Xebek’s Blog

The cultural festival episode where the SOS Brigade’s movie premieres and Kyon goes from booth to booth seeing what people are doing. Haruhi, not needing to run the movie, gets dragged into a huge performance for some people.

Summary:

We start off seeing the start off the SOS Brigades movie premiering in a room at the schools cultural festival. Kyon walks out and complains to himself how he had to stay up all night putting the finishing touches on the movie so it would be ready for the cultural festival. Kyon walks around the school saying how his class just copped out of the festival and passed out a survey, but Mikuru, Itsuki, and Yuki all had activities and booths they had to run. Haruhi is busy passing out flyers for people to see their movie so Kyon just wanders around. He peeks into Yuki’s class and Yuki is doing fortune telling, although for her its more like telling the future and she tells people events such as in 5 minutes and 7 seconds you will bump into a sign. He peeks in on Itsuki and he is up on stage in a weird outfit talking about probability and natural forces and reality. Kyon runs into his two friends and they decide to go to the costume café where Mikuru is. They are greeted by Tsuruya who tells them they are making a lot of money off these idiots who are paying to eat crappy food because it is served by pretty girls. She pushes them into line and takes their money and after about a half hour they get in. After eating there and ogling Mikuru. They eventually split up and go their separate ways and Kyon being bored and not knowing what to do heads to the auditorium where the music activities are so he can sit down and perhaps take a nap.

After listening to some crappy amateur bands the popular music club performs and people start to fill the auditorium. Much to Kyon’s shock and almost horror he sees Haruhi up there with a guitar at the mic, along with Yuki with a guitar. He wonders what the hell is going on, as do the people around him. The music starts however and it is pretty good. Haruhi starts singing, as she is the lead singer and is amazing. She is drop dead wonderful at singing and sings with a lot of passion that the crowd soon starts to cheer and rock along to the music, while Kyon is left just staring in awe. Yuki too is amazing at the guitar. Eventually the song ends and Haruhi explains this is the popular music club, however two of the original members due to bad circumstances couldn’t’ make it so she and Yuki are filling in. She introduces the two real members and then Yuki and herself, saying how she just got the music an hour ago so doesn’t know if she is very good. She says because of that they only had time to practice two songs so their next one will be their last. She signs another song and again it is simply amazing and the whole crowd loves it.

The next day, Haruhi is explaining to Kyon how she got picked for that. She was handing out fliers when she went inside and heard the situation that two of the band members were sick, one had throat injury and the other a sprained wrist so she volunteered. She asked Yuki and with one look at the music Yuki was perfect at it. Kyon wasn’t really surprised there. At lunch, Haruhi headed out and soon after eating Kyon headed out as well and ran into Haruhi lying under a tree. He approached her and Haruhi says some things like she wasn’t sure if she was good enough and how she wished she had more time to practice. She says she has a weird feeling and can’t seem to stay calm and Kyon says to himself it’s because she did something that other people appreciate, the normal stuff she does doesn’t warrant a thank you. Haruhi sees Kyon just staring at her and yells at him that if he has something to say, to say it. She tries to throw grass at him but the wind blows it in her face and Kyon kind of laughs and smiles at her. Haruhi then jumps up and asks if Kyon can play an instrument. When he says no Haruhi simply says that can be fixed with practice and drags him along saying next year they will set up their own band, as well as a sequel to the movie, and lots of other stuff. Kyon tries to tell her to slow down but she drags him along anyways with her plans for the future.

Impressions:

Wow, this episode was amazing. It was just, wow. The whole music performance at the end just blew me away. I knew it was coming and that she sang great but seeing the character Haruhi singing that good, that passionately just made my jaw drop. It was cool seeing Yuki on the guitar but Haruhi was the one who really shone. Not only was the music itself great, but just seeing Haruhi as the one singing it and singing it so passionately as they showed her putting feeling into the words and the facial expression was just awesome.

Even though she was only in this episode for a little bit, I loved Tsuruya. Not only did she look nice in her outfit but her personality is great how se was so energetic and forceful. Her honesty was hilarious, saying in front of everyone lined up how they are just lining up to taste bad food made from cheap stuff and how much money they are making off these idiots was hilarious. Itsuki was also great in the small part he had. I have no idea what he was doing but I don’t necessarily think it was supposed to be what he was doing, how he kept talking in real technicalities about probability and reality. Not mentioning the music performance, Yuki was one of the best with her little fortune telling thing. How she was predicting the future exactly, to exact unimportant events happening right down to the second.

The end was really nice too. It had more of a sweet feel to it rather then a funny one, about how Haruhi felt weird and Kyon said to himself it was because she did something that other people appreciated, and normally what she does doesn’t warrant thanks from anyone. It was also cute just seeing the two of them together all calm like that and then Haruhi sort of got embarrassed it seemed and tried to throw grass at him to have it blow in her face. Kyon actually smiling at her was surprising. There was also the small bit before this when the band told Haruhi she should come to their concert and told her to bring her, *looks at Kyon* …friend was priceless, almost calling him her boyfriend. Then at the end of that I really got the feeling that a second season is possible. A lot of shows that people like people always say they want a second season but half the time the story wraps up and that’s impossible, but from everything Haruhi said and the way the show ended timeline wise, since we already saw, left room for a second season and I think it would be awesome if there was one. A sequel to the movie they made would just be one of the high points of the series.

Episode 01 <===> Episode 11

Episode 02 <===> Episode 01

Episode 03 <===> Episode 02

Episode 04 <===> Episode 07

Episode 05 <===> Episode 03

Episode 06 <===> Episode 09

Episode 07 <===> Episode 08

Episode 08 <===> Episode 10

Episode 09 <===> Episode 14

Episode 10 <===> Episode 04

Episode 11 <===> Episode 13

Episode 12 <===> Episode 12

Episode 13 <===> Episode 05 (Not released yet)

Episode 14 <===> Episode 06 (Not released yet)