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Comment by veonik | Hacker News Reader

Dude… are you telling me it isnt actually finished? I am watching season 1 for the first time…

My memory is:

1. Haruhi is based on light novels, so has to actually perform to get a release. Japanese market is upside down, the anime often goes to free to air to support a manga release where the real money is made (I have no idea how this works economically this is just how its explained to me) as there isn't any more manga or light novels to release, the likelihood of another season is low. It was sort of always a passion project.

2. The studio was firebombed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack

3. Season 2 was critically panned, but I dunno I thought it was pretty genius.

My suggestion, watch both series, then read the english translation of the novels.

The studio being firebombed probably does not factor much into it. Kyoani and Kadokawa have beef, but Kadokawa can easily contract it to another studio to do. They just don't want to because of 1.

Also don't forget to watch Disappearance after the 2 seasons.

It is more likely that a given anime is used as advertising for a light novel/manga series than it is for the entire thing to be faithfully adapted. Just off my the top of my head, shows I've watched that are never, ever going to get animated conclusions: Grimoire of Zero, 86, Kemono Jihen, Drifters, High School of the Dead. Might seem short, but I'm lucky in that my tastes tend towards big-name shounen stuff and anime originals that either lurch towards a conclusion over a decade or were written from the beginning to be one or two cours, respectively. For less-well-known series, seinen, shoujo, etc... Well, I hope you enjoy S1.

No it's not. 4 of 10 volumes.

The IP is likely doa anyway as it's on indefinite hiatus

Tanigawa released a new volume a few years ago, like 10 years after the last one. But still, it probably doesn't have the popularity it once had so a new animation sounds unlikely.

The most recent LN is volume 13, which came out in November 2024; it's on my shelf but I haven't got round to reading it yet. (The big gap between volumes was between 11 and 12: frankly I'd assumed that the author intended the end of volume 11 as the ending of the series. Volume 12 was in 2020 and was about half stuff the author had already published in other places.)

I don't know how anime series economics works these days -- AIUI traditionally the live late night TV broadcast was effectively an advert to get the hardcore fans to buy the extremely expensive Japanese market DVD/bluray sets, which were what brought in the money. But I expect streaming has changed things a lot.

Thanks, I wasn't aware he released another just last year!

I'd assume streaming services have changed the industry. Things like Devilman Crybaby wouldn't have been released if Netflix wasn't involved.

They still do Blu-ray releases with suspiciously obvious art fixes. My intuition is that the model/merchandise market is also a lot bigger than it used to be in the early 2000s (thanks in part to Haruhi). 3D/higher quality printing and hig-fidelity digital crafting probably played a big role there.

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