It would appear that the next season of Haruhi will most likely be The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. I’m definitely excited. And here’s why I believe it’s going to be based on this storyline (from Anime News Network):

SPOILER ALERT!! –
After the Anime News Network message, I’m going to go a little in depth to the storyline.

The official Japanese website for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya television anime series has announced further details about the franchise’s next anime project. In the spirit of the first anime series and the Haruhi Suzumiya science fiction comedy light novels that spawned the franchise, the announcement was made in a roundabout, cryptic manner.

On Tuesday, the site “disappeared” and began displaying a false error message that read, “The page cannot be found.” A second message then appears over the first message; it states that a computer program is starting up and prompts the user for a password. If the user enters “K,” “N,” “S,” “A,” and “K” (the initials of the family names of the members of SOS brigade, the main characters in the series) into the password fields and selects the radio button to the right, a fake xterm terminal session opens. A series of messages from “YUKI.N” confirms that the key to the “emergency escape program” has been found and asks for a final confirmation before starting the program. If the user hits the enter key, a new page opens that shows the character Yuki and lists the production credits of the new series.

The page reveals that the previously announced second anime season of Haruhi Suzumiya has been “cancelled” and replaced with a new animation project. Yasuhiro Takemoto (Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Lucky Star) will direct the new project, and Kyoto Animation will still be animating as it did for the first anime project. As in the previous anime project, the fictional “leader” of the new anime project is the character Haruhi Suzumiya herself. The “disappearance” of the website on December 18 at 4:00 a.m. (Japan Standard Time) is a reference to the pivotal date in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, the fourth volume in the light novel series and an apparent indication of which novel plot the new anime project will adapt. Bandai Entertainment finished its English-language release of the first anime project in November.

Alright, on to a preview the Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi.

So what happens is one day, Kyon wakes up and the world literally has changed over night. Haruhi is missing, no one knows who Haruhi is (except for Tanaguchi), Asahina doesn’t know him, Itsuki is missing, and Asakura is back! Not to mention, Yuki, the only person who can save the day, has become a fragile loner of a bookworm. Talk about the odds stacked against Kyon.

So where’s Haruhi. Well, someone changed history to have Haruhi end up at a different school. Here she is in another school uniform. Looks quite spiffy, if you ask me. By the way, Itsuki is at this school too.

With Haruhi at another school and not having met Kyon, the SOS Brigade would never have been created. Sounds like a villain plotting the destruction of the SOS Brigade by making sure it never even had a chance to be made.

And as for the big spoiler: Let’s take a look at the image released by Kyoto Animation. This is an image of Yuki with her arm stretched out aiming at the school. Since I read the novels, I know exactly what’s going on here. And it points out what Haruhi Season 2 is going to be, which is The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. Not only is it this, but it should be this one by the fact that it is the only one next to the original novel that actually has a decent anime-acceptable plot. The other stories available are rather short or not interesting enough. This one is, and many would agree. Here’s another cover art to finish it off:

The episodes starts out with a flashback of Margery Daw’s first encounter with the Tomogara with the silver flame. This Tomogara kills everyone in sight and Margery herself is quite bloodied up. It’s a more detailed event of what caused Margery Daw to become a Flame Haze and why she holds a death grudge against the silver flame. It also points out that she was a human around medieval times. She wakes up from the flashback dream to drink some more.

Over at Yuji’s training spot, he is training against Wilhelmina. Her wrappings transform into the large baby Rinne that he encountered when he first met Shana. The sudden reappearance throws him off guard, but he is able to block the attack. Sato observes the fight and walks away with frustration and envy. It’s another developing situation for the series involving Sato’s obsession to get stronger.

Alastor tells Yuji that it’s about time he started to learn how to cast a Fuzetsu. Later that night, Wilhelmina’s research into Yuji’s Reiji Maigo leads her to a name: Pheles. The next day, she packs up and tells Shana she’ll be gone for some time for more research. Pheles is still an unknown at this point, but it’s safe to assume that Wilhelmina knows something about Pheles.

Back at Margery Daw, Sato returns home and requests to be trained to get more power to follow Margery Daw. Margery tells him he would die if that were to happen. This leads to a flashback story of Margery Daw in the 1950s in New York. It starts out with her doing battle wih a Tomogara with a clock for a face called Anna Berg, which is also written on his clock/face. She is ambushed by Metamorphosis during the fight. She’s incapacitated, but Anna Berg decides to not kill her and instead move on to his plans.

At this point, I’m surprised Metamorphosis doesn’t just finish the job knowing the dangers of keeping Margery alive so that she can return to fight again. Villains and fiction at work here. OH well. Back to the episode.

After the two villains leave, Margery recuperates and has a change of wardrobe. While changing, a young boy runs up to her while the Fuzetsu is still up and sees her without any articles of clothing resulting in him receiving an off-screen beatdown for having come into such an awkward situation. Turns out he is a Flame Haze by the name of Yuri. As Margery narrates, she explains that Yuri was a strange one because he didn’t have it in him to kill Tomogaras. She even hints at a great battle in Europe between Flame Hazes and a group of Tomogaras calling themselves the Revolution. Margery is in America to deliver a message to a Flame Haze called Eastedge regarding the topic.

I wonder if that topic will be touched upon again. It could lead to an interesting side story. A war of Tomogaras and Flame Hazes.

Eastedge requests Margery to train Yuri for a while. For his own sake, I guess. Yuri explains how he was on an immigrant ship that got attacked by a Tomogara. He was knocked off the ship, and there he made a contract with Valac to become a Flame Haze. From this, it is obvious that he is not a good candidate to be a Flame Haze for his large compassion for saving human lives. Margery feels that he lacks the properties for the job and tells him to go home while she goes on to face Anna Berg at the Empire State Building.

Overall, this was a decent episode. I would say that they are moving the story along even though it’s mostly a flashback story. At least it’s not another wasted episode like the last four episodes.

Alright, one more useless episode to get through. Sorry, but the last few episodes have been pretty bad. This episode would make it the fourth “filler-like” episode. That’s a month’s worth of useless episodes. So let’s speed this one up too.

Turns out, Ike scheduled a theme park outing with the group so that he could eventually get some alone time with Yoshida on the ferris wheel. He has everything planned out, but all his plans go awry.

Long story short, he leads everyone to a giant maze and pairs everyone up to have a race to see who makes it out first. The only notable part of this whole episode is this one part where Shana and Sato are paired together. Sato takes the chance to ask Shana if he could become a Flame Haze. Another instance of his willingness to become stronger. We don’t find out Shana’s answer nor his reason for wanting to become one though. It’s a quick 15-second scene.

Ike and Yoshida end up exiting first and convinces her to go on the ferris wheel with him. Unfortunately, he has a bad case of motion sickness. The ferris wheel in the past did not give him motion sickness, but he fell victim to it this time. And.. that’s about it for this episode. From the previews, it would look like things are getting back to what the series is about: Flame Hazes battling Tomogaras. Finally, I say. Finally.

Before I begin with this episode, this is yet another craptastic episode. So I’m just going to do a speed summary.

Basically, there’s a surprise test for the next day and the usual cache of characters decide to get together for a study group. Shana isn’t sure of showing up and holds off on her decision. In the end, she shows up anyway.

They do some studying and some eating. Ogata and Yoshida bump into Margery Daw since they’re at Sato’s house. Margery gives them some love advice and everyone goes about their way. Yoshida shares the advice with Shana as they are frienemies.

By the end of the episode, Shana and Yoshida have started to accept Konoe a little more as they consider her as more or less harmless. With that, Shana returns to training Yuji.

That’s all I can say about this episode. It was really just that useless. Just another episode to progress the adolescent emotional mindsets of Shana and Yoshida. The next episode is pretty much the same too.

This and the next two episodes plus the previous episode were so useless, it took me out of the rhythm of reviewing the episodes as they came in. The series finally picked up on the storyline, so I’m trying to catch up.

Alright, so this episode begins with Yuji training with Wilhelmina and showing signs of improvement by dodging one of her attacks. This is about it for anything related to the true essence of the series genre.

Next we see Shana and Wilhelmina ready to eat dinner. Alastor questions Wilhelmina’s choice of food (Cup Ramen). She explains it’s the most efficient of sustenance, despite Alastor’s critique on the need for variety. Shana decides to take a bath instead and in the process gets into an argument with Wilhelmina.

The next day, Yuji goes to pick up Konoe. He’s invited inside the mansion by the butler. The mansion is dark and there’s no one there except for the butler and Konoe. It’s like a horror movie waiting to happen. At school, both Shana and Yoshida are starting to feel the emotional strain due to Yuji’s attention to Konoe. Ike pulls Yuji aside and hints to him that he needs to be more considerate to the others around him. Somehow, I’m starting to get the aching feeling that this show is becoming more and more like a school love drama. t(>.<)t

Fast forward through the episode… Wilhelmina wants to be a better cook and bumps into Yuji’s mom and gets help from her. Then throw in a scene with Margery Daw that has nothing to do with anything. Then return back to Wilhelmina who introduces a cooked meal to Shana. It’s not that great, but Shana accepts it because she’s aware of the effort Wilhelmina put in to making the meal.

Overall, this episode was pretty useless. Had nothing to do with anything. I understand they are trying to push the tension that Yuji causes by giving too much attention to Konoe, but just get on with it. This is horrible.