Broadcast or chronological? Depends on what kind of experience you seek.
Summary:
- Fans often argue about the watching order of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
- Broadcast order is confusing, but older fans tend to argue for it.
- The chronological order would require switching between the two seasons.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu) used to be a must-watch anime in the late 00s and the early 10s. It basically defined the high school supernatural slice-of-life genre for years — and established Kyoto Animation in people’s minds as a superb anime studio.
One of the biggest gimmicks of the original series, however, was its airing order. The anime was intentionally aired out of order, with many people quoting the fact that the actual last chronological episode of the series wouldn’t make for a good stopping point.
After the second season aired, however, debates arose about how to actually watch the series. As of now, there are two watch orders possible — the release order and the chronological order.
Broadcast order
It’s actually very important to check which order the streaming service uses. Crunchyroll, for example, uses the release order (but has a guide for the chronological one), meaning that the first season of the anime is aired out of chronological order. In fact, the characters even allude to that fact during the episode previews.
The easiest way to actually recognize the original broadcast order is its first episode. More specifically, it’s Episode 0 — and it’s “The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina,” a poorly-made school movie filmed by the cast. Many fans feel it’s not a good way to start the anime, though.
After you finish S1, S2 is actually ordered chronologically within itself, and this provides more confusion. Older fans argue this is the more immersive way to watch the series, though — it replicates the original experience.
Chronological order
If you don’t want to be confused and actually want to watch the anime in its chronological order, you have to watch both seasons in parallel. Yes, the second season fills in the gaps in the first one, so you’d have to alternate episodes sometimes.
The guide is on Crunchyroll, but to spare you the time, the order is Episodes 2, 3, 5, 10, 13, 4 of S1, then Episode 1 of S2, then Episodes 7, 6 and 8 of S1, then Episodes 2-14 of S2, then Episodes 1 (the so-called Episode 0), 12, 11 and 9 of S1.
What after?
After all of that, you can watch the movie — the definite best part of the anime. Beware, though, that Episodes 2-9 of S2 are the Endless Eight — re-animated episodes which contain minimal plot differences (the characters are stuck in a time loop).
Some fans advise newcomers to skip most of them, outside of the first and the last — others argue for watching them for a complete experience.
There are also a couple of spin-offs which you can watch after the series. They are mostly comedic, and all are optional. The only one that is actually full-length is The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan (Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu), which serves as an alternate timeline to the series — but most fans dismiss it since it’s not very good.