Haruhi Suzumiya is a character created by Nagaru Tanigawa for the novel The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yūutsu). The character illustrations were done by Noizi Ito throughout the whole novel series. The first novel release in Japan was in the summer of 2003 and so far there have been nine novels published with the tenth one coming out the end of this month (January 2008).
The novels received such a huge following, particularly for the main character Haruhi, that even a short-lived manga was produced for the story. While the manga did not do particularly well due to lack of interest, the anime on the other hand started a revolution of Haruhi followers, to the point where people actually started claiming that their religion is Haruhi-ism. Although the novels comprise nine completely different stories, the anime only really covers The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which in fact is the first novel. There have a been a lot rumours floating around the internet that there will be a second season covering the other novels as well, but there has been no official statement from Japan up until now.
To explain what Haruhi Suzumiya is tends to be very difficult - anything you say could completely spoil the whole experience for the person that might be interested in watching the anime, so I will not even bother going into the actual storyline. What you need to know about the anime is the fact that it does not follow the story in a straight line, it in fact starts off with episode 11, then goes to episode one, then two and then ... well, you will have to find out.
As for the main characters, there will be some spoilers so your own discretion is advised. The main character, Haruhi Suzumiya, at first seems to be your everyday schoolgirl in a typical small-town Japanese high school. She is bored senseless with life in general and wants to uncover new things. She wants to meet time travellers, espers, aliens and other very weird things that would prove that existence, as it is, is not as boring as it seems to be. For that reason she creates the SOS Brigade (SOS団 [エス・オー・エスだん], SOS DAN) and recruits her schoolmates into her club: Kyon and Mikuru enter against their will, whereas Nagato and Koizumi join willingly.
Kyon, whose real name has never been revealed, is one of the most cynical and sarcastic characters ever to appear in an anime. Although it often does not seem that way, Haruhi relies on Kyon a lot and tends to feel neglected when he is busy chatting up another character, Mikuru. Mikuru Asahina, is in fact a time traveller from the future. She came back to observe Haruhi's behaviour as Haruhi apparently is responsible for something in the future. Most of the time Mikuru is being harassed and groped by Haruhi, as Haruhi wants to promote the SOS Brigade with sexual images, involving Mikuru wearing a Playboy bunny costume to hand out flyers, as well as some other things along those lines. Yuki Nagato, another member of the Brigade, appears to be just a bookworm, but the truth is far from it. Nagato is an artificial human created by the IDE (the Integrated Data Entity) and she is so impressive that there are some scenes with Nagato where you might switch your perception on who is the coolest character in the story. Nagato joined the Brigade in order to keep an eye on Haruhi to ensure that Haruhi does not use her powers, a secret that will be revealed through the show. Itsuki Koizumi also joined the Brigade in order to watch Haruhi, he on the other hand is neither a cyborg or a time traveller... no, he is an esper! And yes he and the other espers believe that Haruhi is a god that unconsciously created everything.
As you can tell from the character descriptions, this is one oddball of a story. In spite of the confusing premise that I have outlined above, how did it come to be so popular? The story is not set up in an unbelievable way, if you take everything you hate and like and portray in a way that you can relate to, then add all the surreal stuff into it in the same way without making it seem ridiculous – well, I guess you got yourself a hit. I know I did not give away many details about the series, or in fact any information about the plot, but I think you should find it all out for yourselves.
