Ask John: Why Hasn’t the Suzumiya Haruhi Anime Franchise Been Continued?

Question:
I am huge Haruhi Suzumiya fan, and I am wondering if you have any insight into why more of the light novels have not yet been animated.

Answer:
Currently there are eleven Suzumiya Haruhi novels that are roughly half adapted by the anime, suggesting that there’s still enough original material left to sustain at least another television series. However, while I don’t know for certain, my own sense is that there’s little interest from studio Kyoto Animation to produce any new Suzumiya Haruhi anime right now. The anime franchise simply feels like it’s run its course. After a successful 2006 television series, the franchise was extended by a second television series in 2009. But eight of the fourteen second season episodes were the “Endless Eight,” basically the same episode with cosmetic differences, meaning that the second season actually contained only six-episodes of new story. Then the franchise was parodied with not one but two SD web anime series: The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan and Nyoron Churuya-san. Then the anime franchise seemingly ended with the second-longest anime film ever produced, 2010’s Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. Disregarding quality, the anime franchise simply feels like it was on a downward slide toward conclusion as soon as the original 2009 television series ended. The original series was followed-up by a controversial and narratively irrelevant supplemental series of new episodes integrated into a re-broadcast of the first season, a pair of anime series that poked fun at the franchise, then a lengthy send-off film.

With the exception of long-running ongoing anime television series and revivals, feature films are typically the punctuation mark designating the end of a franchise. Countless series – Card Captor Sakura, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Sora no Otoshimono, Patlabor, Fullmetal Alchemist, to name a few – have escalated to feature films then ended. Periodically a new series anime has premiered following a feature film, but such an occasion almost exclusively occurs only with lengthy shounen adventure series like Inuyasha and Gintama, and revivals like Slayers and Fist of the North Star. I doubt that there’s any technical reason preventing the development of more Suzumiya Haruhi anime. The franchise simply feels like it’s reached an end, at least temporarily, due to exhaustion. The anime franchise feels like it’s hit a natural stopping point, and I don’t feel a lot of interest or demand for the anime franchise to be resurrected at present.