Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu

Synopsis

Kyon, your typical high school student, has long given up his belief in the supernatural. However, upon meeting Haruhi Suzumiya, he quickly finds out that it is the supernatural that she is interested in; aliens, time travelers and espers among other things. When Haruhi laments about the lack of intriguing clubs around school, Kyon inspires Haruhi to form her own club. As a result, the SOS Brigade is formed, a club which specializes in all that is the supernatural.

Much to his chagrin, Kyon, along with the silent bookworm, Yuki Nagato, the shy and timid Mikuru Asahina, and the perpetually smiling Itsuki Koizumi, are recruited as members. The story follows the crazy adventures that these four endure under their whimsical leader, Haruhi. The story is based on the light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa.


Main Character

Kyon (キョン)

Kyon is a first year high school student. He is quite cynical and does not believe in anything interesting like aliens or espers. But his curiosity gets the better of him when he tries to talk to Haruhi Suzumiya. She starts the SOS Brigade, and drags Kyon into it. Where he tries his best to stop Haruhi from causing too much trouble.

Kyon is the second person to join the SOS Brigade, and is the "fourth seat" of the group. He is the only member of the group who is "normal", having no special abilities at all. He is enrolled in North High, and his real name is unknown, his nickname Kyon was created for him by his aunt and then spread by his little sister.

Mikuru Asahina (朝比奈 みくる)

Mikuru Asahina, a shy and timid girl with a childish naïveté, is the only character other than Kyon to be brought into the SOS Brigade against her will. She is defined by Kyon to be extremely cute, and is often sexually harassed by Haruhi Suzumiya. She is in fact a time traveller from the future with the purpose of observing Haruhi during the course of the story line.

Considered one of the most beautiful girls in high school Mikuru is as kind, caring and thoughtful as she is beautiful. She easily gets scared or flustered, and is apparently prone to daydreaming as she can also be rather clumsy at times. Nevertheless, she can be surprisingly resilient and is capable of recovering from even the most discomforting of situations. However, because of her gentle nature she seems rather helpless most of the time. Kyon sees it as his duty to always watch over and protect her, although, when it comes to Haruhi there is no rescue.

Mikuru is the designated "mascot" of the SOS Brigade, serving as a way to attract interest and members by using her attractive physical qualities- her cute face, trim figure, and noticeably sizeable bust. She was "voluntarily arrested" by Haruhi, who deemed it necessary to have an alluring lolita type in the club. Her sex appeal and innocence is often exploited by Haruhi to procure resources. Mikuru is on a regular occasion forced to wear any outfits that Haruhi buys for her. Haruhi also sees it fit that Mikuru is unable to dress and undress by herself most times and often does it for her, much to Mikuru's considerable - and vocal - distress. So far Mikuru has worn the following outfits: maid, waitress, nurse, frog costume, cheerleader, miko, and the infamous bunny-girl.

The name "Mikuru (みくる)" is derived from "Miku" which when wrote in Kanji is "Mirai (未来)" ("future" in Japanese).

Itsuki Koizumi (古泉 一樹)

Itsuki is the last member to have joined the SOS Brigade, having been recruited by Haruhi as a "mysterious transfer student". Itsuki was sent to observe and keep Haruhi emotionally stable, in order to protect the rest of humanity. Although he is an esper, which is exactly one of the sorts of people Haruhi desires to meet, Itsuki never reveals himself as such, at least, not to her.

Itsuki is constantly smiling and always speaks in a formal and polite manner. He is also prone to giving long and detailed explanations, usually illustrated by exaggerated hand gestures. Itsuki has confirmed to Kyon once that his outer personality is merely an artificial image he fakes in accordance to Haruhi's impression of him, and hints that his true character is something quite different, being "less pleasing" in the eyes of others. Maintaining his casual, constantly smiling self, however, is vital for keeping Haruhi's mentality balanced.

Out of the three Brigade members, Kyon is the least fond of Itsuki. He often finds himself annoyed with Itsuki's plastic smile, his willingness to acquiesce to Haruhi's outrageous schemes, playful teasing and his various forays into his psychological and philosophical theories (e.g., omphalos hypothesis, Anthropic principle, etc.). He is also distrustful of Itsuki's intentions, comparing him to Yuki Nagato when it comes to deciphering his expressions. Itsuki's fondness for speculation often causes him to produce explanations for situations involving the SOS Brigade, its members and related events. Ironically, Itsuki can only share his theories with Kyon and also enthusiastically plays different kinds of board games with him to pass the time, despite losing all the time, although Kyon suspects that he may be doing so on purpose.

Despite the theory he advances in which Haruhi is the equivalent of God, Itsuki says that there are many differing lines of speculation about Haruhi within "The Agency." Itsuki himself does not believe in a singular God, nor does he regard Haruhi as such, although he reveals that he has colleagues that do. Apparently, most of the questions that he raises about Haruhi's true nature are philosophical in nature and do not necessarily represent his personal beliefs. Itsuki also reveals that the majority of "The Agency" advocates observing Haruhi instead of doing anything that might provoke her.



In the Disappearance arc, the altered Koizumi reveals that he has a crush on Haruhi. This does not necessarily mean that the real Koizumi harbors such feelings, but it is possible that he would have feelings for her if Kyon would not be Haruhi's love interest.

In The Astonishment arc, Koizumi is revealed to be the leader and founder of the Agency. Furthermore, he reveals part of his true personality when he blows up at the aliens and time travelers for meddling. More or less, he threatens war against both factions should they continuing tampering with Haruhi. Koizumi also says that he is a part of Haruhi's subconscious made physical, although he never explains what he means more fully. He seems especially suspicious of the time travelers, particularly Asahina (Big).

Yuki Nagato (長門 有希)

Nagato Yuki is a fictional character in the Suzumiya Haruhi series. She is initially portrayed as an introverted, taciturn bibliophile. She is actually an artificial human created by the Integrated Data Entity, and possesses supernatural powers as a result. She joins Haruhi Suzumiya's SOS Brigade in order to observe her on the behalf of the Integrated Data Entity. In addition, she is present to ensure that Haruhi does not use her godlike powers, and aids the other Brigade members in stopping forces that wish her to do so.

Yuki Nagato is a quiet high school freshman that is the only member of the SOS Brigade that was not "voluntarily arrested," or coerced into joining, by Haruhi Suzumiya. When Haruhi claimed the empty Literature Club as the SOS Brigade's clubroom, Yuki was found reading there. Haruhi claimed the clubroom and Yuki as part of the Brigade, both of which she didn't mind. She lives alone in the same apartment complex as Ryoko Asakura. She wears glasses and her school uniform at all times, only discarding the former after Kyon babbled that she was cuter without them and that he wasn't a 'glasses man', and the latter when the SOS Brigade went on vacation.

Yuki is a "humanoid interface," or artificial human, created by the Integrated Data Entity for the purposes of interacting with and observing events on Earth. Specifically, she is assigned to observe Haruhi, who is the cause of an explosion of data that occurred when she used her godlike powers to recreate the world three years prior.

As an artificial human, she has numerous paranormal abilities. She is capable of manipulating the properties of the environment and any materials within it at any scale to her desire, referred to as "bogus magic" by Kyon. For instance, she can create a baseball bat that only hits home runs, nullify data links (removing other artificial interface connections from their bodies), plus she is able to make a cover up story (since Ryoko was gone, she made a cover up story that she moved to Canada), and reconstruct a classroom, down to the last detail, after everything in it was completely destroyed. As a result, she is capable of feats of superhuman strength, agility, and stamina. In one instance, she was unfazed while impaled by multiple metal spikes, and effortlessly reconstructed her body afterwards. Her state also affords her an extreme level of intelligence. She can comprehend the rules and concepts of a game instantaneously, as well as create flawless strategies based on her observations, and was able to learn how to play a guitar mere moments after receiving one.

Yuki has a very stoic and introverted personality, preferring simple body language rather than speaking. When prompted to speak, she does so in a very concise manner, always speaking in a monotone and displaying a dispassionate complexion. She thinks very rationally, and finds it difficult to communicate with normal humans due to her intelligence and lack of empathy. She enjoys reading, and is seen reading a book in the majority of her appearances. As the series continues, she develops a sense of humor, although her unchanging facial expressions make it near-impossible to discern whether she is joking or not. Despite her reserved manner, she is reliable and trustworthy, resulting in Kyon trusting her more than other members of the SOS Brigade.

Yuki is described by Haruhi as the SOS Brigade's "indispensable silent character." She was neither recruited by nor did she join the Brigade but was actually included along with the room when Haruhi arrived and declared it as her own. Whenever she is in the club room, she is usually reading. Similar to Itsuki Koizumi, Yuki is obedient when orders are given; however, her loyalties lie more with Kyon rather than Haruhi. The other members often rely on Yuki and her abilities whenever needed most, notably when the SOS Brigade was losing in the baseball tournament, the contest against the Computer Society, and in the case of the Cave Cricket. Aside from this role, she is also responsible for Kyon's safety, as evident when she saved him from an attack by Ryōko, since Kyon's presence stabilizes Haruhi's emotions.

In the SOS Brigade's amateur movie production The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina, Yuki was cast as the leading antagonist. She was portrayed as an alien, who could also use magic.

Kyon also realized after the "cave cricket" incident that Yuki plays a "behind the scenes" role, making her one of the puppeteers whose goals are to ensure Haruhi is fully satisfied and that order and balance are maintained. Her intentions of being in the Brigade are to monitor Haruhi and prevent her from feeling bored or greatly disappointed because it is generally believed by the Integrated Data Entity that a drastic event that could end the universe would occur. It is also believed that Haruhi is also the key to evolution and thus it is important for Yuki and other humanoid interfaces to continue their observations. She also has the ability to detect any spatial changes in the environment caused by Haruhi and will act to prevent them from persisting. An example of this is during the unscripted attack in the first fight scene of the Brigade movie, when she tackled Mikuru in order to remove her contact lens which had temporarily caused the fictional "Mikuru Beam" to become real.

Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮 ハルヒ)

Background
Haruhi Suzumiya, a first year student at North High School (in novels 1-8), and second year (in the 9th and latest novel), can be characterized as funny, eccentric, and somewhat unpredictable. In the series, she is introduced declaring her interests in aliens, espers and time travelers and does not care for 'ordinary' human beings. The last thing on her mind is a normal high school life. With a burning desire to find such phenomena in the world, she is generally unapproachable and finds ordinary people boring and uninteresting. As a result of this, many of her classmates choose to avoid and confront her. She deals with her emotions by creating a parallel universe, where she inadvertently releases transparent creatures who tear up and destroy everything that comes into contact with them. Espers are the ones who can stop these creatures by cutting and destroying them, because if these creatures are left alone destroying everything as well as the outer barrier it could affect the outside world. She also likes to dress up Mikuru in random outfits.

Kyon is the first character to engage with her in a serious conversation. From this encounter, she gradually begins to soften up to others and starts to open up with her classmates. Later on, Haruhi took Kyon against his will and forced him to help her start the SOS Brigade, thus she has taken an unknown interests to Kyon later in the series. It is hinted that one of the reasons as to why Haruhi opened up to Kyon was that he resembled John Smith; John Smith and Kyon are the same person.

She is noted as smart, athletic, and naturally talented in any extra-curricular activities. She once joined every activity club in her school and quit because she found them boring, despite pleas by the club members for her membership. Her musical talent was highlighted when she stood in as the emergency lead singer and guitarist, along with Yuki, for the band ENOZ during the school festival.

Her childhood is cited as an originator for her interests in strange phenomena. While attending a baseball game with her family, she was shocked to see the vast number of people who had come to see the game. Before then, she had often thought of herself and her life as being special and interesting, yet then came to realize that they were just ordinary normal occurrences and habits and that she is just one of many living human in all of Japan in which Japan is just part of Earth. Consequently, she believed then that there must be at least one person in the world who is living an interesting and truly unique life and sought out to effectively be that person thus motivating her to seek out the extraordinary.

After this realization she became notorious in middle school for doing odd things which included painting strange hieroglyphs all over the school grounds using a field marker and placing all the school desks in the halls. Additionally, she accepted and rejected every guy who had ever asked her out, the longest lasting a week and the shortest being five minutes. She only seeks relationships with aliens, espers, and time travelers. This shows the depth of her interest in finding non-humans and strange phenomena.

In actuality, Haruhi is believed to be either a crack in the space-time continuum, the first technological singularity to be spontaneously born in the universe, or some sort of deity, depending on point of view. This belief stems from a massive spontaneous universal event that occurred three years prior to Haruhi meeting Kyon, of which Haruhi is said to be the cause. The event attracted the attention of three prominent groups: the Extraterrestrial Integrated Data Entity, time travelers from a distant future, and a group of espers known as the "Agency".

Her powers which are capable of altering, creating, or destroying reality are triggered by her emotions and inner desires. It's been theorized by the espers that the current universe may be just one in a string that Haruhi had subconsciously created. In order to relieve stress whenever she becomes too emotionally unstable, patches of alternate dimension referred to as "closed space" are created and within resides gigantic blue entities that destroy the surrounding area. Despite having these powers Haruhi is completely oblivious to them or the existence of aliens, time travelers, and espers.

Personality
At first, Haruhi seems very indifferent and cold but underneath that front she is very spontaneous, upbeat, and hyperactive. Her determination, persistence, and resourcefulness drive her endeavors of finding strange phenomenon and promoting the SOS Brigade. Because of her dedication, she becomes hot-headed when things don't go her way. Hand-in-hand with her cleverness and creativity, and a certain ruthlessness, even seeming amorality, she can often get what she wants, an example of such is when she blackmailed the Computer Society President into giving her a brand new computer for the SOS Brigade. Haruhi tends to pursue her goals regardless of who gets in the way, or is hurt, such as Mikuru in the aforementioned blackmail. She also has a tendency to be jealous and angry when Kyon gets too friendly with any girl. Evidently, the universe was almost destroyed and recreated when Haruhi's jealousy was pushed too far.

Haruhi also has a very competitive personality and accepts without hesitation any challenge that crosses her, regardless of difficulty or time constraint. Her constant optimism and over-confidence make her seem arrogant. She has very high standards and won't accept anything less than perfection from herself and her Brigade. She places a lot of trust in her Brigade members, especially Kyon, to get the task done whatever it may be. This can sometimes make her seem selfish and unkind.

She is not shy and often attracts a lot of attention to the point of not minding changing clothes in front of various people, more so when her SOS Brigade is in mind. When it comes to Mikuru she is very physically playful. She often comments on Mikuru's attractiveness and seems to find a kind of enjoyment in exploiting it to her own ends, often through forcing Mikuru into and out of various costumes such as a bunny girl costume as if she were a human dress-up doll.

Haruhi also seems to hate showing signs of vulnerability to others. Following her concert performance at the school's culture festival when she and Yuki filled in for two members of the band ENOZ, Haruhi showed awkwardness towards the band members when they thanked her the following day. As Kyon pointed out, Haruhi was not used to receiving praise from others because of how mischievous she regularly acts towards others because of her abnormal interests.

Though many of Haruhi's efforts are devoted to finding supernatural beings, she does not actually believe in them. This is suggested by Itsuki during the first light novel, that Haruhi does not force himself, Yuki, or Mikuru to reveal themselves because her commonsense will not let her believe that they exist. In fact, between the first and second light novels, when Kyon tries to convince Haruhi that the other SOS Brigade members are more than they appear, she does not believe him. Later, she bases The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina on Kyon's story.

SOS Brigade role
Haruhi is the founder and "Brigade Chief" of the SOS Brigade, or Saving The World by Overloading it with Fun Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade (世界を大いに盛り上げるための涼宮ハルヒの団, Sekai o Ōini Moriageru Tame no Suzumiya Haruhi no Dan?). She was unable to find any existing club suitable to her preferences. She made the group in order to find and have fun with aliens, espers, and time travelers. Upon creation, she names herself as its leader. Her method of finding and recruiting members is to "voluntarily arrest" them then force them to join.

The SOS Brigade is very precious to her and has stated to Kyon that she has no intention of yielding her position as Chief to anyone else. She will go to any lengths, even by exploiting the members, to bring attention and support for her Brigade such as procuring room and materials, maintaining their website, participating in sports tournaments, organizing activities such as city-wide searches for strange phenomenon among other things. She wrote, produced, and directed the Brigade's amateur-movie The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina for the school festival.

However, unbeknownst to her is the true purpose of the SOS Brigade: to prevent Haruhi from becoming bored, as her boredom would bring about the end of the world as the SOS Brigade's members know it. Kyon also happens to be a very important person in her life. For whatever reason, Haruhi "chose" Kyon. This is first said by Yuki, then restated by Mikuru, and Itsuki as well. She often relies on and trusts Kyon with anything. Kyon is the only person whom she has been open with, and when she briefly created a "new world", he was the only person she had brought over from the "old world". These are all made evident in the fourth novel The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya, where she remained at Kyon's side for the three days he was in a coma due to a small accident. However, he is apparently worth far more to her than even she realizes. Unknown to her, the person she knew as John Smith, who "helped" her draw weird symbols at the schoolyard of East Junior High (her old school) at night on Tanabata three years prior, is in fact, Kyon from the present time, sent back in time. Furthermore, his time there unintentionally created an alternate timeline where no SOS Brigade existed, Yuki, Mikuru, Ryoko, Itsuki and Haruhi were normal humans and the latter two never transferred to North High, thus no SOS Brigade. Only by going back to that night again was Kyon able to set things right. Finally, should Kyon reveal to Haruhi that he is John Smith, it would radically change everything, as he stated to the Integrated Data Entity through Yuki.