are distinct because each is animated from scratch, and call it an incredibly effective illustration — if going through the loop eight times is grating on your nerves, imagine how Yuki feels). Those against "Endless Eight" call it meaningless filler with virtually-identical scripts that wasted almost an entire season on what was a single, brief story in the novels.
  • Broken Masquerade
  • Butt Monkey: Poor, poor Computer Club President...
  • Can't Hold His Liquor: Oh, man, Mikuru. It's worse in the anime, where she passes out after a bit of amazake (which is so weak you can give it to children) she was slipped for some Enforced Method Acting. Justified in the novel, where it's tequila.
  • Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: Kyon and Haruhi's relationship gets this way, which comes to a head in Vanishment.
  • Caramelldansen Vid
  • Care Bear Stare: Haruhi's intention was to send her "warm energy" into Kyon. However, it was nothing but a scary Death Glare.
  • Cassandra Truth/Sarcastic Confession: Kyon outright tells Haruhi that Itsuki, Mikuru, and Yuki really do have supernatural powers. Twisting Genre Savvy, she smiles sweetly and correctly guesses who has which powers — then promptly yells at Kyon for mocking her before storming out.
  • Cash Cow Franchise: Image Songs out the wazoo (see below) and loads of other merchandise show that they could probably go more for years without even making more episodes. Which is good, because book 10 seems to be being pushed back a few months/years.
    • In the meantime, we can buy a Haruhi game for the PSP, the PS2 or the DS. And we still have two more games to choose from on the Wii. Milking the cash cow at its finest.
  • Catch Phrase:
    • Mikuru — "Classified Information." Taken to absurd lengths in "Endless Eight": "I used classified information to contact the future or for classified information... But when I hadn't heard from classified information for a week I thought something was wrong. And then classified information... I was shocked so then I classified information, but there was no classified information... What should I do?" All while crying her heart out.
      • [DATA EXPUNGED]?
      • Absurd? I think you mean ''hilarious''!
      • It's a compulsion deliberately put into place by her superiors to prevent her from divulging sensitive information, even if she wanted to. Normally, she just avoids using the taboo words altogether, but here the mechanism repeatedly trips because she's too emotionally vulnerable to watch what she's saying.
      • Am I the only person on earth who thinks she might be full of classified information?
      • Are Mikuru's supervisors actually the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo?
    • Haruhi — "I'm so bored!"
    • And then of course there's Kyon's "Good grief/Yare yare".
    • In the North American dub's previews:
      Yuki: "Watch it."
    • Lampshaded and inverted — in the first episode, Kyon notes that Haruhi has a habit of saying "totally", but the audience doesn't hear it enough for it to qualify as a Catch Phrase.
  • Caught The Heart On His Sleeve
  • Caught With Your Pants Down: A double entry when Kyon was closing the pictures of Mikuru's chest with star-shaped mole: He forgot to close the folder named "Mikuru". He also neglected to name the folder something other than the obvious "Mikuru".
  • Character Alignment
    • Haruhi: Chaotic Neutral. She's willing to do anything so long as she thinks it will have an interesting result. Those who see her as a Jerkass Sue are more likely to think she's Chaotic Evil, though.
    • Kyon: Somewhere between Neutral Good and Chaotic Good. As much as he may try to keep to himself and obey society's expectations, he'll subvert the hell out of the rules if he has to for the greater good.
    • Yuki: Lawful Neutral. Her raison d'etre is to obey orders without regard to the consequences (viz. Endless Eight). As she develops more of a personality later, she leans toward Neutral Good.
    • Mikuru: Lawful Good. The only thing her dislike of trouble and her obedience to her superiors ever conflicts with is the possibility of someone she cares about being hurt. She frequently places herself in the role of a sacrifice for the good of others.
    • Itsuki: About as close to True Neutral as you can get; his actions depend vastly on the situation.
  • Character As Himself: Ultra Director Haruhi Suzumiya!
    • Similarly, some of the real life creators are listed as members of the SOS Brigade. The credits have several other similar jokes.
  • Character Development
    • The novels are primarily focused on the character development. It is often left to the readers' interpretation just how far the characters have changed within the progress of the story (Hello Alternate Character Interpretation!).
    • Best example, Yuki Nagato: From a stoic "machine-like" Extreme Doormat, to a person who is not only kind and caring, but also independent from her boss. Hell, her rampage in Vanishment because she developed feelings must not be forgotten. Furthermore, the relationship between her and Kyon gradually expands over the time, to the point where Kyon stated that no one would "shake the bell in him" quite like Yuki. Nagaru Tanigawa himself stated that he likes focusing on Yuki's development.
    • Haruhi: From a self-absorbed, misanthropic loner, to a cheerful and hot-blooded, yet still quite sociopathic jerk who doesn't really get what she's doing wrong... Eh, well, see Kick The Dog. Then, in the later novels, she has become far more sociable, even to strangers, and generally has come more to terms with "this boring world" (and has come Out Of Focus).
    • Kyon: From an apathetic, cynic and distrustful Deadpan Snarker who cares little for anyone besides "his" Mikuru and tells himself that he hates the brigade, to a Nakama-guarding, occasionally-Badass Knight In Sour Armor who freely admits that he's a member and would follow their commander Haruhi.
    • Mikuru: From a self-sacrificing group mascot who lets Haruhi do whatever she wants with her (Present Mikuru), to an assertive and empowered woman who controls the situation from behind the scenes and is responsible for setting the entire plot in motion by masterminding Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody (Future Mikuru). The exact details of how this transformation takes place is somewhat sketchy (time travel is involved), but its seeds are present in some of the later novels.
  • Chekhovs Gun: Offhandedly mentioned objects usually play an important role later in the light novel it is mentioned in or in the whole novel series itself.
    • Kyo Ani is very careful about this. Objects that serve a purpose in a story are seen in the club room WAY before the second season was made (ex.- the bamboo leaf potted plant).
      • Even more interesting is the fact that a couple of these were retroactively added to the DVD release, which weren't present in the original broadcast. This video, based around changes between the broadcast and DVD release of "Remote Island Syndrome", where one of the changes made was adding the bamboo plant to the background.
  • Chekhovs Gunman: Seemingly minor characters, if named, will usually have some major significant role in the plot later in the series.
    • A rather major example would be a character so minor she isn't even directly mentioned. Sasaki, the reason why Kyon's classmates from middle school think he has a thing for weird girls, is never mentioned at all until her appearance in the ninth novel, where it is revealed that she is the cause of that particular misconception.
    • Kimidori. Tsuruya. The esper girl (though really, who thought she WOULDN'T come back up again?) Kyoko Tachibana. If they get a name and they're not Taniguchi or Kunikida, expect them to be important. Those two are probably only still unimportant so that they can be Those Two Guys... and the light novels aren't finished, so it's hard to know if it'll stay like that.
    • In a way, Kyon himself is a Chekhovs Gunman. To quote Haruhi's extremely inconspicuous line: "Have I met you somewhere before?" She has in fact met him before, and the encounter is what led her to North High. This is also invoked when Kyon wonders what criteria Haruhi used to pick her high school.
    • How inconspicious is it? In the anime, it makes sense in context of the conversation so much so that it can simply be taken as an example of Haruhi's eccentricity! (That and the fact that it's the stereotypical pick-up line in Japan...)
  • Cherry Blossoms: The opening of the first chronological episode. Cherry blossoms are also at the center of an important event in Sigh. Kyon is also constantly telling us the time of the year and season (especially in the novels), which often involves evocative statements about whether the cherry trees have blossomed yet, are currently in blossom, or how long it has been since the blossoms fell.
  • Cheshire Cat Grin: Haruhi.
  • Cicadian Rhythm: One of the various summery activities Haruhi forces the Brigade to participate in during their endless summer vacation is cicada-catching.
  • Closed Circle
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Haruhi...or at least that's what it looks like at first.
  • Club President
  • Color Coded For Your Convenience: Lately each SOS member has been affiliated with a color.
    • Haruhi is Red, which shows her genkiness and her status as Brigade Leader.
    • Kyon is Blue, which is the opposite of red, which suits him as Haruhi's opposite.
    • Itsuki is Green, which stands for intelligence.
    • Mikuru is Orange, because of her hair.
    • Yuki is Purple, same as above.
    • The image song albums had this first, but a few were switched around. Kyon's color is Yellow, Yuki's is Light Blue (which might have something to do with her seiyuu), and Itsuki's is Purple. While we're at it, the covers also give us colors for Ryoko (Dark Blue), Tsuruya (Green), Emiri (Light Green), Kyon's Sister (Pink), and Taniguchi (Gray).
  • Comedic Sociopathy: If you can't handle Haruhi, stay back!
  • Comforting Comforter: Last episode "Someday in the Rain". It's left unclear whether it was Yuki or Mikuru.
  • The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard: The Computer Society are cheating bastards. Yuki plays by the rules when she's asked to, but has no qualms with fixing a game, computer or otherwise, to keep Haruhi happy.
    • Of course, Yuki playing by the rules is like asking Stephen Hawking to do elementary school algebra. She's still a highly advanced lifeform capable of simultaneously control 20 independent units in the above mentioned game while at the same time hacking into said game, rewriting/reprogramming while said game is being played (at super speeds flipping through multiple windows), and carrying on a conversation.
  • Contemplate Our Navels: Itsuki's favourite activity, much to Kyon's irritation. And, well...Shamisen too.
  • Contemptible Cover: The English translation seems to be trying to avert this with their (admittedly rather classy) mainstream-friendly redone covers for the paperbacks. (You can always buy the hardcover edition if you want the original Japanese art.)
  • Cooking Duel Chapter 3 of The Vanishment of Yuki Nagato has one (or two, or twenty) between Yuki and Mikuru. Asakura and Tsuruya win.
  • Covert Pervert: In the novels (and sometimes in the anime), Kyon is frequently filled with inner squee when Haruhi makes Mikuru cosplay. He also secretly likes how Haruhi's bunny costume shows off her curves.
  • Crowning Music Of Awesome: "God knows..." and "Yuki, Muon, Madobe nite." are probably the best examples. The symphony playing over Melancholy's climax, too. It helps that Aya Hirano herself performs all the opening and ending songs too.
    • The Symphony of Haruhi Suzumiya, an album of orchestral arrangements, manages this for the majority of the soundtrack, and shows that the soundtrack for "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina" is just as good (if not better) than the show proper's soundtrack—it was just run through a really bad synthesizer.
    • Super Driver, the OP to the second season, is energetic, commanding, and is one of few saving graces of that season.
  • The Cuckoolander Was Is Always Right
  • Cue Cullen: The fact that the character designs for the Vanishment movie are nearly identical to the first season's, as opposed to the K-On!-influenced second.
  • Cultural Cross Reference
  • Cute Little Fangs: Tsuruya, also known by her Fan Nickname LOL Fang-tan. Played straight in that it actually gives her a speech impediment, which can be heard clearest in the school festival's restaurant speech.
  • Cut His Heart Out With A Spoon: Haruhi in "The Day Of Sagittarius".
  • Dancing Theme: The ED song "Hare Hare Yukai".
  • Dark World: Closed Space.
  • Day In The Life: "Someday in the Rain."
  • Deadpan Snarker: Kyon, the narrator.
  • Death Glare: Haruhi in "The Day Of Sagittarius".
  • Deconstructor Fleet
  • Deep Immersion Gaming: "The Day of Sagittarius".
  • Defictionalization: A few versions of ''The Day of Sagittarius III'' have been developed based on its appearance in the anime.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The beginning of the anime.
  • Depraved Bisexual: Haruhi, though one should not take it as seriously as the trope depicts it.
  • Did I Just Say That Out Loud: The novels and anime frequently play with this. Since we almost never hear/read Kyon talking, only thinking, it is even more surprising when people reply to thoughts they really shouldn't have heard.
    • Made ambiguous when Kyon narrates with his mouth off screen, so the audience can't tell if he's speaking out loud or not. Making for even more ambiguity, Kyon's expressions aren't exactly opaque, so it would be quite easy for someone to guess what he's thinking and respond to that. And even if he was speaking everything aloud, Haruhi's selective hearing could steamroll right past it.
  • Didn't See That Coming: A note to Kyon to meet after class was not what it seemed.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu: In Vanishment — Kyon vs the Data-God that created Yuki. Kyon wins, by simply pointing out that he knows how to end the world with 4 little words: "I am John Smith."
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Kyon comes within a hair's width of this when Haruhi takes her abuse of Mikuru too far.
    • Later (chronologically), Kyon saves the universe by kissing Haruhi... which would make this something more like "Did You Just Make Out with Cthulhu?"
      • Azazoth might be a more apt comparison, what with them spending the whole show trying to entertain her so she won't destroy their universe unwittingly.
  • Die For Our Ship: Some Yuki/Kyon and Mikuru/Kyon shippers really hate Haruhi and will cheerfully demonize her. Played with more literally in the series itself — if Kyon is too nice to Mikuru, Haruhi gets jealous and (unbeknownst to her) uses her powers to rewrite reality.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Koizumi.
  • Disturbed Doves: "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina."
  • Does Not Like Men: Haruhi at the beginning, though she mainly doesn't like humans in general.
  • Doing It For The Art: "Endless Eight", each episode of which is completely re-animated, even though there are only minor differences. This doesn't keep people from thinking it was a horrible idea.
  • The Drag Along: Kyon
  • Dramatic Wind: "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina."
  • Drives Like Crazy: Arakawa. Played for laughs in Haruhi-chan
  • Dude Not Funny: Haruhi's treatment of Mikuru crosses into outright sociopathic abuse in Sigh.
  • Dude Shes Like In A Coma: Subverted: Narrator Kyon implicitly threatens violent retaliation when Itsuki seems about to act out this trope with Mikuru in their film, as far as the viewer knows. Behind the scenes, he nearly does carry out this threat against the person he holds responsible for it. It's not Itsuki.
  • Dynamic Entry: Haruhi gives the Computer Club president one with both legs at once.
  • Ear Worm: In-universe example in the Drama CD "Sound Around", which later manifests as an actual worm-like monster.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Possibly Haruhi, depending on the reader's interpretation of her origins.
  • Emotionless Girl: Yuki Nagato.
  • The End Of The World As We Know It: which, once, hinges on, of all things, the outcome of a baseball game.
  • End Of The World Special: The entire plot revolves around Kyon, Yuki, Mikuru and Itsuki preventing Haruhi from causing such a thing with her powers.
  • Enemy Mine: The SOS Brigade and the Computer Club team up to stop the Student Council President from evicting the Brigade from the Literature Clubroom.
  • Enforced Method Acting: Presumably the reason Haruhi had Mikuru get groped and not herself. Nobody's gonna believe those photos without the girl showing true horror and shame!
  • Enigmatic Minion: Yuki and Itsuki. Haruhi herself. Also Emiri later. Unclear for Mikuru.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Taniguchi, Tsuruya (and her superdeformed version, Churuya), possibly Emiri.
  • Epileptic Trees: Lots of this in the fandom. But considering how often the animators screw around with the audience just for the sake of screwing around with the audience, it's understandable.
  • Even The Guys Want Him: Kyon.
  • Evolutionary Levels
  • Exactly What It Says On The Tin: "Endless Eight".
  • Eye Beams: Two words: MIKURU BEEEEEEAM!
    • To be more specific, in Sigh, Haruhi keeps coming up with colored contact lenses that each have a different type of eye beam. First is a laser, second is some sort of Razor Floss; Kyon states there are a few more, but the one we're shown shoots large metal spikes.
  • Eyes Always Shut: Itsuki, and in some cases, Kyon, as seen in The Day Of Sagittarius.
  • Facepalm: After Picard, Kyon is the best known Facepalmer on the Internets.
  • Fake Band: ENOZ, whose name is a homage to the real band ZONE.
  • Falling In Love Montage: Parodied without mercy in "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina."
  • False Camera Effects: Most notably, the first/zeroth episode consists of a simulated student film; but the whole anime has scenes drawn with simulated lens flare, barrel/pincushion distortions and fisheye lenses all over the place.
  • Fan Community Nicknames: The philosophy of "Haruhiism", or "SOS Brigade". Also, Mary Suzumiya.
  • Fan Disservice: In episode six of season two, Koizumi's swim trunks are swapped with a tiny, black Speedo. Still fanservice to some, though.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Whatever you do, do not mention Haruhi Suzumiya in the same sentence as K-On at Four Chan and Sankaku Complex.
  • Fan Dumb: Quite a bit of it.
  • Fanservice: Special mention to episode three of season two. It's essentially a repeat of episode two by nature of being part of a Groundhog Day Loop, but has gratuitous amounts of fanservice for both guys and girls Specific focus given to Itsuki's and Kyon's bodies during shirtless scenes and an additional shirtless scene for Kyon at the beginning (he was wearing a shirt that time last episode!) as well as to Haruhi's and Mikuru's... assets. Also, close ups to the face play up Itsuki's bishonen-ness and the girls' moe-ness (and the entire episode seems to intentionally defy anyone to resist hugging Yuki). To cap it all, there's some Ship Tease all around for Kyon/<SOS member here>. (Kyon has reactions to each of the girls' aforementioned Moe facial expressions, and even Itsuki arguably has his bit of ship tease). The episode just screams "intentional gratuitous fanservice."
  • Fanon: Haruhi is God. Most fans of the anime took Koizumi's speech in the 3rd chronological episode at face value, but other scenes in the novels and the anime (especially the 2009 version) cast doubt on it:
    • In the third chronological episode, when Koizumi tells Kyon that Haruhi is God, he presents it as the belief of the "higher-ups" in his Agency, and acknowledges that various people in the Agency have different ideas about how to deal with Haruhi. He also describes the theory as the "worst case scenario" that his Agency is acting to counter, which suggests that they're playing a form of Pascal's Wager: even if they're not certain whether Haruhi is God, they think it's just likely and dangerous enough that it's better not to risk the consequences of neglecting to placate her.
    • In the Sigh novel and anime, Asahina tells Kyon to be skeptical of Koizumi and his Agency's theories, and that the time travellers disagree with them. Nagato speculates on the time travelers' theories and their incompatibility with the espers', and hints that the Data Overmind believes something yet different about Haruhi. And to top it off, Koizumi himself also contradicts his earlier explanation that Haruhi is God, theorizing instead that Haruhi must be somebody chosen by God to fix the world.
      • Or to break it, if their world is a "rejection" as it were.
    • In novel 9 we run into a whole three new factions, at least one of which (Kyoko Tachibana's espers) clearly disagrees with the assertion that Haruhi is God. Or at least she says they do.
  • Feel No Pain: Yuki. Grapples with a combat knife by its blade. Intercepts lasers with her palm. Takes several steel spikes through the chest. Impaled with steel spike the width of a ship's mast and lifted off her feet. Only the latter is enough to make her fall over.
  • Female Gaze: Exactly how Tsuruya sizes up Kyon when they meet in The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya.
  • Festival Episode: Part of "Endless Eight".
  • Fetish: Kyon admits to Haruhi that he has a thing for ponytails, and encourages Yuki to lose the glasses because he isn't a fan of meganekko.
    • In one of the novels, he admits to himself that Mikuru's maid outfit is his favorite one and wonders if he has a maid fetish.
    • And later novels he subverts this trope by noting he finds seeing Yuki in her uniform especially comforting, but not because he has a sailor uniform fetish.
  • Fetish Fuel: Actually invoked, with all the cosplay and the groping.
  • Filler: In the books, "Endless Eight" was a brief story that lasted about 30 or so pages and the time loop was broken without the reader seeing any other repeats after Kyon has Haruhi help him with his homework. In the anime, it's eight episodes of near-identical footage and dialogue, reanimated from scratch every single time (which in turn angered those who viewed the affair as a waste of money and season).
    • You can just skip episodes 3-7 of second season and literally miss nothing.
    • Hell, Star Trek managed to do the exact same plot in a single episode and nobody complained it was too short.
  • First Kiss: The climax of season one.
  • First Name Basis: Kyon refers to Haruhi by her first name, no honorific extremely soon after the SOS-dan's founding, and she's the only one to call him by just his nickname, no honorific. Also notable is that Yuki never, ever refers to Kyon by name, only "you".
    • Also significantly, Haruhi's the only person that Kyon addresses by first name and no honorific.
    • In the student film, the characters are supposed to refer to each other by first name, but the actors sometimes flub their lines and use last name.
  • First Person Smartass: Kyon, in an combination of his Deadpan Snarker and Narrator roles.
  • Five Man Band: Lampshade hanging, Haruhi purposely creates the club to her expected stereotypes.
    • Although, it should be noted that the roles change depending on the point of view. According to Haruhi, she is The Hero, Yuki is The Smart Guy, Kyon is The Lancer, Koizumi The Big Guy, and Mikuru is obviously The Chick. But for Kyon, Yuki is The Big Guy and Koizumi is The Smart Guy. (The rest of them stay the same.)
    • Koizumi once says that he's pretending to be the agreeable Yes Man everyone sees because he knows it's part of Haruhi's ideal.
  • Flashback: For example, after the SOS brigade finishes the movie, we see what happens right after Haruhi meets Kyon at the end of Melancholy Part VI.
  • Flash Step: Done by Yuki twice to stop Mikuru's eye beams.
  • Foe Yay: Yuki and Asakura. Turns into Les Yay in Vanishment.
  • For Science: Studying Haruhi? Okay. Killing one of your classmates to see how she'll react? Ooookay...
  • Fortune Teller: Yuki in "Live Alive".
  • Four Temperament Ensemble: All in Haruhi combined! It's... totally awesome.
  • Frickin Laser Beams: For the most part averted; nobody is able to dodge them and they're even invisible! Completely averted if you can believe Yuki can run at lightspeed to block them (and she probably can).
  • Funny Background Event
  • Fun Size: Tsuruya-san's fan interpretation, Churuya-san.
  • Fun With Acronyms: SOS Brigade stands for Sekai wo Ooini Moriagerutame no Suzumiya Haruhi no Dan, or Haruhi Suzumiya's gang whose purpose is to greatly enliven the world. To maintain the joke, the fansubbers and the official manga and light novel, gave this as Save the World By Overloading It With Fun — Haruhi Suzumiya's Brigade, while the official dub translated it as Spreading Excitement All Over the World with Haruhi Suzumiya's Brigade.
  • Future Imperfect: Asahina sometimes does this. For example, she comments on Koizumi's telescope being "not very different from Kepler's."
  • Gag Sub: The Adventures of Nagato Yuki
  • Gainaxing: Poor Mikuru...
  • Genius Bonus: Did you know that the mathematical, physical and chemical formulas seen in opening animation are positronium, Lambda baryons, benzene ring, cyclohexanes, infinite number, Titius-Bode law, Planck's constant, Drake equation, time-dependent Schrödinger equation, Hubble's law, infinite product, definition of information entropy, large numbers1, stationary Schrödinger equation, the theory of relativity, probability axioms, definition of Laplace operator, the wave equation in one space dimension, and small numbers? Also, this wasn't just pulled out of a physics books, the writer Nagaru Tanigawa loves this stuff.
    • The novels have even more, with countless throwaway references to astrophysics and at least one in-depth discussion (and illustrations) of Euler's planar graph formula. And let's not even start about the time travel incidents that reach a complexity where you just want to overlook it. Koizumi even talks about time-lines and alternate realities at the SAME TIME, with some explanatory VISUALS.
      • Also, Dissociation mentions Yuki reading a book about "Mathematicians, Artists, Musicians, and their Interrelations". This is probably "Godel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid.", by Douglas Hofstadter. The book deals heavily with recursion, parallel worlds, and uncertainty. Suspiciously Apropos Literature or what?
  • Genki Girl: Haruhi, as well as minor character Tsuruya.
  • Genre Busting: It's depicted as Sci-Fi, come on...
  • Genre Savvy: Haruhi insists on seeing Genre Tropes everywhere, even where they might not have existed; in a completely different way, Itsuki attempts to "appease" Haruhi by providing textbook, predictable examples of tropes. Haruhi does not do "predictable", so these tend to mutate.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: More like a desert grasshopper made of rogue data from nowhere.
  • Girlish Pigtails: One of Haruhi's haircuts. Also, Mikuru in her waitress outfit.
  • Girl With Psycho Weapon: Ryoko Asakura.
  • Giving Someone The Pointer Finger: Sometimes played straight but also used to reference Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney.
    • Or just outright parody Phoenix Wright, down to the dramatic speed lines.
  • A Glass Of Chianti: The Computer Club President during the Deep Immersion Gaming
    • Also Haruhi in the manga, when describing the importance of moe. A glass of grape juice, that is.
  • The Glasses Gotta Go: Yuki Nagato, of course.
  • God: Or something similar...
  • A God Am I: subverted and/or reversed: the character with godlike powers, Haruhi, has no idea she has them. Her delusions of grandeur are just that.
  • Gratuitous English: You'll notice that a few of the novel titles are a bit...odd, between the awkward construction of "The x of Haruhi Suzumiya" and words that simply should not be ("Vanishment"?). As for actual dialogue et cetera, this trope is mostly invoked by Koizumi. Probably the most ridiculous is his line in "Endless Eight": "Perhaps grab her from behind, and whisper 'AI LAAV YOU' into her ear."
  • Groundhog Day Loop: "Endless Eight", in which the SOS Brigade gets stuck repeating the same two weeks of summer vacation nearly 15,500 times and suffer from severe deja vu throughout — except for Haruhi, who remembers nothing, and Yuki, who remembers everything. The anime adaptation makes you feel it too, dragging the short story out beyond 15,500 and into eight repetitious episodes.
  • Hands Off Parenting — All characters' parents are so absent, they're not even mentioned. Yuki lives alone, being an alien, Itsuki's and Mikuru's parents are never shown, though presumably them being secret agents has something to do with their surprising amount of free time. Even Ordinary High School Student Kyon is at home with his sister, but his parents are never seen. In the novels, we do hear about Kyon's mom now and then though.
  • Have We Met: Haruhi casually asks Kyon this in their first conversation. She has in fact met him before, but Kyon hasn't; he will meet her three years ago a couple of months later.
    • So it's really a case of Have We Met Yet. There's a similar time-travel paradox in the first meetings of Kyon and Mikuru.
  • Healing Factor: Yuki.
  • Hey Its That Voice — The english dub cast reads like a veritable who's who of English voice talent:
  • High School Hustler: Haruhi has gotten away with hijacking the literature clubroom, blackmailing the Computer Club President and stealing their stuff, dressing as bunnies, submitting her film to the culture festival with the applications already closed...
  • Hostile Show Takeover: The entire plot of Vanishment. Yuki rewrites reality to change herself into the main character: a painfully introverted- but completely human- bookworm with a crush on Kyon. Meanwhile, Haruhi and Itsuki are Put On A Bus and Mikaru gets shipped with Tsuruya so Kyon can't get close.
  • How We Got Here: The movie.
  • Ho Yay: Itsuki sometimes stands a little too close to Kyon for Kyon's own good. Also, he is the only male path option in the visual novel The Perplexity of Haruhi Suzumiya. [1]
  • Hype Backlash
    • Les Yay: Of course, there's Haruhi being all over Mikuru. And Yuki and Asakura, especially in Vanishment.
  • Human Aliens: The Interfaces...whatever they actually are.
  • Humans Are Special: Humans apparently are the only organic lifeform that can actively seek knowledge and continuously advance themselves.
  • I Am Who: Haruhi Suzumiya. Kyon also occasionally discusses or invokes this trope when thinking about his own role.
  • I Just Want To Be Normal: Kyon, though he decides against it in Vanishment. and Yuki.
  • I Just Want To Be Special: Haruhi, though it's more like "I Just Want To Meet Someone Special".
  • I Know Kung Fu: Yuki's unexplained guitar skills surpass come close to even those of Buckethead!
  • Identical Grandson: In the manga, Kyon looks just like his grandfather.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every book, video game, and full-length album is entitled "Suzumiya Haruhi no ___", or "The ___ of Haruhi Suzumiya".
  • Idiot Hair: Taniguchi.
  • Image Song: The amount of additional music done for the show is staggering, rivaling Mahou Sensei Negima. 9 character albums, 4 soundtracks, 3 drama CDs, plus 8 combination soundtrack and drama CDs that shipped with one of the DVD versions, a live concert, and an orchestral concert. All this for just 14 episodes!
    • Not to mention that four of the character albums are for characters who are either spectacularly insignificant or appear in very few episodes.
    • Now that a second set is being released, let's just list all the characters covered:
      • First set: Haruhi Suzumiya, Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina, Tsuruya, Ryoko Asakura, Kyon's sister, Emiri Kimidori, Itsuki Koizumi, and Kyon.
      • Second set: Haruhi Suzumiya, Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina, Itsuki Koizumi, Kyon, Tsuruya, and Taniguchi.
  • Indirect Kiss: In Sigh, Mikuru shows some rare outgoing qualities by offering Kyon a drink from a water bottle that she already drank from, and Haruhi grabs it before Kyon can. Subliminal meanings runs rampant among fans.
  • Infodump: Lampshaded. Yuki, Mikuru and Itsuki lay these down on Kyon, who usually responds by pointing out that he doesn't understand, or just facepalming.
  • Inner Monologue: Loves to edge on Did I Just Say That Out Loud.
  • Inside Shoes: See Mistaken Message.
  • Internet Backdraft: The second anime season also attracted quite a bit of criticism because it seemed like Kyo Ani was wasting everyone's time, effort, and money by simply recycling the same script but with completely redone animation and voice acting each time.
  • Invoked Trope: Woobie, absurdly powerful student council and a few others.
  • Jerkass: Haruhi in the beginning of the series. Until...
  • Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: What Haruhi eventually matures into. Not so much in the manga.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: A Thirty Xanatos Pileup, Stable Time Loop and Love Dodecahedron form around a Wrong Genre Savvy Ontological Mystery title character and an Unreliable Narrator protagonist who doesn't really understand what's going on (or does he?). Said narrator relays most of the background information and interpretation from a Mr Exposition who nobody completely believes or trusts.
  • Joshikousei: In the book, Kyon wonders if the principal has a fetish for this, since male students wear blazers and ties, but girls wear the more traditional sailor uniform. Ironically, the real school North High is based on features the opposite uniform configuration, with militaresque gakuran for boys and parochial-style uniforms for girls.
  • Just Eat Gilligan : In Sigh, Kyon repeatedly suggests doing this to Haruhi to solve the problem.
  • Kansai Regional Accent: Notable for its absence — the series is set in Nishinomiya, on Osaka bay, in between Osaka and Kobe, home of the Hanshin Tigers, etc. It doesn't appear to be Not Even Bothering With The Accent, since the creator of the series was born and raised in Nishinomiya and wouldn't have to fake it. More likely, he sacrificed his native dialect in the text for the sake of broader appeal.
    • Of course, Mikuru, Yuki, and Itsuki are excused from this by the fact that they're not actually from there, but at the very least, Kyon and Haruhi should be speaking full-on Kansai-ben.
    • This can also be excused by the fact that Kyon is an Unreliable Narrator; he could easily be rendering everyone's dialect (including his own) as Standard Japanese, just because.
    • The author could also be doing this to sidestep the specific character trope associated with the dialect. It might partially agree with Haruhi and Tsuruya-san's personalities, but Kyon portrays himself as an Ordinary High School Student/Arthur Dent, which readers/viewers in Tokyo would be less likely to accept if he spoke naturally.
  • Kawaisa
  • Keep It Foreign: "Why?" -> "naze?"
  • Kick The Dog: Haruhi, obviously. Most famously, the blackmailing of the computer club president. Some people don't find the molestation of Mikuru very funny, either. In the novels, Haruhi actually punched Mikuru on the head several times because her contact lens didn't fly out like in stories. She nearly gets hit by one really (and understandably) upset Kyon, but Koizumi restrained him.
  • Knife Nut: Ryoko Asakura.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Where to begin?
  • Language Of Magic: Sped up and backwards played SQL queries
  • Launcher Of A Thousand Ships: Kyon, but this is probably intended.
  • Laymans Terms: Particularly in the Drama CD
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Haruhi behaves this way when they play a LAN game against the Computer Club.
  • Lemony Narrator: Kyon, especially in the novels.
  • Light Novels: Yes, the anime is based on them and covers the first novel of nine + some side stories.
    • With the second season, the first 3 novels are done, plus chapters from novels 5 and 6.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Yuki.
  • Locked Out Of The Loop: There's a lot of things Haruhi doesn't know about herself and the other members of the SOS Brigade.
    • The Time Travel arcs often leave Mikuru in a similar position. Kyon, Yuki, and Future Mikuru all know what she needs to do and why, but they can't tell Mikuru 'cos of paradoxes.
  • Locked Room Mystery: "Remote Island Syndrome."
  • Lost Him In A Card Game: Haruhi bets Mikuru during "The Day of Sagittarius." When the Computer Club President is taken aback by this, she offers Yuki instead.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Kyon on a bike with fireworks, in "Endless Eight".
  • Magical Girlfriend: Or at least Magical She Is Not My Girlfriend.
  • Magic From Technology: Yuki's incantations in SQL.
  • Male Gaze
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Deconstructed to hell and back.
    • Unless that "dream" is a nightmare being run by someone with the self-control of a third-grader.
  • Masquerade: On just about everybody's part
  • Mayfly December Romance
  • Meaningful Name: according to Wikipedia, Kyon's nickname might come from κύων (kyôn), Ancient Greek for "dog", from where the word "cynic" may come from. Another possibility: Haruhi in the novels loves the story of Tanabata, involving a romance between a man and a woman separated and only allowed to meet once a year; the Korean name for the man can be romanized as 'Kyonu'.
    • Probably unintentional, but 'Kyon' is also Hindi for 'why?': something Kyon must be repeatedly thinking throughout the series...
    • Yuki's name as written means "has hope", which arguably fits with her later Character Development. Written in another way, it can also mean "snow", leading to several snow motifs.
      • Additionally, the kanji in her surname name can translate to "gate manager" (or "master", in that context), which makes sense since she's essentially managing a "gate" to the Data Overmind.
    • Another probably intentional one — 'Mikuru' written a certain way in kanji can mean 'future'.
  • Memetic Badass: According to fans, Mikuru's Eye Beam attack is one of the most destructive forces in existence.
  • Memetic Mutation: Tsuruya aka Churuya, nyoro~n!
  • Meta Guy: Kyon, Genre Savvy Deadpan Snarker that he is.
  • Mind Screw: If you haven't been spoiled, watching the series from the start in its original out-of-chronological-order order, will mess you up.
  • Miracle Rally
  • Mistaken For Badass
  • Mistaken Message: Ryoko's anonymous note on Kyon's Inside Shoes locker.
  • Mood Whiplash: Ryoko's conversation alone with Kyon sounds like a heartfelt confession of love... that is, until she pulls out the knife and attempts to kill him.
  • Moe: Mikuru, who Haruhi tries to make as moe as possible. Subverted and deconstructed since there are hints that Future Mikuru is driving the whole plot behind the scenes, and also (via Koizumi) that her moe-ness is deliberate so that the time-travelers can use Kyon's protectiveness to manipulate him.
    • Also, Kyon's little sister. You can't look at her and not say that she's adorable. (Unless you're Kyon, who would disagree.)
  • Morality Chain: The only reason Haruhi got any nicer is Kyon. And we don't wanna know what would happen if he should die.
  • The Movie: It was announced recently that a film based on the fourth light novel, The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya, is slated for release in spring 2010. The fans were not disappointed.
  • Mr Exposition: The show hangs a lampshade on this with Kyon constantly telling Itsuki, aka Mr Exposition, that he talks too much.
  • Mr Vice Guy
  • Ms Fanservice: Mikuru again.
  • Mugged For Disguise: Invoked by Kyon during Vanishment (when Koizumi and Haruhi, who attend a different school in the altered reality, try to sneak into North High), but averted with them using Kyon's P.E. uniforms instead. Though Haruhi naturally thinks this trope is an equally good idea.
  • Multiple Demographic Appeal: And how.
  • Mundane Fantastic
  • Mundane Utility
  • Musical Pastiche: Soundtrack during the baseball match pastiches the theme to Touch).
  • Nakama: The novels depict this heavily.
  • Names The Same: It's kinda funny that God, a certain Wholesome Crossdresser, and a Magical Girl [[{{Happiness!}} in training]] share the same name.
  • Necktie Leash
  • Neutral Female: Mikuru. She even knows that she won't be a combatant or competent.
  • Newspaper Dating: Kyon in the novel of The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya.
  • New Transfer Student: Itsuki.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Haruhi.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The situation with Ryoko Asakura.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Episode 00 "The Adventures Of Mikuru Asahina", Mikuru's and Yuki's characters.
    • Kyon's suggestion for the cultural festival: "Let's combine everything and do a fortune-telling survey play cafe."
  • No Name Given: Kyon, the Computer Club President, and Kyon's sister — Kyon bemoans his stupid nickname but never says his real name (his school introduction is cut off). Even his sister's image song had to be titled as "Kyon no Imouto-san" or "Kyon's Little Sister". When someone is about to say the president's name, it is covered up by a sudden cut-off to a random cat meowing.
    • The novels tease us by saying that Kyon's actual name is "hard to spell" and "regal sounding."
    • At the beginning of "Melancholy", the introductions were alternately boy/girl, with boys and girls each being alphabetically ordered. After Kyon, Haruhi Suzumiya introduces herself, then Taniguchi. So Kyon's name likely starts with "Su," "Se," "So," or "Ta." Among the resulting possibilities are "Nagaru Tanigawa" and "John Smith" (Jon Sumisu).
    • Haruhi introduces Asahina to Kyon, but then fails to introduce Kyon to Asahina, a fact that doesn't escape Kyon's attention. And a few days later, when Koizumi is introducing himself to the Kyon, Haruhi interrupt's Kyon's self introduction with "That's Kyon!"
  • Non Indicative First Episode: First episode, which parodies most of the anime tropes in The Catalogue.
  • Not A Date: Kyon and Mikuru. Aww.
  • Not What It Looks Like
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Kyon constantly denies knowing or understanding things that the events or narration show that he does, as a way of avoiding conversation with others; most notably Koizumi, but also quite a bit with Taniguchi. For example:
    • In Sigh, when Taniguchi asks Kyon what the SOS Brigade is doing for the cultural festival, Kyon flatly denies knowledge of it, when he does in fact know.
    • Kyon's internal monologue in "Live Alive" and Sigh reveals that he knows that terrible things can happen if Haruhi gets jealous over him, but in his actual conversations he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it, most notably to Koizumi in novel 9.
    • Kyon also pulls this out in Koizumi's white doves monologue in the "Sigh IV" episode, when Koizumi confronts him with the fact that Kyon did choose to return from closed space.
    • Being the Unreliable Narrator that he is, he may even fool the reader. Example "Remote Island Syndrome" — He knew the real thing all along. This may however be supported by his almost magically precise character insight.
    • Some of the times it seems more like he's just saying he doesn't know in a snarky sort of way precisely because he's so competent otherwise. Or as a way to keep himself grounded as an ordinary person because of the people he spends so much time around. And, possibly, just as the other SOS members are part of what Haruhi is trying to find and express, Kyon may have been given various parts of Haruhi too such as her inner skepticism and ordinariness.
      • Kyon could also be bullshitting himself about his feelings toward Haruhi. Itsuki may not be the only one to notice this, but he's the one most willing to hint it to Kyon. Kyon plays dumb time and time again, and Itsuki lets him get away with it.
  • Occult Detective: Ostensibly the goal of the SOS Brigade, though they very rarely get around to it.
  • Odd Friendship: Kyon (laid-back and skeptical) and Haruhi (borderline sociopath with a huge belief in the supernatural).
  • Off Model: Haruhi in the second season occasionally looks like one of the characters from K-On! (also produced by Kyoto Animation) cosplaying as her.
  • Ojou: Tsuruya (so far only shown in the novels and Haruhi-chan).
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Bilingual Bonus, to boot; the music is part of the first movement of Mahler's 8th Symphony, and the lyrics are taken from the Latin hymn, "Veni, Creator Spiritus", which talks about the creator of the world.
  • Omni Impotence: Although Haruhi has powers, she doesn't know she does and only ends up using them unconsciously. Nagato also doesn't use her powers unless absolutely necessary, as her role is only to "observe."
  • Omniscient Morality License
  • Only Known By Their Nickname: Kyon and his sister.
  • Ordinary High School Student: Kyon actually is confirmed completely 100% ordinary. Through background checks.
    • Although, one fan theory on the matter goes something like this: "That's just what he wants you (and himself) to think." And if you do believe this theory, there's some evidence of it starting to appear in Book 9 onward.
    • Also, remember how Haruhi comments that she'll only deal with "Aliens, Time Travelers, Espers, and Sliders" at the beginning? We have the first three, so...
  • Or Was It A Dream: What Kyon is asking himself after the climax of Melancholy, until it becomes obvious.
  • Out Of Focus: Haruhi Suzumiya herself!
  • Overly Long Gag: "Endless Eight", with a full eight episodes. With each episode about 24 minutes long, the gag ran for three hours and twelve minutes. It has not been received well.
    • The "eight" refers to the month of August, which is the eighth month of the year and the point in time that keeps looping.
    • It is also a visual pun, because the symbol 8 is basically a rotated infinity symbol.
    • In point of fact, the names of the month in Japanese are literally their numerical order. Instead of something equivalent to "August" (or perhaps some culturally significant name), the eighth month of the year is literally "eighth month" or "month eight" in translation. Hence, "Endless Eight" being an endless repetition of August, not merely an eight-day or eight-week recursion.
      • Either way, it's a really stupid reason to infuriate your fans for two months.
      • Two months? They made fans wait for three years between the first season and the new season, having them wait almost two months to get a new episode, wait another 3 weeks for new material, only to get one chapter worth of material repeated over the course of two months! Yet, the mileage did vary, as the DVD sales proved.
  • Pals With Jesus: Kyon. To the point that anyone who wants to affect her in anyway goes through him first, to his irritation.
  • Panda-ing To The Audience: In Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, there is a picture of a panda on little Haruhi's shirt... teehee.
  • Panty Shot: There's one in The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina. Guess who it's from?
  • Paratext: The layout of the 2009 episodes plays around with this by reflecting their content: the new episodes came three years after the first run, playing on the interval of time travel in "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody"; "Endless Eight" had eight iterations; and The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, about the SOS Brigade's creation of a movie, was treated like a single long movie-like episode and simply cut whenever each episode's time limit was reached (even in the middle of conversations). It had also become a minor meme to state that "Disappearance disappeared" or some variation of it, but we now know it'll be The Movie.
  • Peek A Boo: Mikuru in "Someday in the Rain."
    • It's a Running Gag to have characters and objects blocking the view of Haruhi forcibly stripping a flustered Mikuru while commenting explicitly on her body. It was played most obviously and repeatedly in "Someday in the Rain", with recurring shots of Yuki discretely turning to gaze into the bookshelf while Itsuki courteously leaves the room.
  • Perverse Sexual Lust: Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
    • If by "your feelings" you mean "the Internet," then the answer would be a resounding YES.
  • Pet The Dog: Haruhi has a few. Most famously, the ENOZ concert and in the later novels... Valentine's Chocolate!
    • The way she deals with little kids, such as Kyon's sister, qualifies as well.
      • For that matter, there's something of a literal moment in one novel. Rousseau the terrier draws out some of the best parts of Haruhi.
  • The Philosopher: Itsuki.
  • Pinky Swear: This gesture has apparently persisted into the far future, if older Mikuru in "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody" is anything to go by.
  • Playboy Bunny
  • Post Episode Trailer: The "broadcast order" featured Kyon and Haruhi arguing over the episode number. The "DVD order" has Yuki laconically state everything deadpan.
  • Postmodernism
  • Powers As Programs: The humanoid interfaces.
  • Power Nullifier: Yuki Nagato.
  • Powers That Be
  • Practical Voice Over: Kyon, narrating the first episode film.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation
  • Precision F Strike: In the anime: "Then I'll tell everyone at school that all you geeks ganged up on her and [bleep]ed her!" Of course, the line in the novel is the relatively innocuous "gang-raped".
  • Promoted Fanboy: Apparently, the owner of the English license hired at least some of the a.f.k. anime sub team to do the official English translation of the light novels.
  • Puberty Superpower: Haruhi and Koizumi (both at age 12).
  • Rape As Comedy: Haruhi's consistent sexual harassment of Mikuru.
  • Rapid Fire Typing: And Rapid Fire Speaking, too. In fact, being an alien, Yuki takes this to such a ludicrous degree that Mikuru gets scared and Kyon gets nervous she'll blow her cover.
  • Reality Warper: Haruhi.
  • Red Armband Of Leadership: Haruhi, naturally.
  • Red Eye: The final shot of "Someday in the Rain."
  • Red Oni Blue Oni: Asakura (Red) and Yuki (Blue). Actually subverted, as their inner workings are exactly flipped.
  • Red Pill Blue Pill: Kyon is given the choice to either remain in the new world where espers, aliens, and so forth don't exist or return the world to its former crazy, troublesome self.
  • Refuge In Audacity: "Endless Eight". Or not.
  • Rewatch Bonus: You're almost forced to it, due to the Mind Screw episode order.
  • Ripple Effect Proof Memory: Averted and played straight. Once in "Endless Eight" and once in Vanishment. The times it is played straight are explained. Yuki in "Endless Eight", because her information is the time frame and Kyon in Vanishment, because Yuki precisely made it so he'd remember.
  • Robe And Wizard Hat: As the trope-page says, Yuki is the wizard of rock.
  • Roleplaying Game Terms: Often in the novels and once in the anime, Kyon references Haruhi having a negative effect on his HP and MP.
    • Kyon also mentions stat points during "Endless Eight".
    • In addition, during the baseball game, Yuki specifically says that she has enhanced the attributes on the team's bat.
  • Rubber Face: Poor Mikuru Hilarious punishment!
  • Running Sequence
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: Yuki, until she stops wearing them.
    • When the Student Council President attempts to shut down the SOS Brigade, Kyon notices his glasses were flashing for no reason. "Are those special effects?"
  • Scenery Porn: Compare the real town of Nishinomiya with the anime. (See also this page with photos of locations of scenes from the anime.)
  • Schedule Slip: The tenth light novel has been delayed for more than a year. The second season was delayed for almost three years. The first episode of the second season suddenly aired in the middle of a rerun of the first season. We can only hope that the updates stay constant.
  • School Festival
  • School Uniforms Are The New Black: Yuki Nagato will wear her school uniform even when the rest of her friends change into their casual clothes.
  • Secret Keeper: For three opposing factions, all whom seem to get along pretty well for opposing factions, although it is mentioned that certain parties within each group don't get along as well as the three close to Kyon.
  • Sekaikei
  • Selective Obliviousness: Kyon's non-comprehension of Haruhi's feelings for him is acceptable in the anime, as the series is short and romance is not a gigantic focus, but it's getting downright ridiculous in the novels. It's even got Itsuki openly exasperated. Bear in mind though that in regards to his feelings for Haruhi, Kyon's an Unreliable Narrator. The issue is less any stupidity on his part and more of a refusal to understand.
    • But on the other hand, there are occasions where Kyon's thoughts clearly betray that he knows that if Haruhi gets jealous over him she might end the world. Happens in "Live Alive" and Sigh.
  • Seinfeldian Conversation
  • Sempai Kohai: Subverted: Although Mikuru is Haruhi and the others' senior, she still gets used like a dishrag by Haruhi.
  • Shadow Archetype: Kyon and Haruhi to each other. Kyon is the rational Agent Scully that Haruhi learnt to suppress for the sake of fun. Haruhi is the irrational Daydream Believer that Kyon learnt to suppress for the sake of order (and lack of disappointment) in his life. To a lesser extent, Itsuki and Taniguchi could be considered Kyon's shadows, contantly bringing up things that Kyon would prefer not to think about.
  • Ship Tease: Everyone and everything.
  • Shirtless Scene: Kyon in the second part of "Endless Eight". Stupid sexy Kyon.
    • Also, chapter 10 when Kyon and Haruhi crawled into a cave and took off their dripping shirts. This one, however, is fanservice-free.
  • Shout Out: Shuffle, Princess Nine, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mobile Suit Gundam, Macross 7, Touch, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, AIR, Star Blazers, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney and other series.
    • In "Live a Live", Itsuki is playing Guildenstern in Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead. Poorly.
    • The book Nagato gives Kyon is Hyperion. It's a book/series about time travel, aliens, bizarre powers and things that may or not be gods/God... Hm...
      • More than that: After reading Hyperion, one may gain a whole new level of insight into what Yuki is and what her (and the Data Overmind's) motivations are.
    • In "Someday in the Rain", Kyon and Koizumi are playing a TCG called Dragon All-Stars; among the cards shown are "Lina and Naga" and a Gourry card.
    • In "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody", Yuki is reading Time Enough for Love by Robert A Heinlein. This, too, has implications for the story.
    • In Dissociation, Yuki is reading Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. Yuki could start the trope on Suspiciously Apropos Literature.
    • Kyon notices that Time Traveller Mikuru has never been inside a fashion store — rapidly changing clothes on mannequins in the window of a fashion store are part of the Time Passes Montage made famous by HG Wells' The Time Machine.
    • Kyon, in one of the "Endless Eight" loops: "Now I know how Unit 00 felt after being hit by that beam."
      • For extra fun, remember who piloted Unit 00. Then look at Yuki.
      • And he also goes 'gerogeeroo' at the end of this scene in at least two of the loops. After Haruhi and Keroro have both been referenced in Lucky Star, this completes the triangle somewhat.
      • Also in the Sigh anime: "Target center, then pull the trigger."
    • In Sigh Kyon mentions Apathy Syndrome, a reference to Persona 3.
    • So Haruhi wears a Playboy Bunny suit and plays the guitar at the same time...
    • When Haruhi starts dancing at first base, Kyon wonders if she's trying to reduce the magic points of the pitcher; the move "Odd Dance" does that in Dragon Quest.
    • In the episode "Day of Saggitarius" the space battle sequences are a direct reference to the space battles from Legend Of The Galactic Heroes
  • Show Within A Show: The movie.
  • Silent Bob: One single word with a bit of emotion from Nagato says it all.
  • Silly Me Gesture: Kyon's sister's trademark.
  • Single Target Sexuality: Yuki Nagato may be Kyonsexual. Given that she's a stoic Emotionless Girl who hardly says a word to anybody, it's interesting that she talks with and defers to Kyon on a regular basis. Then there's also that time Nagato recreated reality, including shunting the other three members of the Brigade out of the way. The alternate version of Nagato had a pretty obvious crush on Kyon.
  • The Singularity: Mechanical technology is a dead end in the Haruhi-verse: both the Aliens and Time Travellers are past it. Mikuru can't operate anything more complicated than a flashlight because what she's familiar with isn't remotely similar; when asked about the future, she can't reveal anything, but her non-answers imply that mankind doesn't even need to use boats anymore. This makes Yuki's love of Science Fiction novels and games an interesting quirk.
  • Sitcom Character Archetypes:
    • Kyon is the Square and the Wisecracker
    • Haruhi is the Goofball and the Bully
    • Yuki is the Stick
    • Itsuki is the Sage
    • Mikuru is the Precocious and the Goofball
    • Ryoko is the Charmer.
  • Skepticism Failure: one character causes skepticism to fail.
  • Sleep Cute: Mikuru and Haruhi in "Endless Eight".
    • And the "Endless Eight" episodes of the anime.
  • The Slow Path: Mikuru.
  • So Bad Its Good: The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina, ep. 00 (the first episode)
  • Some Kind Of Force Field: The walls of Closed Space.
  • Something Completely Different: "The Adventures Of Mikuru Asahina"; "Someday In The Rain" Arguably, most of the episodes anyway.
  • Sound Effect Bleep: Kyon's Little Sister and Computer Society President's real names.
  • Sparkling Stream Of Tears: Mikuru, in the opening.
  • Spin Off: Haruhi-chan.
    • The Vanishment of Yuki-chan Nagato
  • Spinning Paper: Kyon randomly remembers a scene from a previous episode in this format.
  • Spock Speak: Yuki Nagato.
  • Spoiler Opening: But only once you've seen the episode.
  • Stable Time Loop: Lots of these:
    • Kyon is John Smith, who met a young Haruhi and influenced her to become who she is today; at one point in the novels, there are four Kyons and three Mikurus existing simultaneously.
    • When an older Mikuru informs Kyon about her star-shaped mole, only to realize he was the one who told her about it, and he didn't know until she told about it. She's understandably upset at the implications.
    • Following Future Mikuru's instructions, the two of them plant the basic ideas of time travel in the head of a primary school boy. Present Mikuru recognises him as the future inventor of time travel.
    • The events of Scheme. At the end of the novel Kyon sends Mikuru 10 days back into the past to find him and follow his instructions, because at the beginning of the novel he finds the 10-days-later Mikuru that he will send back.
    • At the end of Vanishment, future Kyon, Yuki, and Mikuru come back to save Kyon's life after he's stabbed by Asakura. Think about that for a minute: If Kyon hadn't survived at that moment, he couldn't have gotten them to come back in time to save his life at that same moment. He lived because he lived.
  • Starfish Aliens: The Data Overmind.
  • Starfish Language: They do not communicate through language — that's what the Interfaces are for.
  • Start My Own: Haruhi's motivation for starting the SOS Brigade.
  • Stepford Smiler: Itsuki, always cheerful and smiling even if the world is in serious danger. Kyon is not amused.
  • Straight Man: Kyon.
  • Strange Girl: Haruhi. Until Sakaki steals the title when Haruhi starts acting a bit more normal.
  • Stringy Haired Ghost Girl: Kuyou Suou
  • Student Council President: The... um... Student Council President from the short stories. Though he's really a Punch Clock Villain working for the same Agency as Koizumi, and was brought into the school to prevent Haruhi from inventing her own Big Bad. It doesn't work.
  • Stylistic Suck: The student film in "Episode 00". One of the few justified examples, as it's a student film, trying to look like a Toku show. Oddly enough, the effort required to achieve this look in animation makes it perhaps the most technically sophisticated episode.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Yuki and the others of her kind.
  • Super Deformed: Haruhi-chan and Churuya-san, though apart from these self-parodies, it consistently averts the trope.
  • Super Power Lottery: Yuki, and how!
  • Suspiciously Apropos Music: "God Knows" in "Live Alive."
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: In "Live Alive," after wolfing down his lunch at top speed, Kyon takes a walk just to settle his stomach. Seriously. There was no other reason. Don't read too much into it.
  • Talking Is A Free Action: Somehow, Kyon in the anime, when thinking or narrating (you can hardly tell the difference between the two).
  • Taking The Bullet: Partially subverted. Yuki doesn't sustain lasting damage shielding Kyon with her own flesh.
  • Tanabata: One of the festivals the SOS Brigade celebrates in Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody. Also the day when Haruhi first met Kyon.
  • Tear Jerker: The climax of Melancholy is just that incredible. Mahler's Eighth resounding in the background, running from the Celestials, how is Kyon supposed to get himself and Haruhi back? What does everyone mean to him? What does Haruhi mean to him? Wait, what were Asahina and Nagato talking about? What do "Snow White" and "Sleeping Beauty" have in common ...No. That can't be it. It's unbearably cliche. ...Well, here we go. "That ponytail you used to wear looked so good it was criminal." Now the music swells, and then the kiss!
  • Teasing Creator: Kyoto Animation's "trolling" regarding this show has become legendary. The worst so far just had its punchline delivered. Let me outline it for you:
    1. Drive the fans crazy by temporarily replacing the show's website with a Vanishment reference and make everybody assume it'll be in the second season.
    2. Air "Endless Eight" and act as if the above never happened.
    3. Expect everybody to buy four DVDs of said. To say nothing of the volume numbering gag, which just comes off as condescending.
    4. Hint at an Endless Eight movie.
    5. Win every single fan back with a 30-second, unanimated commercial.
  • Technobabble: Every time Yuki, Mikuru and Itsuki explain something to Kyon, who normally lampshades it.
  • Tempting Fate: Or rather, Tempted Fate In the infamous "Endless Eight" arc, Koizumi said that Haruhi is so happy and could not possibly do anything horrible. Guess what happens.
  • Time Travel: The novels get really complex about this later.
  • Theme Tune Cameo: Kyon's sister hums "Bouken Desho Desho" in "Melancholy VI", and Haruhi sings a few lines of "Hare Hare Yukai" while stripping Mikuru in "Someday in the Rain".
  • The Time Travellers Dilemma
  • There Are No Therapists: Early Haruhi hit a fair few points of the criteria for Psychopathy (or similar social disorder), and as far as we know, never gets taken for therapy of any kind, even though she really could have used it. Then again, you could make a decent argument that Kyon is acting as her therapist.
    • Psychopathy is normally not diagnosed in minors, and there's disagreement over whether therapy can help with it at all.
  • They Changed It Now It Sucks: Many fans reacted this way to the new opening and ending sequences created for the 2009 episodes. Admittedly, the old themes had three full years to become ingrained into the collective fan-consciousness, and the ending theme especially achieved godlike levels of popularity, spawning thousands of fan-made videos and animations. Fortunately the creators of the anime were seemingly aware that they could never top themselves, and avoided the temptation to try simply by coming up with something Completely Different (neither of the new themes feature any dancing whatsoever, and their visual styles are quite distinct from both each other and the old themes).
    • In a lampshaded (in the Viral Marketing) instance, before fan complaints, the English dub was going to use the word "psychic" esper.
  • Those Two Guys: Taniguchi and Kunikida — though we see a lot more of Taniguchi.
  • Throw It In / Hilarious In Hindsight: The infamous "Supersize me!" line was in one of the fansubs before Crispin Freeman made it official. Hmm...
  • Tin Man: Subverted with Yuki, who legitimately appears to lack normal human emotions... at least, at first glance.
  • Together Umbrella: The anime-only episode "Someday in the Rain". D'awww...
  • Touched By Vorlons: Espers. But if you apply it strictly, then every super-natural being only exists because Haruhi created a world like that 3 years ago..
  • Trope Overdosed: Really, it was inevitable.
  • True Loves Kiss: Kyon kisses Haruhi to convince her to turn the world back to normal — or at least give her an interesting romantic subplot with Kyon, keeping her from getting TOO bored....
  • True Neutral: Haruhi, "force of nature" style.
  • Trust Password: A crowning moment of awesome for Kyon in Vanishment — "I am John Smith."
    • There's also "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody" — first, Kyon proves himself to three-years-ago!Yuki with a note from present!Yuki. She then proves herself to Kyon — after synchronizing with herself from three years from then, Yuki pulls off her glasses as if to say "Yes, Kyon, you don't have a glasses fetish."
    • Adult Asahina attempts to use her mole as a Trust Password with Kyon. It doesn't quite work.
    • In "The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina," Kyon says that his option of telling Asahina his knowledge of her future self is a trump card comparable to telling Haruhi that he is John Smith.
    • Kyon might also be the key to unsealing Yuki's full power. Yuki says she has willingly sealed off her ability to synchronize, and that she cannot unseal it herself. She says the password to unsealing is in someone else's hands, but doesn't actually say who.
  • Twelve Episode Anime: Plus two, originally. The second season's episodes (also presumably a Twelve Episode Anime) are interspersed in the rerun of the first season, making it twenty-eight in total.
  • Two Haruhi Limit: With one exception, this Haruhi is the only memorable one.
  • Uncanny Valley Girl: Ryoko Asakura.
  • Un Confession
  • Unequal Pairing: the Kyon x Haruhi pairing hinted by the series comes with a really big double bind: Haruhi can't be Kyon's equal as long as he actively continues to deceive her about her true nature, but Kyon can't be Haruhi's equal if she becomes aware of her true nature.
    • The fans who want Kyon with Yuki (also hinted by the series) notice the all-powerful data entity probably doesn't want to see Yuki actually liking someone. SHOCK. And loli-Mikuru can't have any (sex) relations with anyone not from her future.
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: Mikuru Asahina and by extension everyone except Yuki.
  • Unreliable Narrator: But only in regard to his feelings about Haruhi and 'normalcy,' otherwise Kyon's pretty good.
  • Vaporware: The tenth novel's been delayed for nearly two years, and counting. It'll come out eventually... we hope.
  • Viral Marketing
    • Perhaps most infamously, a twenty-ish minute-long live-action security tape appeared on July 7, 2007 that occasionally shows events from the John Smith Incident of "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody."
    • There was a time when the official Japanese website (currently modeled after the site as it was shown in the anime) contained a fake 404 and an obscure reference to Vanishment.
    • On July 7, 2009, the Tanabata plant was layered over the site. Visitors could enter their wishes that day.
    • haruhi.tv featured the list of activities from "Endless Eight" until about when the new episodes ended.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: As Taniguchi said about him and Kunikida, "So I threw him out the window, and that's how we became friends." *Tsuruya laughs*
  • WAFF: Vanishment, but only at first glance...
  • Wall Banger: Some people's opinion of the anime's take on "Endless Eight". Eight episodes. EIGHT.
    • Yutaka Yamamoto, production director of the first season (and no longer with Kyo Ani), actually apologized for "Endless Eight", saying he thought it should have been done in two episodes, and knew for over a year that it would be dragged out this long. His head bangs with ours.
      • Kyo Ani's response was simply that Yamamoto no longer works for Kyoto Animation, so he doesn't speak for the rest of the staff.
  • Weirdness Censor: It largely seems like nobody who hasn't had the Masquerade broken for them can connect the dots and notice the weird events that happen around Haruhi for what they are. Events or situations where this is evident:
    • Haruhi's herself, of course. Most incredibly in the "Snow Mountain Syndrome" story.
    • Many of the supernatural events in Sigh happen in the presence of Haruhi, Tsuruya, Taniguchi, Kunikida, and in one case the whole city, who either don't notice them or come up with mundane explanations for them (for example, "the fence must be really old" when it breaks in perfect, neat lines due to Mikuru's cutter beam).
    • Nagato's performance in "The Day of Sagitarius."
    • Nagato's "ventriloquism" in the student movie.
    • The SOS Brigade's baseball game — though the Kamigahara Pirates become superstitious about Kyon's bat.
    • Possible exception: Tsuruya, as seen in Novel 7. She knows that the SOS Brigade isn't normal, but we don't know whether she's figured it out on her own, or whether she's been told.
      • In the second season of the anime, Tsuruya (who was thought to have left the scene) can be seen lurking in the shadows within earshot of Kyon and Mikuru having a conversation about Haruhi's status as "God."
      • Actually, the novel implies that she's not within earshot and is probably assuming the conversation is some sort of love confession. Then again...
  • Wham Episode: Melancholy, part 5.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome: Kyon using Hot Blood to plan a day of homework and BREAK THE TIME LOOP in the anime version of "Endless Eight". It even had epic music to accompany it, and was preceded by the coolest and most dramatic "Oh Crap Haruhi's about to leave the restaurant" sequence of all eight episodes.
    • The music was most likely because the Kyo Ani staff knew the viewers would be celebrating.
  • What Happened To The Mouse: Shamisen, the talking cat, appears in episode zero (eleven chronologically) of the 2006 version of the anime, in the opening and ending animations, and nowhere else in that season. It's implied that Kyon takes the cat home with him after the filming incident, but he's never seen at their house in the later episodes (most of which take place earlier in the year). This can be confusing to first-time viewers, who might think of this as clumsy continuity until they figure out the gimmick of the first season. The 2009 version of the series, however, inserts the episode that introduces Shamisen into the proper place in the chronology.
    • Amusingly, the short story that expands on Shamisen is called "What Happened to the Cat?"
  • When The Clock Strikes Twelve: The anime's "Endless Eight".
  • Where The Hell Is Springfield: Half-played straight, and half-averted. The series' setting is described/rendered in sufficient detail (in both novels and anime) to be undoubtedly the author's hometown of Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, but it's never referred to by name in-series. Most likely, unwillingness to come out and say it is to avoid invoking a different trope based on the dialect of the region. Nevertheless, there are a few dead giveaways in the series, such as scenes directly in front of Osaka Station in "Melancholy III" and an establishing shot in "Endless Eight" that is unmistakably the waterfront of Kobe. (Perhaps the series' attention to detail is also its own undoing.)
  • Why Dont Ya Just Shoot Him: Despite having "total data jurisdiction over [the classroom]," Ryoko insists on using her military knife to do the deed when she obviously could've crushed Kyon with desks (or done anything else, really).
  • Wiki Walk
  • A Wizard Haruhi Did It
  • Woman In White: Haruhi during the prologue of "Remote Island Syndrome".
  • The Woobie: Mikuru; Haruhi went out of her way to make her one.
    • Mikuru would be one even without Haruhi's help. Think about it: She gets uprooted from her friends, family and timeline, is thrown into a culture alien to her without any of the technology she's used to in the future, where she is constantly manipulated, kept out of the loop and emotionally abused by none other than her future self. Add to this the fact that before being sent back in time, she underwent mental conditioning preventing her from ever revealing anything details of her old life to any of her new friends, no matter how much she might want to. And all of this abuse came from the people she's supposed to be saving.
      • She doesn't seem to mind. Perhaps because she knows that in the future she'll be able to take it all out on her past self, who doesn't seem to mind.
    • So does that make her a sadist or a masochist?
      • Actually, it's made abundantly clear that Mikuru doesn't know that her superior is her future self. Kyon even mentions that he's beginning to resent what he sees as the unfair treatment of younger-Mikuru by older-Mikuru.
      • Amusingly,at one point, he makes the same complaint about his future self.
    • Also Yuki Nagato in The Vanishment Of Haruhi Suzumiya. Hell, everywhere after her Hostile Show Takeover.
      • And during the "Endless Eight" arc.
  • Woolseyism
  • Written Sound Effect (The opening of the new episodes)
  • You Fail Biology Forever: The show contains quite a bit of nonsense about evolution, but it's more prominent in the light novels.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Everyone has realistic hair colors, except for the Humanoid Interfaces. And Tsuruya.
  • Younger Than They Look: Yuki is technically only 3 years old, until "Endless Eight" anyway. (And if we are to believe Kyon and Itsuki, the world is only 3 years old. Which means everybody who appears older than three are also only 3 years old.)
    • Not really. Haruhi (supposedly) created everyone 3 years ago, so they exist since 3 years, but they were created with memories and such. Physically and mentally, they aren't 3 years old.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: Haruhi can alter reality unknowingly.
  • You Should Know This Already: Haruhi is God. Where have you been the last three years if you didn't already know this?
    • Also, Kyon is the narrator of the first episode.
    • Also, Yuki is an alien, Mikuru is a time traveler, and Itsuki is an esper. Also, Ryoko is a Knife Nut Yandere, not to mention also an alien.
      • And "Endless Eight" is a Wall Banger spanning more than half the second series.
      • Thanks to Wikipedia and the Haruhi Wiki, pretty much everyone knows now that in Vanishment Haruhi vanishes off to another school, the other Brigade members are normal humans, and the robot Yuki caused it because she developed emotions.

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