Time doesn’t flow continuously, it’s like a set of pages

In June 2003, the novel version of “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” was published in Japan. It was a collection of stories that were published in the Kadokawa Sneaker magazine. What most fans don’t realize is that it was not the first Haruhi story to be run. Actually, “The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya” (the baseball story) was the first people saw of Haruhi. This started the whole non-chronological aspect of Haruhi that continued until 2005 when Chapter 1 of Novel 7 set the story down a single path. Tanigawa-san likely did not realize the popularity his stories would have and he probably did not form a full timeline until then.

The fansite Baka-Tsuki has created fan-translations of the novels.  (I do ask that if the novels are available in your country, please support the official works) The kind editors have a timeline available that lists what order the stories go in and what novel they are in. Here is a copy-and-paste of the official Haruhi timeline including stories that have not been animated:

Story Month	Name of Story	Novel story was published	Anime Episode # (2009) airing	DVD Volume (Japan)
April-May	The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya	The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (1)	1-6	1-3
June	The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya	<<(3)	7	4
	Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody	The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (3)	8	4*
July	Mysterique Sign	<<(3)	9	4
	Lone Island Syndrome	<<(3)	10-11	5
August	Endless Eight (including prologue)	The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya (5)	12-19	5 1/7- 5 4/7
October – November	The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya	The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (2)	20-24	5 5/7- 5 7/7
	The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00	The Trembling of Haruhi Suzumiya (6)	25	00
November	Live A Live	<<(6)	26	6
	The Day of Sagitarius	The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya (5)	27	6
	Someday in the Rain	The Sneaker Exclusive	28	7
December	The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya	The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya (4)	Movie	Movie
	Charmed at First Sight LOVER	The Trembling of Haruhi Suzumiya (6)	Not yet animated
	Snow Mountain Syndrome	The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya (5)
	Where Did the Cat Go?	The Trembling of Haruhi Suzumiya (6)
January	The Intrigue of Haruhi Suzumiya – Prologue	The Intrigue of Haruhi Suzumiya (7)
	The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina	The Trembling of Haruhi Suzumiya (6)
February	The Intrigue of Haruhi Suzumiya – main story	The Intrigue of Haruhi Suzumiya (7)
	Editor in Chief ★ Straight Ahead!	The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya (8)
March	Wandering Shadow	<<(8)
April (2nd year)	The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya	The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya (9)
	The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya	The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya (10)

*Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody released on a special Volume 4 disc this past August in Japan.

With this, you can see how the stories that were released as episodes in 2009 fit into the overall timeline. If they had animated Charmed at First Sight LOVER or anything after that, there would be references back to Vanishment’s events, so it was easiest to finish animating everything prior to Vanishment for the 2009 project. I believe they had something like this in mind after releasing the DVDs in chronological order (with the exception of 00 being released first). While the stories are great on their own, there is a lot of character development that you don’t realize has happened until after certain events. The most striking is Haruhi changing from this rampaging girl during Sigh into a confident woman who begins to care about others like in Live A Live. We’ve still got a lot to go folks, so enjoy the ride!

Picture from the upcoming Newtype released later this week!

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