The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi III
From SOS団 Wiki
"The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi III" (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱III) is an episode in The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. It is the fifth episode aired in the series. It is the third episode in the series timeline. The episode's original airdate is April 30, 2006.
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[edit] Overview
Getting annoyed that nobody is reporting any mysteries to the SOS Brigade, Haruhi decides to send out the SOS Brigade to find anything mysterious. Kyon also learns about the identities of Yuki, Mikuru, and Itsuki in this episode, as they each talk to him privately about who they really are.
[edit] Episode details
| Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. |
In the beginning of this episode, Yuki explains to Kyon that she is really an alien and that she has been sent to observe Haruhi. However, a new force that cannot go unnoticed has started to appear near Haruhi. That force is Kyon. She tells Kyon that Haruhi is important because whether Haruhi realizes it or not, her consciousness has an effect on the environment in the form of unconditional data.
The next day, Haruhi finds out that a new transfer student is coming. She immediately tells Kyon, telling him that she's found the "mysterious transfer student" to join the SOS Brigade. After classes, Haruhi drags Itsuki into the clubroom, telling him to join. When Itsuki asks what the purpose of the club is, Haruhi says that it is to find aliens, time travelers, and espers and have fun with them. Kyon is dumbfounded. Itsuki decides to join the club.
Haruhi, noticing that Mikuru would look better in something more appealing, decides to make her wear a maid outfit. She then tells Mikuru that it looks so good and that she has to wear it every time she is in the clubhouse.
Haruhi then commences the first ever SOS Brigade meeting. The gist of the meeting is that even though the "celebrity" of the SOS Brigade has risen tremendously, they stil have not received any mysteries from people. She then goes on saying that since this is the modern world, they'll go out and find mysterious phenomena on their own. She tells the Brigade that their first outdoor meeting will be tommorow and that if anyone's late, heads will roll. Kyon is late.
Haruhi divides the brigade into teams through a system of drawing toothpicks. Mikuru and Kyon are paired together, much to the dismay of Haruhi, while Haruhi, Itsuki and Yuki are a group.
When Kyon and Mikuru go off, they walk along a path. Mikuru remarks that she's never walked alone with a boy before. Kyon finds this hard to believe, as he thinks that plenty of boys probably woo her all the time. Mikuru then says that she is not allowed to get involved with anyone. She then explains the whole reason why she is here in the first place. Mikuru is a time traveler, sent here to observe why they could not go back farther than a certain point in time. She also is here to observe Haruhi, like Yuki. Kyon, finding this hard to comprehend, asks Mikuru all these questions, all of which she claims is classified information. At the end, Kyon asks Mikuru for her real age, which Mikuru does a cute pose and once again saying, "Classifed information."
Haruhi then regroups the brigade, and they eat lunch. Haruhi told them to split up again, using the system of drawing toothpicks. Again, to the dismay of Haruhi, Kyon is paired with Yuki. The other group is Itsuki, Mikuru, and Haruhi. Kyon and Yuki go to the library, where Kyon reads a book and promptly falls asleep. Kyon wakes up to a phone call from Haruhi, where he finds out that he is late. However, in order to get Yuki to leave the library, he had to get her a library card so she could borrow the book she was reading. Being late makes Haruhi only more angry. When Mikuru thanks Kyon for listening to her, Haruhi asks Kyon what they really did, and Kyon retorts, making Haruhi only more ticked off. She then declares that there'll be evaluations of today's performance and storms off torwards home.
The next day, Itsuki tells Kyon that he is an esper. He then mentions that he expected that Haruhi would get them all together, but he never imagined that Haruhi would be able to do it that quickly. He then mentions the "Agency" that he belongs to, which consists of other espers. He is sent to observe Haruhi, like everybody else. When Kyon asks if he could demonstrate some of his powers as an esper, Itsuki says that he cannot, as it is not that easy in this realm to do it. Itsuki then mentions on how he finds it strange that Haruhi picked Kyon to be in the brigade, as he is a normal human.
In the end of the episode, Kyon notes how on that day... Haruhi never showed up.
| Spoilers end here. |
[edit] Differences in the novel
The episode is based on the third, fourth and fifth chapter in the novel The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. These comparisons are made using the Strato-translation, which may not be 100% accurate.
| Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. |
Chapter 3
- Kyon has cleaning duty at school before he stumbles in on Mikuru changing clothes.
- Haruhi borrowed the camera from the Photography Club.
- Kyon removes the pictures of Mikuru from the webpage before he battles Ryoko.
Chapter 4
- Haruhi explains the penalty to Kyon that he gets when he comes "late" to the train station.
- They have different clothing when they meet at the train station.
- Haruhi explains what they are looking for and compliments Itsuki.
Chapter 5
- Itsuki's conversation is much longer, but it contains the same information.
| Spoilers end here. |
[edit] Trivia
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- This is episode 3, chronologically.
- Kyon's cell phone is a Panasonic FOMA 902i Rubber Black.
- In the ending credits the names of Kyon and Haruhi are written together with huge font, seperate from the other characters. This is most likely a humorous reference to Haruhi's displeasure earlier in the episode when Kyon repeatedly draws a marked toothpick and they end up in seperate groups. The credits essentially parody the episode's events (splitting the characters into two groups), appearing as if Kyon and Haruhi had drawn marked toothpicks.
- At the end of the preview for Episode 6, Kyon shouts "Wh-What was that!? (Na, Nandattee?!)". This is a reference to the manga MMR Magazine Mystery Reportage.
- Nagato is reading the Japanese translation of Phänomenologie des Geistes (The Phenomenology of Spirit) by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, published in 1807. The latest edition of Hasegawa Hiroshi's Japanese translation was published 1998 by Sakuhinsha (ISBN 4-87893-294-5). Kyon is seen reading volume 2, I-My-Me of Let's Leave the School (学校を出よう Gakkō wo Deyō), another light novel series by Nagaru Tanigawa.
- In this episode, Haruhi and company are eating lunch at WcDonald's. Needless to say, it's parody of McDonald's.
- In the 2nd episode of the 2006 version of Kanon, Kaori Misaka finds male protagonist Yuichi Aizawa (played by Tomokazu Sugita, who voices Kyon) lost in the school hallways and says that he was acting suspiciously and that she was wondering if he was a spy of some agency who snuck in the school, which Yuichi retorts with saying that he's an ordinary transfer student. This is a reference to Itsuki Koizumi, who is the mysterious tranfer student and part of the secret agency he's in.
- Also, right before the above scene, Yuichi Aizawa seems to narrate that he "turns around and finds Kaori Misaka standing behind him", only revealed to be dialogue when Kaori responds. This is a reference to Kyon's narrating.
- The camera that Haruhi uses for taking Mikuru's maid costume photo is CASIO EXILIM EX-Z57(or EX-Z55). Mikuru uses this in Episode 6 ("Remote Island Syndrome (Part I)").
- In an Othello game, Mikuru was losing the game playing with Nagato. However, that was Nagato's first Othello play.
- Also notice that everybody parked their bikes in a "No Parking" zone. However Kyon was the only one to have his bike confiscated. This could be due to the fact that Haruhi wanted Kyon's bike to be confiscated in retaliation to him spending time with Mikuru and Nagato.
- The surreal beginning sequences seem to be homages to particular scenes throughout Neon Genesis Evangelion, particularly the cuts to black frame quotes, along with reversed and repeated images of Yuki and Kyon.
- In the DVD featuring this episode, there is an extra scene that furthers Itsuki's introduction to the club.
Current state of the "SOS Brigade" Dan hompage" No links, except for the fan club and etc..; The Profiles of all of the characters have been removed, the main signia is SOS, and only the agenda link is still there. -This is most likely due to season 2 airing very recently. In otherwords certain occurences have yet to taken place in the most recently aired episode of the anime.
| Episode Guide | Previous Episode | Next Episode |
| By airdate: | The Boredom of Suzumiya Haruhi | Remote Island Syndrome (Part I) |
| Chronologically: | The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi II | The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi IV |
