Kaisos Erranon wrote:I loved the broadcast order, but I don't think it'll work again, especially since the entirety of Vanishment is dependent on the reader not knowing that Kyon will get out.
Good point.
< 's advocate>Problem is, Disappearance (Vanishment, Vol 4, whatever) is only preceded chronologically by Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, Endless Eight, Sighs, and the parts already adapted in S1. If we
are going with a 24-26 ep season, or at least two separate ~13 ep seasons, either of which the "...2008, 2009" copyright certainly suggests, that means we'll be getting into V4 probably no more than 6-7 episodes in, with an expected 18-20 ahead of us. Any anxiety over Kyon's situation would be nullified by general knowledge of story dynamics, whereas splitting V4 up as they did with V1 in S1, while interspersing it with the parts before (save BLR, which should premier the season) and maybe even a few parts after, if those episodes' timeframes can be hidden, to pad it out to the announced end of at least the first new season, could reinject that suspense.
</ 's advocate> Of course, it would do so at the expense of a wealth of tone.
I agree that achronicity this season, at least as rampant as it was the first season, is a bad idea. But that is much more due to the inherent need for keeping the two main storylines (V4 and V7) intact and not detracting from them, than it is to any fan backlash or any personal opinion on achronological storytelling. V1 was well suited to the mixed up broadcast order, as it was originally written in a way that strings a series of events into a coherent story, but said events also work well independantly or clumped in groups as more separate stories (as they were broadcast). With V4, however, the mood is such a large part of the story, as you have suggested, even though some of the suspense is lost through the "oh, he'll be okay" factor, that
any interruption between prologue and volume end would be detractory. For V7 the reason becomes the sheer complexity of the intricate time travel/perform tasks/Haruhi secret/other factions plot, as switching the episodes around or introducing later action would even confuse people who've
already read the chapter.
I'm all for fiddling with the chronological order for finales and (especially) premiers, though, specificially if we have a sizable (quarter season or more) break between the tellings of volumes 4 and 7, as it would tie the two stories together better with some great foreshadowing/flashing-back. If it's all in one go, though, I do recommend the straight chronological approach.