Character · The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Haruhi Suzumiya
She introduced herself by asking any aliens, time travellers or espers in the room to come and see her.
In Otakana the clue reads: Girl who announces she only wants aliens and time travellers
- Type
- Character
- Series
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Letters
- 6 · Normal
Haruhi Suzumiya opens the story with a self-introduction that tells her new classmates she has no interest in ordinary humans, then sits down. She is bored, extremely capable, and convinced the world owes her something stranger than the one she got. Within weeks she has founded a club with no approved purpose, staffed it by kidnapping, and appointed herself its head.
The joke is that the aliens, time travellers and espers arrive. They are already in the club, sent by their various organisations, and none of them tell her, because Haruhi appears to reshape reality when she is dissatisfied with it. Keeping her entertained is a containment strategy dressed up as a school activity.
Nagaru Tanigawa published the first novel in 2003 and Kyoto Animation animated it in 2006, broadcasting the episodes in a deliberately scrambled order that viewers had to reassemble. The show ran the anime boom of its decade, spawned a dance craze off its ending sequence, and then, in 2009, aired the same episode eight times on purpose.
Spelling HARUHI
HARUHI is six letters and the H turns up twice, at the front and in the middle, which is unusual enough to lock the row once it is placed. The Japanese writes her given name in katakana rather than kanji, which is rare for a Japanese girl's name and marks her out on the page. The family name Suzumiya is not the answer.