Tasunke's Random Ramblings

So, after some sleep, I have some additional notes on the Haruhi movie. Some things I forgot to mention in my last post. The above image is from a set of postcards given out as a free gift to those attending the film.

The opening theme for the movie was the same as the TV series, 冒険でしょうでしょう？ (Bouken Deshou Deshou?) Which was quite nostalgic and I had to supress the urge to sing along in the theater. XD It didn’t use the original TV opening animation sequence, of course, but it was still nice to hear and beautiful in the theater’s surround sound system. ^_^

The ending theme was a very slow song sung by (I believe) Yuki’s VA, and it was vocal only. No music, no backup at all, just the one beautiful female voice singing. n.n More pictures of the postcard set after the jump. (more…)

So I finally went and saw 涼宮ハルヒの消失, or The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya today, Saturday, the 27th of March, 2010. I went to a late showing, which is why I’m posting this after midnight Japan time on the 28th. Wow, what an incredible movie. If you’re a fan of the Haruhi franchise at all, you’ll love this movie, IMHO. Wonderful, wonderful film. The above image is of the movie’s program book, called a “pamphlet,” that you can purchase at the theater, along with other goods related to the movies they are currently showing. (Oh and just for the record, it’s “Disappearance” not “Vanishment.” The name even shows up at the bottom of the screen in English as “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” at the beginning of the film.)

This film does a really great job continuing where the TV series left off, and manages to also tie up some loose ends that I had forgotten about. Something I found very interesting though was the product placement in the film. Instead of your standard slight spelling change so that it’s similar to the brand you’re trying to portray but different enough that you won’t get in trouble, the actual brands show up. For instance, Kyon buys some stuff at a Family Mart (a convenience store chain here in Japan), and when a computer gets booted up in the film, there’s the actual Microsoft Windows startup screen, with correct spelling and everything.

The background visuals, especially in certain parts of the movie, where this effect seemed more pronounced than others, seemed like they could have just been rotoscoped video. The cars and the buildings had a more real feel to them than the actual characters did, at times. Don’t get me wrong, I dearly love the movie, and this certainly doesn’t ruin it for me. However, it was slightly distracting at times, with the characters almost seeming like they didn’t belong in those scenes, like they were actually just characters drawn onto real-life video footage.

Overall, though, I must say that I quite enjoyed the movie, and was pleasantly suprised how much of the dialog I actually understood. I didn’t get alot of the stuff when they started talking all technical and using alot of sci-fi jargon, but then again, some of that stuff’s hard enough to follow along with when I do have subtitles. ;)

Well, that’s the spoiler-free version. More pictures, followed by spoilers, are after the jump. (more…)