The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya [Hardcover]

Nagaru Tanigawa (Author), Noizi Ito (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2009

The bestselling series that took the world by storm continues with this hilarious and sly second book. As the SOS Brigade prepares for the upcoming cultural festival, eccentric high school student and oblivious god Haruhi decides to make a movie. The star-the beautiful and reluctant Mikuru. But as filming begins, strange things begin to happen and Mikuru begins to develop superpowers. It soon becomes obvious that Haruhi's powers to change the universe are bleeding through the movie and into real life! As things begin to escalate, the SOS Brigade is called to set things right before Haruhi discovers the truth and awakens her true destructive potential.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up—Haruhi is the leader of the SOS Brigade, a club at a Japanese high school. This sequel to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Little, Brown, 2009) picks up after three of the five members reveal themselves to be the people with supernatural ability that she is looking for. Kyon narrates, and his witty observations of the ever-demanding Haruhi make for an entertaining read. His characterizations of the other members of the brigade—Nagato the alien, Asahina the time traveler, and Koizumi the esper—are humorous and intriguing. When Haruhi decides she wants to make a movie for the upcoming school cultural festival, Kyon and the other members of the brigade have no choice but to follow her. He says, "Haruhi believes her values and judgments to be absolute. And it's certain that she has no idea that other people, actually most people, may think or feel differently." The sarcastic narrative, the brilliant characterizations, the captivating story line, and the sporadic manga-type illustrations showcase why this series is so popular in its native Japan.—Julianna M. Helt, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Nagaru Tanigawa is a Japanese author best known for Haruhi Suzumiya series, for which he won he won the Grand Prize for at the eighth annual Sneaker Awards

Product Details

• Hardcover: 201 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (Juv); 1st edition (October 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316038814
• ISBN-13: 978-0316038812
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lights... Camera... Action., October 3, 2009

By 

Timothy Riley "Illogically Logical Book Fan" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (Hardcover)

Like most people who would get this book, I am a big fan of the anime. When the first book came out, I picked it up immediately. Same with this one. So what were my thoughts? In one word, mixed.

Unlike the first book, this one was not apart of the original first season (though it is in the new series), but we did see the aftermath of this story in the first episode. Yes, this is how the movie was made.

Let's get this out of the way first, there are some issues with the novel. While the book looks to be accurately translated, some of the lines don't flow. The translation would have been helped incredibly just by using a syllabus to change use a few different words. It also occasionally feels like the characters are repeating themselves, but I don't know if that's the translator or how it was originally written.

It also doesn't seem quite as funny as the first book. That is not to say that there are no laughs, there is a particularly funny scene involving a talking cat, but the book is mostly filled with chuckles rather than laugh out loud moments.

Now that the complaints are out of the way, let me say that this is a very fun novel. It has moments of wit and filled with whimsy throughout. There are nods to films that are at times very clever (such as the Amadeus reference) and one of the greatest philosophical conversations about human speech ever put into words.

The best part of the book would have to be the insight we get into the characters and their motives. This doesn't happen until late into the book, but it does make you question the actions of some of the members of the SOS Brigade.

I would also like to add that the ending is perfect. An oddly satisfying anticlimax that doesn't feel like the author cheated, but ended the story in the only way it logically could end. Well, logically in this illogical filled world in which the characters reside.

Like the first book, I knew going in that this was not great literature, but it is fun and definitely worth reading if you were a fan of the first or the anime series. I eagerly look forward to the third book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lacks the Spice and Excitement of the Original, October 4, 2009

By 

Sammy Swartz (Florida) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (Hardcover)

The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya is the second in a line of books revolving around Kyon, a hapless high school student, and his inexplicable relationship with the extremely eccentric title character, Haruhi Suzumiya. Apparently, Suzumiya possesses the power to change reality and even destroy the world, but she has yet to realize this fact. The original book (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) introduced a cast of memorable supporting characters, provided plenty of laughs and action-packed scenes, and even concluded with a somewhat epic finale that ended on a surprisingly touching and humorous note. In fact, the author, Nagaru Tanigawa, has even stated that he had not originally intended to turn Haruhi Suzumiya into a series, and judging by the second book, it shows.

The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya is based entirely around a single idea: Suzumiya wants to shoot an independent film of her own designs, so she naturally drags Kyon and the rest of the gang along to help out. The problem is that, the more engrossed she becomes with the film's production, the more she begins to unwittingly warp reality to mirror that of her film. It's not a bad idea, per se, but it's also not a deep enough concept to base an entire novel around, making for a two hundred page story that is surprisingly uneventful. There are no trips to closed spaces, no battles with E.T.s, and few interesting revelations. Even the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) romantic intrigue of the first title is largely missing here, beyond Kyon's regular fantasizing about one of the other key characters. And perhaps worst of all, the book is simply not as humorous as its predecessor.

On the flipside, the title does introduce an element of distrust between the core characters, leading the reader to wonder if perhaps Kyon is being misled and manipulated by the others. And despite its overall lack of laugh-out-loud moments, there are still some gems here that are very funny. It'll take getting to the second half of the story to find most of them, however.

The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya is a merely decent, somewhat flavorless retread of the first book. Fans will still want to give it a read, but here's hoping volume three brings back the spice that made the original so captivating. If not, it may be time to move on with life and leave Haruhi Suzumiya and her weird issues behind.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00" is more interesting without the behind the scenes., January 28, 2011

By 

Timothy Lee (Fairfax, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (Paperback)

As fun as Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was, The Sigh of Harushi Suzumiya seems to fall short of the feeling of fun and excitement that was prevalent in the first book. In some ways that's not surprising since (from my understanding), Tanigawa never originally anticipated in creating a sequel, and this book in some ways feels a bit light in content and plump in filler. After all, how can one top a (potentially) world ending cataclysmic event that occurred in Melancholy?

Compared to that, the 'crisis' that is prevalent throughout this book seems somewhat anti-climactic and in some ways petty. For the most part, this book is basically about the ego of Haruhi. Although it was present in the previous book, it was only visible in palatable doses, while here, we're treated to the whole enchilada. In addition, about five percent of the book is of Koizumi's (for better lack of word) technobabble, as he talks one theory of 'reality vs fiction' after another.

Frustratingly, most of this would have been bearable if not for the odd translation decisions made by the translator throughout this book. For a book that's set in Japan, most of the cultural references were replaced with an American equivalent. While that is certainly understandable to give the non-Japanese speaking reader a certain context to understand, it leaves me somewhat puzzled as to why then, certain terms themselves are left untranslated? Unless, one is familiar with Japanese or has a dictionary handy, I doubt anybody would know what 'hikkikomori' or 'tokusatsu' means. Personally, I'd have been find if the translator left the name of a Japanese band in the script, if it meant translating the rest into English. At least with the bands, I would still understand the context.

Overall, it's a decent book, but mainly for fans of the series who would be reading this just to barrel through to the next book in the series.