And so it begins, just as the prophecies predicted (somewhat ambiguously). The thundering cries of male ecstasy shake the ground as hordes of frenzied fanboys awake from their winter slumber and descend upon the unsuspecting intarweb. As onslaught and carnage devastate 4chan, no one notices any difference. The absolutist doctrine of the Great One sweeps across the land, engulfing it in a chaotic whirlwind of moé and unleashing upon its innocent a renewed crusade. Throughout history, it has been called many names — ragnarok, apocalypse, rapture — but they are all one and the same. The end of time is finally upon us. The Second Coming of Haruhi.

One day in the distant future, after humanity recovers from a global cataclysm and historians attempt to piece together the past from fragmented chunks of centuries-old hard disk drives, the above paragraph will be so epic. But until then, let’s talk about this new Haruhi thingamogie.

Let’s see… The brand new episode aired on the 22nd. It is now the night of the 24th. We can therefore safely assume that every single person on Earth with a pair of working eyeballs has already watched the episode thrice and written two blog entries on it, except me. As a result, there is little point for me to talk about the episode itself, which by the way is awesome.

How about we talk about relativity instead. Now, as the theory of relativity as put forth by Einstein — and no doubt originally conceptualized by Haruhi before she assumed her present human form — predicts, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. The phrasing of this statement is however somewhat misleading, as the equation doesn’t necessarily prove that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. It merely shows that it takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate any mass to a speed infinitesimally close to the speed of light, which logically means that we cannot accelerate a mass to light speed and beyond due to the lack of sufficient energy in the universe. Also, a mass travelling at light speed gives a divide by zero error which crashes the universe’s operating system, Mac OS Ω.

However, something travelling faster than the speed of light is within the realms of theoretical imagination; the entity merely has to do so without having had to accelerate pass the light barrier. This means that either it has always been in the state of faster-than-light speed travel, or it had its kinetic reference frame instantly changed via some kind of apparent violation of the laws of energy conservation (e.g. when you jump through the portal in that awesome game with the psychopathic feminine robotic jailer). The exact state of any “entity” doing so and its subsequent interaction with the flow of time as perceived by ordinary matter such as us will forever remain a mystery except to the subconscious of the Haruhi overmind. It also probably can’t have any “mass” (as we know the term) unless it wants to deal with imaginary numbers.

This brings us to Haruhi’s wish for the Earth to reverse its direction of rotation. Though theoratically her message is being sent out at the speed of light in the form of the light reflecting off her handwritten note, the message itself does not need to be bounded by its medium. A wish is but information, and although electromagnetic radiation is the fastest information carrier known to mere mortals, there is a high likelihood that a more fundamental medium, which Haruhi’s true form operates in, exists. Also, it is safe to say that due to attenuation the electromagnetic information radiating from her tanabata paper will never reach Altair and Vega in any readable form, even by higher beings wielding godly powers.

Therefore, since we do know that the information representing her wish will in fact reach Altair and Vega (due to the fact that she is the supreme creator) but at the same time this information cannot be conveyed by light, we can conclusively say that some kind of unknown cosmic force is at work in transmitting this information and this force is probably not bounded by the limited equations as put forth by the divinely-inspired Einstein. Also, isn’t Mikuru cute? She’s never been my favourite character, but oh isn’t she so cute?

So cute

Anyway, back to the mortal world. It appears that Kyo-ani has outdone itself again this time. I’m not talking about the show itself, but rather the fact that these geniuses have managed to conceive a cunning plan to force people to essentially rewatch the first season, effectively doubling the number of episodes in the second run without incurring any additional cost. Kyo-ani has rejected the boring old concept of “second season” and replaced it with the new-age hipness that is a remixed hodgepodge of new episodes and old episodes sorted by chronological order.

Since some of the new episodes actually take place before some of the old ones, this brilliant tactical move has completely screwed up our concept of the space-time continuum grouping episodes by seasons and numbers. It’s kind of like relativity: depending on the reference frame of the observer, this is either episode 1 or episode 8. I’m going with the former because I reject Kyo-ani’s fancy smancy liberal elitist broadcasting order.

Of course this also means that we can’t tell when the next new episode will be out. It’s kind of like Schrödinger’s Cat: until the next episode airs and gets fansubbed by ten dozen groups, thus collapsing the quantum wave equation, we won’t know for sure whether it will be a new or old episode. How exciting. Although, I suppose one could just collapse the wave equation before that by reading Newtype episode summaries or something, but where’s the fun in that?

On a final closing note, here’s a shocking confession: unlike everyone else, I took the initiative NOT to read the original novels beyond the third book. My experiences with the “first season” (damn you Kyo-ani!) led me to believe that this will result in a much more enjoyable viewing experience. Nagaru Tanigawa may be a genius for coming up with Haruhi (or rather, being influenced by Haruhi’s subconscious to write a book about her), but the story only truly comes to life as animated by Kyo-ani. Reading the novels just feels too much like cheating.

It is therefore in this open spirit of ignorance that I shall blog the rest of the “season” (damn you Kyo-ani!), so please keep that in mind when you post any comments. If you want to discuss unaired plot development from the novel, this is not the place to do it. Instead, you can talk about how adorable Mikuru is in this episode and how the theory of relativity is awesome.

P.S. If I were Kyon, I’d screw up the past just for the lulz.

Our efforts are paying off. People are queuing up to join Haruhiism!

Anyway, I was at the beach (again) yesterday due to circumstances beyond my control. Damn it, this is damaging my hikikomori street cred. I was considering taking a few more Haruhiism shots so I brought my camera along, but in the end I got distracted by a cat. Outdoors is a dangerous place full of the unexpected.

Heya! It’s your favourite Haruhi fanboy again. Time sure passes by fast. Here’s the second last status update of HTCP (read this if you have no idea what this whole thing is about).

Currently, we are just a few pictures short of the goal of a hundred! And by a few, I really mean a few. Like, four or some crazy number like that! If you have some pictures lying around, go submit them now! And if not, go take some! Just follow the instructions here. We only have 5 days left to go.

Because Yahoo’s flash script sucks, I have saved a copy of all the submissions in this gallery. I especially like this one. So… which of you guys was responsible for it?

– Making Haruhiism Last Forever 2006

You know what they say about a picture speaking a thousand words… Well, here’s one.

Continue for more pictures.

KKnM: Totally cool store that supplies me with my monthly Comptiq, random handphone straps and Nanaka telephone card. :3 Thanks for letting me take the pictures!

La Tendo: I ordered my PVC Haruhi Bunny from here. This picture didn’t turn out so good… Oh well.

Singapore Management University… Nothing interesting about it. It just happened to be nearby.

I LOVE HARUHI!

Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station. Well, you can’t really see anything since all the station and trains are underground… It’s the thought that counts!

You can see one of these roughly every 10 steps you take in Singapore. Without the Haruhiism logo, sadly.

This is the entrance to the Istana. The President of Singapore lives inside. But since we are a parliamentary democracy (sort of), the President doesn’t actually do anything. He’s like the King of England, except less well-known.

7-Eleven: It’s a store and more! Note the security camera at the top left corner…

Many brave souls were sacrificed in the skirmish against the security guards for the purpose of these two pictures. A minute of silence, please.

Okay fine, there was no one there!

The Singapore River, complete with silly foreign tourists who pay good money for boat rides to look at the haze.

A statue of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the alleged founder of modern Singapore. Pffft, we all know that it was actually Lee Kuan Yew.

Esplanade – Durian Theatre by the Bay. It’s a place for snobby art people like Tsubaki.

The Merlion, a proud national symbol of Singapore. Also, a grotesque fish-lion hybrid. Just think about it. How the hell does that even work?

And that’s all folks! Tune in next time for more sights and sounds more sights of Singapore! :)

Victory at all cost!

Click here to view a list of all the pictures tagged with Haruhiism in the Time Capsule so far.

As of the time of writing this, we have 27 pictures! That’s more than 1/4 of the way there people! Let’s make good use of the 23 days we have left. Do your part today! :3

P.S. I have been updating the main project page with thumbnails of some of the submissions. Go take a look.

The timer on the official Yahoo Time Capsule website shows that we have 27 days left to do this thing.

Here’s what you have to do to show your support for Haruhiism:

Preparation

Download this Haruhiism logo.

Print it out onto one single piece of A4 paper. Laminate it if you want.

Bring a camera, some tape and scissors and the printout along with you and walk around any location you want.

Take pictures of various places and stick the Haruhiism logo somewhere that is easily visible, but try not to make it the obvious focus of the picture. Please try to ensure that your locations fall into one of the ten broad themes prescribed by Yahoo Time Capsule project: Love, Anger, Fun, Sorrow, Faith, Beauty, Past, Now, Hope, You. This should be pretty easily done since the categories are really broad.

Ignore the stares of the passer-bys. Alternatively, try to convert them at your peril. (I shall salute you)

Submission

Proceed to the nearest computer with the pictures in hand. I chose my school’s computer lab for this purpose out of convenience and lack of time. (Shhh…)

Open up your preferred image-editing software (preferably Photoshop!) and resize the photos to about 1024 x 768. Do some touch-ups with the contrast etc. if required.

Load up Firefox (or Opera) and proceed to:
http://timecapsule.yahoo.com/capsule.php
Internet Explorer users are banned from Haruhiism. You heathens!

Click on “Contribute” in the navigation bar at the top right.

Login to your Yahoo account if requested. Register if you don’t have one.

Select “Picture” and then pick an appropriate theme for your submission. Extra Haruhiism Points for “Faith”!

Select the picture you wish to upload and fill in the details in the next page.

Try not to draw attention to the Haruhiism logo in your description. Say some like “This is a picture of my room.” You can choose to enter some personal details such as your age, gender and location at the left-hand side of the form.

Enter the URL for this post for “Related Web Site Address” if you wish. This is completely optional, but it does give people who stumble upon the picture by random an explanation for the logo.
Alternatively, please link to:
http://haruhiism.darkmirage.com/

Enter “haruhiism” for the tag.

Select a charity to support. I recommend “Seeds of Peace” or “UNICEF”.

Check through your submission and submit away!

Post-submission

Wait for an approval e-mail. This usually takes only a few minutes, but my original submission for the logo took 14 hours to be approved.

Post the link here so that we can keep a count!

ALL HAIL HARUHI-SAMA! Let’s aim for at least 100 Haruhiism logos before the submission deadline in 27 days.

Spread the message today!

P.S. I am serious here. Show your love for Haruhi-sama!
P.P.S. Will the person who created this vector art of the logo please leave a reply so that I may give proper credit?

UPDATES after the jump.

This is indisputable proof of Haruhi’s existence! Even Yahoo accepts our faith! Haruhi-sama will rule the world! The only sad part is that the “moé” in my submission has been corrupted to “moé” due to encoding errors. :(

View this historical submission here.

Even though it’s not required anymore, I will continue my grand project. More details later.

UPDATE: The rest of my submissions have been accepted! Behold the greatness of Haruhiism! Here, here and here.

Yes, those are pictures of my school. And no, they aren’t Photoshopped. :3

Spread the message of salvation!
Haruhi-sama shall provide!
Long live Haruhiism!

The first thing I thought of as I read about this was Haruhiism. As a faithful follower of Haruhi-sama, I hereby declare that I will make it my personal duty to ensure that the eventual time capsule will contain at least one copy of the Haruhiism logo.

I shall document my project in this entry.

Now first of all, getting the Haruhiism logo in is NOT as straightforward as submitting it as a picture or a drawing.

By “picture”, Yahoo is referring to actual photographs shot by the submitter. They are also pretty uptight about copyright issues. As for drawings, Yahoo provides you with a primitive sketch area that you have to draw on instead of an upload function. Even though the Haruhiism logo is a relatively simple picture, this will still do no justice to Haruhi’s greatness. If I am going to do this right, I’ll have to somehow do it through pictures submission.

The first thing I did was to try submitting the logo as a picture under the “Faith” category (no, really). But alas, I got rejected as expected. I decided to experiment with the system by submitting some more conventional entries, such as this, this and this, all of which were accepted within minutes.

Yes, that person is me

My visit to Hakone last year

Now, it seems to me that the time capsule has a pretty low entry requirement, as long as the submission looks reasonably relevant and was created by you. Based on this observation, I have formulated a plan to get Haruhiism included in this time capsule that will hopefully be received by alien lifeforms such those sentient pure energy guys from Yuki’s hometown.

The details of this awesomely brilliant plan will be revealed tomorrow after the preliminary test of my hypothesis. Please check back for this potentially earth-shattering event that will possibly go down in Haruhiism Gospel. Maybe.

While I have nothing against Yuki and in fact like her as a character, fate is cruel and a choice must be made.

There comes a point in every person’s life where we have to make a decision. Everyone knows the right choice to make, but only those with the courage will make it. We have reached that crossroad and you know that Haruhi-sama is the right choice.

Haruhi-sama is the epitome of moé, she represents everything that the word stands for. Episode 12 of the anime series will forever leave a mark in the eternal halls of anime history. “God knows…” will forever be on our playlists. Rich Japanese otaku are paying thousands of dollars for a painted resin figurine made in Haruhi-sama’s divine likeness. I think it says a lot about the kind of moé level Haruhi-sama has attained. She’s on a whole new plane of existence in the moé universe. In fact, she is the universe.

Haruhiism is neither fanboyism nor a cult, Haruhiism is a way of life. Haruhiism exists everywhere. We live because of Haruhi-sama. You know that it is true. You know that Haruhi-sama is the right choice. Vote for her tomorrow. Vote for a better future. Vote Haruhi-sama in Saimoé Tournament 2006.

ハルヒ様に一票！でないと死刑だからね！
Vote for Haruhi-sama! Death penalty if you don’t!

*steps off the soapbox*

How to Vote

It is currently just around midnight Tokyo time. The voting begins in about 1 hours’ time. Here’s how you can help make the world a better place by casting your support for Haruhi-sama:

When voting has started, go to:
http://banana236.maido3.com/~bs5114/a06/

Click on the only link on that page (which should be “こちら”)

If voting has already started, you should see a list of voting codes. Choose and copy one of them.

Go to:
http://etc4.2ch.net/vote/

Look for the thread “アニメ最萌トーナメント2006　投票スレRound***” where *** is a number. It should be the top thread.

Scroll down to the box for posting. Paste the code into the first line of your message body.

Leave an empty line.

Paste

第１試合
< <涼宮ハルヒ＠涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱>>

into the next two lines.

Click on “書き込む” to post.

LONG LIVE HARUHIISM!!!

Please visit us on IRC. (Look for me either as ThePaper or NagatoYuki)