Haruhi's New Episode Aired! With New Ending Song!

Almost two years since the announcement of second anime season in July, 2007, finally, a new episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya came out! The episode was "Sasa-no-ha Rhapsody (Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody)" as the rumour had it.

The consensus was that the "renewed airing" which started this April can't be just an ordinary re-run since the episodes are rearranged to chronological order, but at last, today's airing by Sun TV has confirmed this theory to our delight.

Read on for details and pics.
(Japanese)SOS Dan web site

It says "Series Composition: Haruhi Suzumiya and her indeed jolly crew". This is new.

The story begins with Haruhi coming to the club's meeting room suggesting "Let's hang our wishes on bamboo since it's Tanabata".

The new ending theme song "TOMALLE! (Stop!)" performed by voice actresses Aya Hirano, Yuko Goto and Minori Chihara is to be released on August 26 as a CD single. DVD of the anime will come out on August 28.

So here's a chronicle of the ups and downs in our relationship, how Haruhi has been tormenting us, keeping our hopes up and backing out at the last minute, time and again.

-July 7, 2007
A whole-page ad announcing "HARUHI 2nd Season Decided" came out in Asahi Shimbun. It was the biggest ever anime ad on newspaper.

-August 11, 2007
At TBS Anime Festa2007, CLANNAD by Kyoto Animation was announced to be airing from autumn 2007. Since Kyoto Animation is a relatively small studio, it was considered unlikely that they're going to produce CLANNAD and 2nd season of Haruhi at the same time, so the fans guessed the 2nd season of Haruhi to be coming out after CLANNAD concluded.

-December 18, 2007
The official website of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya dissapeared, as a surprise advertisement disclosing the coming of second season. Since the secret link from the 404 page showed the words "Second season on the way" with a portrait of Yuki Nagato, fans were reassured, but the copyright credit of the image with year "2007-2009" made us wonder if the airing will start in 2008 and continue until 2009, or...?

-March 28, 2008
CLANNAD concluded its airing that started in October, 2007. But the announcement "CLANNAD AFTER STORY in production" made Haruhi fans restless. Since airing details of both CLANNAD AFTER STORY and the 2nd season of Haruhi was unclear at the time, we had to wonder whether Kyoto Animation is capable of producing both animes simultaneously, or one of them has to wait.

-April 10, 2008
May issue of Newtype magazine came out, with a feature article on Haruhi stating "the project is in progress" about the second anime season, not "in production".

-August 16, 2008
At TBS Anime Festa 2008, CLANNAD AFTER STORY was announced to be aired from October 2008 for two seasons. An anime adaption of Tonari no 801-chan by Kyoto Animation was also announced, to be aired from Autumn 2009. Where can Haruhi fit in the studio's busy schedule, one could not tell.

-August 29, 2008
TBS called off the production of Tonari no 801-chan for unnamed reason.

-November 10, 2008
December issue of Newtype magazine came out announcing Sora o Miageru Shojo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai(lit. The World Reflected in the Eyes of the Girl who Looks Up at the Sky) produced by Kyoto Animation to be aired from January, 2009.

-December, 2008
2nd "Desappearance" incident on the website, disclosing The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya: Nyoro~n Churuya-san to be streamed on YouTube.

-December 26, 2008
February issue of Megami Magazine came out with announcement on anime adaption of K-On!. The production staffs weren't disclosed apart from the original author, but the character design sketches were by Yukiko Horiguchi of Kyoto Animation so it was assumed Kyoto Animation will be doing the animation production.

-February, 2009
TV advert of the March issue of Newtype magazine came out, with the cover image of the magazine featuring Yuki Nagato, and barely decipherable letters saying "TV anime airing from April", so fans became excited by this tiny piece of information. But when the magazine came out, it had the impalpable term airing "afresh", so some concluded it will just be a re-run.

-April 3, 2009
The "renewed" airing of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya started. With the airing order altered form the 1st season, anticipations grew that there might be new episodes inserted somewhere.

-May 18, 2009
TV Wakayama accidentally put on the episode title "Sasa-no-ha Rhapsody" on their timetable.

-May 22, 2009
Today, finally it became clear that in fact, the second anime season is airing.

It has been so long, almost three years from the conclusion of the first anime season, but now fans can sit back and relax, enjoy the show.

The ongoing airing has 28 episodes in all, so there must be 14 new episodes including "Sasa-no-ha Rhapsody", which was eighth in the airing. Following the chronological order, other new episodes are expected to come out as the 12th to 15th and 20th to 28th episode in this airing. Don't miss them!