It’s been probably around a month since I finished up Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu, but now I’ve got some affairs in order and it’s time to begin with Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu!
The final piece of the Haruhi puzzle.
Synopsis
Yuki and Kyon hang out in the literature clubroom after school, before going home. Yuki suggests holding a Christmas party in the clubroom (even though there are only two of them, plus Asakura). Kyon visits Yuki’s place for dinner, cooked by Asakura. The next day the club receives permission to use the clubroom on Christmas, and the three begin to search for somewhere they can buy a turkey.
They run into Asahina and Tsuruya and Tsuruya mentions she can get them a turkey through her family. But then she challenges Yuki to a battle via proxy, and Yuki faces off against Asahina in a bunch of random activities such as advertising for a store and cooking. After a draw, everyone goes home.
Episode Thoughts
Ok, well it’s tough to do a synopsis for slice of life / comedy. I missed a lot of details, but I’m also not about to explain every gag in the anime! The gist of it is that Yuki wanted a Christmas party at the literature club, and that’s what she’s going to get. Everything else was for comedy.
And I’ll get to that.
First though is the elephant in the room when moving onto this anime.
Yuki’s character is a bit different in this. She’s a little more outspoken than the human Yuki we saw in the Haruhi movie. In that Yuki was very shy, to an extreme degree. But she was still a little outgoing, given that she still made the bold move to give Kyon a club recruitment form and even invite him over after school. From what I’ve seen so far, her boldness hasn’t changed in that sense. It’s really just that she speaks more.
Considering she’s the main character alongside Kyon, it makes sense. Even if it feels a little off, I understand the purpose for it and have no issues with it overall.
After Yuki the next major change is the art style. I’ll admit, Yuki isn’t as cute as she was in previous shows. But once again, I’m not about to tear this show apart over a change in art style because the fact is this was probably made by a different studio, with a different budget and things like this. It is what it is, so once again I won’t take issue with this change overall either.
Plus the new style is sort of cutesy in it’s own way. It’s not all that bad, to be honest. Feels like it fits the tone of the show better.
As for the episode itself, I thought it was pretty good. There were some funny moments, for sure. For example, when Tsuruya sees Kyon with Yuki and Asakura, she whipped out a “Asahina Fan Club Membership Card” that she had made for Kyon, and accused him of not being a loyal fan. That was the funniest scene from the episode I think.
In Conclusion…
It’s nice to be back in the Haruhi universe, although I guess this is the “normal” world where Haruhi isn’t all-powerful. This is just the first episode, so I’m still mainly interested in seeing where the show wants to go.
Until next time,
Thanks for reading.
Umai Yomu Anime Blog 
I am like the only person I know who picked the Nagato Yuki world in the movie:
https://carnivorouslreviews.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/kyons-choice-and-why-i-think-it-was-the-wrong-one/
I got a LOT of flak for that one,lol
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Yeah you’ve mentioned that before. There’s a pretty good argument for both sides I think.
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That joke is pretty funny XD I think you’ll have a good time with this one, it had more going on than a lot of folks thought it did. I don’t really get why everybody seems to hate it really.
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Probably the same reason people didn’t like Handa-kun, after having watched Barakamon. I thought Handa-kun was hilarious, but it’s definitely true that swapping genres in a franchise can be a weird experience.
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I suppose so, but in Haruhi’s case, this is hardly a real spin-off. It’s more alt-universe.
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I watched this way back but dropped it for some reason.
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