Sunday 7 October 2012

The Publication Mess of Haruhi Suzumiya: Live Alive

Live Alive- the first short story of "The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya" (novel 6)

Its the day of the school festival. The SOS brigade movie is being screened to the masses somewhere on site with Haruhi handing out flyers dressed in her bunny outfit. Kyon is staying well away from it. He's groggy after not having had a decent nights sleep, thinking about whether to visit Nagatos fortune telling booth, or Koizumi's stage play. But right now he, Taniguchi, and Kunikida are ascending the stairs to Mikuru's Yakisoba cafe. He has her special discount ticket clutched firmly in his hand. After all, he's been looking forward to this moment most of all.

They arrive outside her class and are instantly welcomed by Tsuruya in a gorgeous waitress outfit. They chat to her and pay up, despite the fact they are all in awe of her beauty.

They have to wait half an hour in the queue before being allowed into the class room cafe. Mikuru turns up cleaning tables and taking peoples tickets. She is also in the same style waitress outfit as Tsuruya. The signs around the room say 'no photos', and this is hardly surprising considering how gorgeous the boys think she looks.

Unfortunately, the portions that arrive are too small and after 5 minutes they have to leave.

The boys go their separate ways. Taniguchi at least goes off to hit on some of the private school girls. Kyon wanders around and eventually decides to visit the band hall. I have to say that he doesn't visit Koizumi or Nagato. But he does have another day for that because apparently the festival is spanned over two days. He plans on visiting tomorrow with his mother and sister (does he even have a father??).

He picks a seat in the music hall and watches the lucrative bands. The audience is small, but the hall is slowly filling up.

A band finish their set and leave the hall as the next group start setting up. Kyon is stunned to find that two of the four people in this all girl band are Nagato and Haruhi, dressed in a witches outfit and a bunny costume respectively.

He's even more stunned at how awesome they are with their set kicking off with explosive style.

Haruhi sings flawlessly, reading off sheet music in front of her the whole time (and unlike the anime, she's not playing guitar). Nagato plays the guitar like a pro whilst the other two appear to be upperclassman on the bass and drums.

The crowd begins to pick up and start getting into the songs. Koizumi turns up and sits next to Kyon. After four songs, Haruhi informs the crowd that the three-member band (not four like it was in the anime) had been unable to have their lead singer/main guitarist present, and so Haruhi and Yuki are acting as stand-ins. She also says to the crowd that they can pick up a copy of the real songs if they bring along a tape or mini disk.

Koizumi explains that what makes this set so great was the mystery surrounding the band. The mystery may have been solved now, but Haruhi starts to get into the music on their last number, smiling for the first time.

Later on, Haruhi tells him that the leader of the band fell into a fever, but turned up on the day despite this, only to fall over and hurt herself badly. Whilst arguing to the teachers who were trying to organize taking her to hospital, Haruhi intervened and volunteered herself and Nagato to act as stand ins. She only had one hour to practice singing the songs on the demo tape with the sheet music before they went live. Nagato picked up how to learn the guitar instantly. lol

At break time a few days later (which could even be the same day that starts The Day Of Sagittarius story), Haruhi is called to the hallway by Kunikida, saying the three band members want to thank her. She's anxious about receiving praise and grabs Kyon by the collar to back her up. She receives their thanks in what Kyon notices makes Haruhi look like she's acting.

At lunch time Kyon goes for a walk and finds Haruhi lying on the grass in the space between the two school buildings.
Looking at Haruhi lying on the grass feeling odd, Kyon comes to realise that she feels that way because for the first time she actually did something that was appreciated. Though he doesn't tell her. This actually pisses her off and she throws grass at him, only for the wind to catch it and throw it back in her face.

In the end she comes up with another brilliant plan involving filming the Mikuru sequel and turning the SOS Brigade into a pop band in time for next year. She grabs his hand and marches forward to the music room.

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This was a nice story to accompany The Sigh. My favourite bits were obviously the band, but i also liked how Haruhi needed Kyon around to make her feel secure when talking to the band. One of the girls nearly referred to him as the boyfriend, but she held back. lol

I must say I felt this worked better with Haruhi acting like a real stand in, and guitar-less.

8-10

Up next: The Day Of Sagittarius.

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