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Something that Haruhi fans must already know about is “Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekisou,” which is this big concert for the series where the voice actors/actresses sing the songs from the show and their character CDs

The entire event is a little less than 3.5 hours long and is composed of two DVD discs.

In the first disc, it starts off with Taniguchi’s VA, Minoru Shiraishi (dressed up as Amuro Ray), popping onto stage awkwardly with his popular “Ore no Wasuremono” line. This
marks the beginning of the event, where our MCs, Shiraishi and Kunikuda’s VA (Megumi Matsumoto) introduce most of the VAs for the characters in the series, including the main SOS Brigade (It’s worth noting that Kyon is dressed up as Char Aznable), Tsuruya, Asakura, Kimidori, and Kyon’s sister. Tatsuya Ishihara and Shouko Ikeda, the director and character designer respectively, are brought out to talk about the production. After that, they show a couple of defining scenes for each of the characters, talking about the characters involved. Then, we get an interesting skit where some of the VAs play their characters and Kunikida is narrating. After a certain point, it almost looks like they were just winging it. Sugita (Kyon’s VA) drops the Othello board and as they pick up the scattered pieces, he makes a Hikaru no Go reference. There’s some (seemingly) improvised music playing, and then Shiraishi suddenly shows up with his “Ore no Wasuremono” line once more. At the end of the skit, we get some back-stage comments by some of the VAs, and the disc ends here.

The second disc breaks right into the actual concert with Mikuru’s VA, Yuko Goto, singing the famous “Koi no Mikuru Densetsu.” The concert goes through some of the songs from the various character CDs as well as other well-known songs like “God Knows.” After a certain point, we get some sort of skit involving Ono (Koizumi), Sugita, and Shiraishi (who is dressed up as Haruhi). Soon after this, the concert resumes, and Hirano, Goto, and Chihara (Haruhi, Mikuru, and Yuki, respectively) then come together and sing (or rather, lipsync) some songs from the album “Saikyo Pare Parade” before the grand finale: “Hare Hare Yukai.” Of course, that isn’t enough for the fans, for “Hare Hare Yukai” gets an encore, but this next time, Sugita and Ono (Kyon and Itsuki) are also a part of it. This concludes the concert part, and next there is a period of the VAs thanking the audience. Hirano is in tears the whole time, and Chihara is prompted by Sugita to say the Yuki “I love you” line. The entire event is concluded with the throwing of some souvenirs at the audience.

Since my Japanese is still at an inadequate level, I don’t understand much of the first disc, but I think the ending skit is quite interesting, frankly because it looks like it is almost completely improvised. The second disc is what I’ve been waiting for, really. I love seeing the voice actors/actresses signing their character songs. It is pretty funny seeing Goto purposely sing terribly for “Koi no Mikuru Densetsu.” Unfortunately, not many of the actors are that great live, save for Kuwatani, Ono, Sugita, and - my personal favorite - Chihara (Asakura, Koizumi, Kyon, and Nagato). Despite not being the
biggest Hirano fan, I think it’s impressive that she plays a guitar role in her performance of “God Knows” and “Lost My Music.” Towards the end, it is clear that the “Saikyo Pare Parade” songs and “Hare Hare Yukai” were lipsynced, but this is excusable since the trio did quite the dance performance for each of them. It probably would’ve been hard on the ears if they were to sing and dance like that at the same time. It is very nice that in the “Hare Hare Yukai” encore you can see the audience dancing along with the actors. I’m sure that the event had much more energy than can be felt through a computer screen.

But at any rate, being a big Haruhi fan, I really enjoyed “Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekisou,” and I encourage all other Haruhiists to go out there and check it out. If you don’t, heads will roll!

Tags: gekisou, Haruhi, haruhiism, suzumiya

Category: The Artists