The Melancholy of Haurhi Suzumiya was a huge anime sensation in 2006. Based on a series of light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa about a school club led by a special girl capable of unintentionally rewriting reality, the show inspired several trends that remained popular for years to come. However, following the less successful second season, with its controversial "Endless Eight" arc, and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya film, the series faded from public perspective. While spinoffs continued, the core anime adaptation of the light novels came to a halt, as did the publication of the light novels themselves.
Now, nine years after the last Haruhi Suzumiya novel's publication, a new book, The Intuition of Haruhi Suzumiya, is set for publication on November 25. For those who enjoyed the anime in its heyday but never picked up the novels, they're definitely worth reading. Of the soon-to-be 12 Haruhi Suzumiya light novels, only the first six were adapted into the anime, with some chapters of the fifth and sixth novels not being adapted at all. If you didn't read the novels, here's an overview of what you're missing, though, for the sake of encouraging you to read all these stories, we'll leave the twists for you to read yourself.
Snowy Mountain Syndrome & Where Did The Cat Go?
One unadapted story from the fifth novel, The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya, is essentially a sequel to the earlier story "Remote Island Syndrome." Remember that murder mystery episode from the first season? In this story, during a holiday vacation at a private villa, the SOS Brigade plot to essentially remake that same mystery for Haruhi. The only problem is Yuki is feeling sick. When they arrive at their residence, however, the whole building seals shut around them and everyone starts acting strangely.
This is a relatively short story that ran in the same book as "Endless Eight" and "The Day of the Saggitarius," both previously adapted into the anime. "Snowy Mountain Syndrome" is strangely reminiscent of The Shining and other winter-themed horror, as told through the madness of Haruhi Suzumiya. The murder mystery would later be "completed" in the following volume's story "Where Did the Cat Go?"
Love at First Sight
This unadapted story from the sixth volume, The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya, takes place after the culture festival. Kyon encounters an old friend of his from back in the day named Nakagawa, who remains infatuated with Yuki for some reason. He tries to get Kyon to set him up with Yuki. While Yuki flatly refuses, Haruhi stumbles into the plan and decides to force those crazy kids to get together. However, not everything is as it seems.
This story provides a rare moment of humanity for Yuki, as well as a chance to see how characters outside the SOS Brigade were affected by Haruhi's massive reality-altering ripple throughout reality. It also illustrates Haruhi's gradual growth as a character, showing her to genuinely want to see Yuki happy, but also going about helping Yuki on her own terms.
The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina
Mikuru Asahina asks Kyon on a date. This, to Kyon, seems like a momentous occasion, since he's crushed on Mikuru since the first day he met her. However, as with all things involving the time traveler, things are far from straight forward, leading to a chance encounter orchestrated by those in charge.
This short chapter has a significant impact on the time-traveling subplot. It also shows how manipulative Mikuru can be when encouraged by her organization to behave in certain ways, but also how much she hates manipulating circumstances and feels guilty for tricking or deceiving people, even when it's for very good reasons.
The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya
In the series' seventh novel, Kyon ends up wanting to spend the next year without any world-ending disasters, only for Mikuru to visit him, with Yuki's confidence. This Mikuru, however, has time-traveled from eight days in the future and has come to warn Kyon about a calamity that will strike if they don't act fast. What follows are two Mikurus in the same timeline, a revelation about the culprit behind the prior "Snowy Mountain Syndrome" story and Kyon finally asking how much the seemingly normal Tsuruya has figured out about all the insanity transpiring just around her.
While it might seem redundant for there to be yet another time travel story, this book further develops the world, illustrating how the characters were impacted by prior events. It also gives Kyon several seemingly meaningless tasks that, as is later revealed, are part of Future Mikuru's tampering with the past to control the future. The story also introduces several rogue characters who play a significant role later on.
The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya
The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya, the eighth novel in the series, consists of two fairly compelling stories. The first one, "Editor-in-Chief, Straight Ahead," sees the SOS Brigade's integrity as a club questioned by a new President, who argues that, since the SOS Brigade is technically on paper still the Literature Club that they have failed to justify their role as a club. This leads to Haruhi trying to publish a school newspaper. This goes as well as you'd expect.
The second story, "Wandering Shadow" features a girl named Sakanaka coming to the club with a serious concern: a dog park is being haunted by ghosts that zap animals of their vitality. To make matters worse, Sanaka's own pup is ill. While Haruhi eagerly accepts the challenge, Yuki believes the problem is more complex.
The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya & The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya
These three novels (The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya is split into two volumes) form a trilogy. At the start of his second year at school, Kyon reunites with an old friend of his named Sasaki. Sasaki and Haruhi quickly become friends, but it's immediately apparent that Sasaki possesses the same reality-altering powers as Haruhi, and that bringing the two together could have a catastrophic impact on reality.
The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya reintroduces several antagonists from prior novels, specifically the antagonists from The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya and "Snowy Mountain Syndrome," into the formation of an anti-SOS Brigade. To make matters weirder, halfway through the story, the timeline actually diverges into two separate timelines running concurrently, with both separate timelines continuing into the two-part novel finale -- making this whole story incredibly difficult to explain. This in many ways felt like a grand finale to Haruhi's story. If you want to read the new novel coming out this November, you will need to read these first.