| The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya | |
| |
| Japanese title | Suzumiya Haruhi no Taikutsu (涼宮ハルヒの退屈) |
| Season | 1 |
| Season One Broadcast No. |
04 |
| Season Two (Chronological) Broadcast No. |
07 |
| Air date | April 23, 2006 |
| Episode Guide | |
|---|---|
| Previous (Season One) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part 2 |
Next (Season One) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part 3 |
| Previous (Season Two) The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part 6 |
Next (Season Two) Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody |
- This article is about the anime episode. For the short story, see The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (story), which is part of the novel of the same name.
Key events[]
- Takes place in June - two months since the series premiered.
- Haruhi enters the SOS Brigade in a baseball tournament, and their first opponent is a college team called the Kamigahara Pirates.
- Losing, Haruhi creates a huge closed space, so Nagato uses magic to cheat.
- SOS Brigade gives in to make it fair.
Summary[]
Haruhi enters the SOS Brigade in a baseball tournament. She reasons winning the tournament will create good publicity, though Kyon believes she is motivated by boredom. The rest of the Brigade are unenthusiastic, but go along for fear Haruhi will get upset or head more searches for supernatural beings as the alternative. They practise catching grounders on the school's sports ground.
Because a baseball team needs nine members, Kyon and Asahina invite Taniguchi, Kunikida, Tsuruya and Kyon's sister to fill the remaining slots. Kyon chose his ten-year-old sister in hopes of preventing the SOS Brigade from winning, which he thinks would be a pain. Haruhi is exceptionally good as both a batter and pitcher, but the rest of the team perform poorly. To distract the opposition, a college team called the Kamigahara Pirates, Haruhi changes Asahina and herself into cheerleader outfits, but Haruhi is still the only one able to get on base.
Koizumi tells Kyon that a massive closed space has formed, which he attributes to Haruhi's disappointment at Kyon's performance; though the batting order was chosen by lottery, he believes it is not coincidence that Kyon drew clean-up batter. With the score at 9-0, Kyon makes a dash all the way into the outfield to catch a fly ball and prevent the mercy rule from being triggered.
To turn things around, Koizumi directs Nagato to change their baseball bat so that it always hits the ball to the exact same location outside the field, racking up 11 home runs. For the final round, Nagato takes position as catcher and causes every ball Kyon pitches to move so erratically, the Pirates all strike out. The SOS Brigade wins the first round, clearing up the closed space. Not wanting the Pirates to lose their chance at the tournament because of their cheating, Kyon petitions Haruhi to forfeit. She is unwilling at first, but after realizing that Kyon ended up enjoying the game, she agrees. Haruhi makes Kyon buy the entire team lunch, but he still ends up with a net profit because the Pirates bought his baseball bat, which they presumed has some magic to it due to their miraculous streak of home runs.
Characters[]
- Haruhi Suzumiya
- Kyon
- Mikuru Asahina
- Yuki Nagato
- Itsuki Koizumi
- Kunikida
- Taniguchi
- Kyon's Sister
- Tsuruya
- Baseball team members (voiced by Daisuke Ishikawa, Takamasa Oohashi (the catcher), Riichi Nishimoto (the batter) and Hidehiko Kaneko)
- Umpire (voiced by Eiji Yanagisawa)
Paranormal phenomena[]
Nagato applies "homing mode" to a baseball bat to hit only home runs and modifies trajectories of a ball (data manipulation). Koizumi says that a closed space has been created. He also hypothesizes that the outcome of the batting order lottery was manipulated by Haruhi's powers.
Quotes[]
- Kyon: "On the day of the tournament, I was wondering if it was possible to make it rain. You know, a big one that'd cancel the game with a rain delay."
- Yuki: "It is possible, but I would advise against it."
- Kyon: "Yeah, why's that?"
- Yuki: "Any alteration of the regional climate could possibly have devastating aftereffects on the ecosystem of the planet."
- Kyon: "And about when would these aftereffects happen?"
- Yuki: "Several hundred to ten thousand years."
- Kyon: "Then I guess we'd better not try to do that, right?"
- Yuki: "Right."
Trivia[]
- This episode was broadcast as episode 4 of Season 1, and as episode 7 of Season 2.
- Koizumi's cell phone is a Nokia 6630 Bordeaux Roughe.
- Koizumi foreshadows "Remote Island Syndrome Part 1."
- The theme song from the anime “Touch” is played in the background as Kyon pitched his Nagato-modified baseball.
- Koizumi suggests recruiting a friend of his for the baseball team, presumably another esper in attendance at North High, but is overruled by Kyon in favor of his sister. Koizumi's friend is never introduced during the series.
- In the subtitled version, after noting that the day of the tournament has arrived, Kyon bitterly adds "It didn't have to..." This is omitted in the dubbed version.
- The ponytail is referenced in this episode by Haruhi holding Mikuru's hair up in that style. After looking at Kyon, she drops it back down.
- The episode hints at an alternative explanation for the formation of closed space during the game: When Kyon stops Haruhi from punishing Mikuru and says she should have tried to steal home, Haruhi is reduced to a discontented silence. The original short story does not mention Haruhi's reaction to Kyon's rebuke.
- In the Japanese and English subtitled versions, Kyon suggests gateball as the SOS Brigade's next sport. Presumably due to gateball being largely unknown outside of East Asia, in the dubbed version it is replaced with the more universally recognized bowling.
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