Some fans are firmly convinced that the franchise is dead.
With the recent announcement of the upcoming The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-themed musical concert that is to be held in Tokyo in January 2024, the fans of the series once again felt a glimmer of hope in regards to the potential news regarding the Season 3.
However, a decent portion of the fan base does not wish to partake in these hopes at all, believing that — despite the fact that new books about Haruhi keep coming — the anime component of the franchise is 100% dead and there's no reason to expect any kind of announcement.
In a Reddit thread dedicated to discussing the future of Haruhi Suzumiya franchise one of the fans listed several important reasons as to why the next season is not happening.
According to them, the primary issue has to do with a very slow work schedule of the author — Nagaru Tanigawa — who did not really produce enough material to move the story in any kind of meaningful direction from the point where it already is.
Some time ago, before the release of season 2, the franchise did already find itself in a similar situation. Back then, the production studio decided to greenlit another season of anime despite the absence of material — which ultimately, as we all remember, resulted in an epic blunder.
The latest novel of Tanigawa — the recently announced The Theater of Haruhi Suzumiya — is not really going to remedy this situation as, according to various rumors and speculations, it is going to be a simple collection of short low-stakes adventures that take place at different time throughout the story's timeline and do not move the overarching plot forward.
But that, unfortunately, is not the only issue as, according to the redditor, there's a whole another roadblock that nullifies the chances of any kind of a continuation of the anime. And that has to do with 2019 Kyoto Animation arson (KyoAni being the studio that produced seasons 1 and 2) — that took the lives of 33 employees, allegedly including many members of staff — both lower and senior — who worked on Haruhi Suzumiya titles.
Considering all of that, some fans' skepticism regarding a potential season 3 becomes a lot more understandable.