The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
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The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya follows the high school life of Haruhi Suzumiya, a young and very active high school girl, and those who are caught up in her antics. While Haruhi is the central character to the plot, the story is told from the point of view of Kyon, one of Haruhi's classmates.
Kyon is an ordinary freshman high school student who has recently given up his fantasies of espers, time travelers, and aliens as he left middle school. When he chooses to speak to Haruhi, he unwittingly sets off a chain of events which drag him into surreal situations; he is drawn further into a world eerily like the fantasies he had just managed to outgrow, with Haruhi at its center.
Searching for a group that interests her, Haruhi joins and quits every club in the school, finding only dissatisfaction. Kyon makes a snide remark about her actions and accidentally provides Haruhi the inspiration to create a club of her own. To help start the club, Haruhi forcefully drafts Kyon, who only stays in the club to protect other helpless victims of Haruhi's "voluntary arrests". As the story progresses, Kyon finds that each of these supposedly "helpless victims" has a specific reason to be there.
The series never clarifies whether the club members gathered around Haruhi by their own free will, her subconscious, or were simply created out of thin air for Haruhi's amusement. The question of their origin is a motif seen throughout the series.
Characters
Kyon: The male protagonist that viewers see the story through, unlike the others in the S.O.S. Brigade he is an average teenage High School student. He's the resident cynic of the group, as he is usually seen complaining especially of Haruhi. He tries to defend Mikuru, and sometimes Yuki, from Haruhi's antics. A running gag is that everyone calls him Kyon instead of his real(unknown) name; much to his annoyance.
Haruhi Suzimiya: The female protagonist that the whole world revolves around. Described as 'Beyond Eccentric' by another student, she seeks abnormal beings to spark her interest. She thinks of love and romance as a form of mental disease, yet she still seems to fall for Kyon as she became jealous when she saw Kyon and Mikuru standing close to each other.
Yuki Nagato: A silent young woman who usually wants to simply be left alone to read. Without Haruhi knowing, Yuki is in fact a "humanoid interface," or an artificial human, created by the extraterrestrial Integrated Data Entity. She is the first to approach Kyon to inform him about what she really is.
Mikuru Asahina: Mikuru is a timid young woman who's one year older than Haruhi. She is the first 'victim' of Haruhi's 'Voluntary arrests.' There are actually two Mikurus in the story, one is the 'present' day one who's constantly being harassed by Haruhi while the other is an older Mikuru who seems to be one of Mikuru's superiors. Mikuru was the second to approach Kyon to tell him about her being a time traveler.
Itsuki Koizumi: A young teen who is almost always smiling and more than willing to give in to Haruhi's strange demands. He turns out to be one of many espers in an organization known as the Agency. He is the main fighter of the group, and is the last to approach Kyon to speak of his identity. He seems to enjoy watching others rather than get involved.
