angelina.okuneva - 2016-01-27 11:38:13

Critic’s Log - Earthdate: February 14, 2013. Supplemental Review of "Haruhi-chan" : Nyoron Churuya-san.

It isn’t easy being cheesy. Why? Because Nyoron Churuya-san is…

Here goes.

This is a series of shorts about Tsuruya from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, based on the iconic format of the Nyorōn Churuya-san manga. Episodes mainly concern her search for smoked cheese. Yeah…This is really what this anime is about.

To be technical, this is a Kyoto Animation production and boy… you really have to give these guys a pass on this one but it will be extremely hard to do such a thing. The animation is quite simple and it looks like it was done without breaking a sweat. This is because it is a faithful adaptation to the Churuya-san spinoff that does the exact same thing. The designs are different and for some reason. Churuya (who is the chibi version of Tsuruya) and Ashakura (Asakura’s Chibi) look undeniably cute, naive, and optimistic, while Haruhi, Kyon, Mikiru, Yuki, and Koizumi look irritated and pessimistic. I really don’t know what to make of this one. This is a huge contrast from Haruhi-chan in terms of scope, and humor, and that actually is the only interesting thing about Churuya-san.

There is hardly any music in this ONA, so I’ll just move on to another topic…

The voice acting I will mention. Aya Hirano, Tomokazu Sugita, Minori Chihara, and Daisuko Ono do pretty well with the pessimistic attitude while Yuki Matsuoka sounds pretty adorable yet a little annoying in the show, but blame the writing on this one. The same can be said with the dub too. Wendee Lee can do a negative sounding role just fine, Crispin Freeman nails it , Michelle Ruff is great and Kari Wahlgren (like Matsuoka-san) is adorable and a little annoying. Extra props go to Yuko Gato and Stephanie Sheh for completely throwing us in a loop when Asahina spoke. Japanese cast and English Dub cast play their roles as they were told to.

Which leads me to the characters. If you remember, I mentioned that Churuya-san and Ashakura are the chibi versions of Tsuruya and Asakura. Haruhi and the SOS Brigade are portrayed look nothing like the the main series before and since. This may lead some people feeling a little split between others. Again, this may have been the original intent.

There is no plot to Churuya-san and as hard as this may sound, this is actually a unique anime. It faithfully represents the 4-panel comic strip of the same name and as an adaptation, it does this well. It is also a stark contrast to The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya. I mean everything in Haruhi-chan is the opposite with Churuya-san. Is this a good thing? That is hard for me to answer simply because this will be hard to accept. The length of the entire thing is 23 minutes, which is comparable to an episode of an anime. It is very short yet it does not appeal to everyone. That is this spinoff’s main issue. As an adaptation, it succeeds… the end result is varied among viewers. I only found a moment or two that I thought was worth seeing, everything else… I kept thinking “what the hell is this?” Some may find it cute, some will find it repetitive and annoying. This spinoff is unique but it will probably not leave a legacy behind.

Nyoron Churuya-san was available by Bandai Entertainment. It was released alongside The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya and it is out of print.

With all that said, Nyoron Churuya-san is a very short spinoff to the Haruhi series. This spinoff is passable since the animation is simplistic but not terrible, not much of a soundtrack, not much character impressions, and a duration of 23 minutes that some might feel it to be pointless to sit through. You are not missing much, but if you like weirdness in a spin-off… View this one with low expectations.

I give Nyoron Churuya-san a 3 out of 10, it is WEAK

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