Again, no full review for the Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan ; it’s a show that makes no sense if you’re not familiar with the parent franchise.
If you are familiar with it, then you’ll be even more baffled, as it completely misses the point.
A running thread in the Haruhi franchise is how protagonist Kyon is in complete denial over Haruhi being his type, as his narration instead keeps lusting over super-submissive moeblob Mikuru. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is all about Yuki misunderstanding his feelings by creating an alternate reality that keeps Haruhi out of the picture and turns herself into a moeblob. And the whole point of that story is that it was a mistake, a horrific perversion of reality that Kyon couldn’t decently let stand.
And yet, here we are, in a version of this perverted universe with the added wrinkle that Kyon seems none the wiser, and is thus having a generic romantic comedy with Yuki as the main love interest, and Ryoko as the pushy friend who nudges the two of them together. I find it rather telling that Kyon’s character design is horribly off-model in this, making him look way more generic than the KyoAni version. (Yet, Tomokazu Sugita still somehow voices the same Kyon as always.)
The problem here is that while Yuki’s wet dream originally had a narrative purpose, it’s completely boring once stripped of that context. The links to the original franchise only underline by contrast how empty and dull the characters have become. You’ve basically removed everything that made the original story interesting.
I can’t imagine what the effect of actually bringing back Haruhi into this will be (she only gets a cameo in this first episode, but it looks like she’s going to actually feature in the future), but I’m not masochistic enough to stick around until it happens. I’m done, thank you.
