Love it or hate it, and most people seem to hate it, the Endless Eight sequence in Haruhi Suzumiya will be remembered as one of the most daring narrative decisions in 21st century sci-fi television. Daring not only in terms of storytelling, but also, perhaps, because it tested audience patience to the very limit. But what an idea! I’ve written a (very) brief article about it over at the Manga UK blog, which is largely based on the entry I have already written on the original author Nagaru Tanigawa, to be found in the forthcoming third edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
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As I understand from reading others’ comments, while Haruhi won Tanigawa fame, the less popular Gakkō o Deyō! (Let’s Leave the School) series is where his real ambitions as a science fiction writer is shown.
As a person who studies film, I found endless 8 to be incredibly interesting from an artistic perspective. The slight differences between each episode beautifully capture the idea. But it’s not really the kind of thing the lay audience wants, and I can understand peoples frustration. A 3 episode structure would probaby have been a good compromise. The initial episode of the loop to show the events fully, an episode that montages loops to show the repetition and an episode that resolves.
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