Haruhi Suzumiya/Characters

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These are the characters that appear in the Haruhi Suzumiya series of anime and light novels. A warning: this series is the poster child of tropes, so entries could get a bit long.

Also note that there are unmarked spoilers for the novel series as of this writing, so if you've only watched the anime, you might still be getting spoilers for future seasons.

Tropes common to all Suzumiya Haruhi characters

• Parental Abandonment: No one seems to have parents, although this is justified in the case of Mikuru and the Humanoid Interfaces. Kyon's mother is mentioned, but she never appears on-screen.
  • Haruhi's parents are also mentioned (Melancholy V and the preview for book 10), we just never get to meet them.
  • Also understandable with Itsuki because he IS a transfer student.
• Secret Identity: four out of five SOS Brigade members, as well as all the other Aliens, Time Travelers, and Espers out there.

The SOS Brigade

Haruhi Suzumiya

Voiced by: Aya Hirano (JP), Wendee Lee (EN)

"I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, sliders, or espers here, come join me. That is all."

An eccentric, Genre Savvy, hyperactive young woman who enrolls in North High in her first year. She starts off the plot by roping in an unwitting Kyon into forming a club with her, the "Spreading Excitement All Over the World With Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade", or the SOS Brigade for short. Her eccentricity stems from the fact that she can't come to terms with the fact that she's not a special person, so she spends every day trying to look for something out of the ordinary.

In an ironic twist, Haruhi is unwittingly a Reality Warper sought after by several factions who have an interest in her—the very students which she recruited in her club, and the very people she wanted to look for: an alien, a time traveler, and an esper.

The story essentially revolves around the antics caused by her powers, directly or indirectly, and the Character Development which ensues within the SOS Brigade.

Tropes exhibited by Haruhi include:

• Agent Mulder: Or she'd like to be. Her inner Agent Scully keeps her from actually recognizing the weirdness around her. When Kyon actually tells her about the truth about herself and the other members, she doesn't believe him at all and scorns him for it.
• Allergic to Routine
• Ambiguous Situation: Numerous points, but these are the two biggest: One, is she really God as Koizumi suggested early in the story? She seems mortal enough and it's implied she didn't always have her powers. However, is that really a meaningful question considering her implied omnipotence? Two, did she rewrite the universe at the end of the first novel/season of the anime? Even the characters instory don't know.
• Anti-Hero: On the Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes, Type V at worst / Type III at best --> Type II following her Character Development.
• Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Often has these moments with Kyon or Mikuru.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty: The slider is frequently omitted from quotations of her famous first line.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: That's the whole point of the Kyon/Haruhi ship. Haruhi's a Jerkass Woobie, Kyon's a Tsundere who doesn't dare beat up the universe's equivalent of a deity.
• Berserk Button: An upskirt directed at Mikuru, be it ever so accidental, has set her off at least once.
• Bi the Way: She makes it very clear right from the start that she doesn't care about the gender of the one she is with, as long as he or she is not an ordinary human being. She doesn't seem to have been dating girls though, but perhaps that was simply because only guys confessed to her.
  • Also, the only person she ever shows any explicit sexual interest in is Mikuru. Make of that what you wish.
    • It's also very clear she wants Kyon in the worst possible way too.
• Black Comedy Rape: With molestation rather outright rape.
• Black Hole Sue: An in-universe deconstruction. The plot literally revolves around her, but because of her Selective Obliviousness she never really seems to figure this out. Considering one of the possible scenarios should she ever find out about her powers this is probably for the best. It can also be theorized that the universe essentially bending over for her is what caused her screwed up personality in the first place.
• Broken Ace: Haruhi is very attractive and athletic, gets excellent grades, a superb cook and is generally good at everything except normal human social interaction, an area in which she seems horrendously lacking—she knows about it, but doesn't see the point. She's also utterly frustrated and unsatisfied with her life.
• Broken Bird: One that manifests her disillusionment at the world through cheery obnoxious behavior.
  • She appears to be one when Kyon first sees her in the alternate world in the Disappearance film. While she seems normal, you can clearly tell she's not very happy with life.
• The Bully: Until about halfway through, she was definitely this character type.
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: As mentioned above, she is fantastic at almost everything, and people acknowledge it. In fact, it's inverted: Haruhi really shows her class, when it comes to things that have nothing to do with the SOS Brigade activities, as Kyon points out in the first chapter of Vol. 10. And she actually does wear bunny ears!
• But for Me It Was Tuesday: Everyone remembers Haruhi's Kick the Dog moment against the Computer Club president. Yep, everyone.... except Haruhi herself.
• Byronic Hero
• Character Development: "We're not going to use your body to pay for what we need this time."
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Not really an example of one on the basis of her behavior; the most she's ever done is get annoyed and frustrated when Kyon pays too much attention to Mikuru. This is especially evident in the ninth volume where after being introduced to Sasaki, aka that weird girl Kunikida have been talking about, she started an outbreak of Closed Spaces. In Snowy Mountain Syndrome, she goes after Kyon for paying too much attention to Yuki, and she won't let his own sister stay with him.
  • During the baseball game in the anime, this trope is used subtly. After changing into cheerleader outfits, Haruhi holds Mikuru's hair in a ponytail style and wonders if she would look cuter this way. Then she quickly glances at Kyon, and remembers that he has a ponytail fetish (at least that's what he told her), groans a little, then decides against the idea.
  • In the episode "Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya III", she gets rather annoyed when Kyon gets picked to go with Mikuru during the toothpick drawing, and angrily tells him they'd better not act as if on a date. Later on, she has a very disgusted look on her face when Kyon and Nagato get chosen to go searching for stuff together.
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Club President
• Compliment Backfire: Every attempt to compliment her fails and she can't stand criticism so she winds up in the arms of the Silent Snarker.
• Cosplay Otaku Girl: Not your typical Otaku, but the girl loves her costumes. And her Anime Shout Outs.
• Crossdresser: Arguably does this when she sneaks into North High wearing Kyon's PE tracksuit (which is supposed to be unisex, by the way) in Disappearance. Since the incident with the tequila chronologically happened before Disappearance (and the novel it was featured in was the second, whereas Disappearance is the fourth, but you probably wouldn't care anyway), this makes her...
• Cruella to Animals: Unfortunately her bumbling henchman Kyon can't figure out how to get 101 hamsters.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Gets one at the hands of Kuyo near the end of Astonishment Vol. 2.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: And just like in Christianity, debates rage over her nature as God and girl.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy: Normally she would qualify as merely Genre Savvy. However, her abilities to shape the fabric of reality itself to her will means that any genres she thinks should apply to a given situation suddenly WILL apply.
• Dawson Casting: Her English dubber, one of the Streamline Pictures generation, is 51 as of Disappearance (which streets on DVD and Blu-ray September 20^[when?]). In fact, she's the only SOS Brigade member to be voiced by a Streamline veteran.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Well, duh.
• Deicide: A near-victim of this during the climax of Astonishment Vol. 2.
• Depraved Bisexual: In Kyon's own words: "IS STRIPPING ASAHINA NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU, YOU PERVERTED GIRL?!"
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: Fits the trope exactly.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Gets a detention early on following the Playboy Bunny incident (not for dressing as a Playboy Bunny in the first place, as she later dons the exact same outfit without interference, but for deliberately traumatizing Mikuru in the process; it didn't help that Mikuru was a second-year at the time, while Haruhi was a first-year).
• Dress Hits Floor: Done with her Kouyouen uniform in Disappearance.
• Even the Girls Want Her: May have occurred in "Snowy Mountain Syndrome", when the Brigade members are confronted with hallucinatory versions of the people that they fantasize about the most, Haruhi is revealed to be Mikuru's fantasy. Then again, which hallucination appears to which Brigade member is actually a formula worked out by Nagato to provide a clue to help them escape. Koizumi sees Kyon, and admits to being rather disturbed by the double's behavior.
  • Sasaki has some Les Yay towards her as well.
• Evil Laugh: Emits a creepy-sounding chuckle in "Snowy Mountain Syndrome" after learning how her rebellious spirit blindly shuns the mainstream in favor of the obscure. She also delivers a menacing laugh in "The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina" as she reveals she may have a lead on what Kyon and Mikuru were up to in that story. Keep in mind that both times are after she makes her Heel Face Turn.
• The End of the World as We Know It: What the other three members of the SOS brigade fear would happen should something drastic happen, particularly to Kyon.
• Eyes of Gold
• The Face: Of the SOS Brigade and always out to promote it. Kyon notes that she 'knows how to get answers' peacefully from the apartment keeper during the investigation of Asakura's disaperance. Though in practice the trope is inverted as she either steams rolls people with blackmail and/or her personality, if she's not outright ignoring them—meaning the earlier incident at the apartment, among her nicer moments chronologically, before the end of Sigh, would likely fall under Pet the Dog.
• Fan Nickname: "God Empress" Haruhi
• Faux Action Girl: Invoked in-universe. She can deliver a flying kick to the head to the Chew Toy, but she can't be called on to help with the fights that are being kept from her because...they're being kept from her.
• Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Long legs? Check. Big breasts? Check. Bisexual? Check. Rather... affectionate with another female? Check. Tsundere? Check. No nudity taboo? Check. Cosplaying? Oh baby, Check, Please!!
• First Girl Wins: Again, poor Mikuru-chan.
  • A previous First Love is introduced later, but Haruhi already has her claws in by that point. (Not a Retcon, as the clues were there from the start.)
• First-Name Basis: With Kyon, though it's not his real first name...
  • Actually with every member of her brigade, save Koizumi. If we can trust the narrator.
• Foil: Arguably the whole point of the Haruhi/Kyon relationship is how their opposing personalities come to a balance.
• Friend to All Children: She appears to love kids and enjoys playing with them, as evidenced by her antics during Endless Eight. She is clearly fond of Kyon's little sister, who likes her back in return.
  • In the novels, it's revealed that she tutors an elementary school boy who just happens to be the future inventor of time travel
• Fun with Acronyms: The SOS Brigade's full name
• Gainaxing: Very evident in the opening credits of Season 1.
• Genki Girl: Interestingly this only happens when she first meets/talks with Kyon. When we're first introduced to her, she just seems like a weird girl, but after Kyon feeds her the idea of starting her own club, she suddenly perks up and gains a lot of enthusiastic energy, invoking this trope (and probably one subtle reason why she likes him).
  • Further, in the Disappearance film, when we first see Haruhi, she has almost the same dejected personality prior to Kyon's talk in the series. After talking to her and Koizumi a little in the cafe, she suddenly starts to perk up and act the same exact way as old world Haruhi.
• Genre Savvy: For every genre, even when it looks like she's Wrong Genre Savvy.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger
• God Mode Sue: An in-universe deconstruction of the trope, as she has the powers to make everything happen but her personality works against it.
• Hair Decorations
• The Hedonist
• Heel Face Turn: Chronologically, in Sigh after nearly getting the shit punched out of her by Kyon for spiking Mikuru's drink and calling her her toy.
• The Hero: Her perception; really, she's probably The Lancer to Kyon. Then again, she could be more the antagonist (not villain!) of the group, considering that she creates the problems...on every day that Itsuki isn't creating any, or the days that Asahina or Yuki cause them.
  • Mostly just the Hero with an F In Good, as she finds obeying the laws of physics is boring.
• High School Hustler: One of the rare female hustlers.
• Hot-Blooded: Particularly during her fight with Kyon during the SOS film about her abusing Mikuru.
• Hot God
• Inexplicably Awesome: Just.. Totally her.
• I Just Want to Be Special: If only she knew...(or maybe it's better that she didn't)
• Indy Ploy: Doesn't even begin to describe her entire life. When that doesn't work she falls back on her time loop powers.
• Informed Attractiveness: Is said to be beautiful on cosmic levels... except that the other girls are also good-looking.
• Insane Troll Logic: She is Haruhi, after all.
• It's All About Me
• Jerkass/Jerk with a Heart of Gold
• Jerk Sue: An in-universe parody.
• Jumped At the Call: To the point where she didn't even get one in the first place. From a certain point of view you could say that she made the call.
• Kick the Dog: A lot in the first few episodes, as well as the Sigh arc. More so in the novels, though in her defense it still only happens early.
• Large Ham
• Leeroy Jenkins: In the Deep-Immersion Gaming episode "Day Of Sagittarius".
• Little Miss Almighty
• Little Miss Snarker: But unlike Kyon, her snark is never deadpan.
• Locked Out of the Loop: And you better keep her that way.
• Loveable Rogue: Kyon is careful to not ask where all the stuff in the clubroom comes from.
• Magic Skirt: Never gets so much as a Panty Shot despite her reputation as an Innocent Fanservice Girl.
• Male Gaze: There's a lot of focus on her butt in the Endless Eight arc. Repeatedly.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She takes the job seriously enough to graph out how he's failed to progress, even after a year of her hard work.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Several times, Haruhi endangers the universe without realizing it.
  • It's strongly implied that she destroyed the universe 3 years ago, and replaced it with one more to her liking.
• Moment Killer: Will happily bend the laws of space and time just to keep Kyon from talking to other girls. Has berserk superhuman strength when he seems to be writing love letters to other girls.
• Ms. Fanservice: Basically, the only thing missing is a Panty Shot.
• Mood Swinger
• Molest the Hypotenuse: Reacts coldly to girls that Kyon seems to favor. It gets worse when he then jumps to their defense.
• Morality Chain: The only reason she got any nicer is Kyon. And we don't wanna know what would happen if he died.
• Naughty Is Good: Well, to her it is.
• Never My Fault: Even Lucy van Pelt apologizes more often than Haruhi. Of course Haruhi is never even told of most of the things she does.
• No Sense of Personal Space
• No Such Thing as Space Jesus: Most brigade members question God being one of us, rather than above the clouds.
• Parody Sue: Of God Mode Sue and Jerk Sue
• Pet the Dog: As the series progresses, she reveals that she genuinely cares for her friends.
• Playboy Bunny: One of Haruhi's personal favorite outfits, given she's a huge Attention Whore at the start of the series.
• POV Boy, Poster Girl: With Haruhi as the Poster Girl and Kyon as the POV Boy.
• Power of Creation^[context?]
• Precision F-Strike: In episode 2 of the anime, but it got bleeped. Unabridged quote below:

Haruhi: Then I'll tell everyone at school that all you geeks ganged up on her and fucked her!

• Qipao: In one of the later light novels.
• Rebellious Spirit
• Reed Richards Is Useless: She could solve all the world's problems, but this would cause an overloading of excitement.
• Red Armband of Leadership (her trademark)
• Reality Warper: Although she doesn't realize it, but maybe its for the best.
• Really Gets Around: A mild example, since in middle school Haruhi had the tendency to date every guy who confessed to her. Even if the relationship would only last five minutes.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Energetic Girl to Kyon's Savvy Guy.
• Serious Business: To Haruhi, everything is Serious Business.
• A Simple Plan: Form a club, pass out flyers, win a baseball game, make a movie. There must be a conspiracy sabotaging each of her simple plans.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: She doesn't care if guys see her naked. Kyon concludes that mentally she views them as being the same as potatos. The point where she starts kicking Kyon out of the room when changing is therefore pretty telling on her part.
• She's Got Legs: Which gets ample emphasis in the anime.
• Skepticism Failure: Haruhi causes skepticism to fail.
• Skirt Over Slacks: Briefly in Disappearance, when she's changing into Kyon's tracksuit. When trying to fit the skirt of her uniform underneath, she fails miserably, basically says "Ah, forget it!" and drops the skirt entirely.
• Star-Making Role: Heads turned towards Aya Hirano as a talent to look out for; a reputation that is later fully set in stone by Konata of Lucky Star.
• Start My Own: Her motivation for this after Kyon talks to her a little about how people adapted or created things to suit their needs.
• Stepford Smiler: Demonstrates this after finding Nakagawa's written love confession to Yuki. She does it again in "The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina".
• Strange Girl
• Summon Magic: Every time Kyon copies one of her drawings, alien monsters appear.
• Supreme Chef
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Has the looks, but not the behavior. The reason for her aloofness is her lack of interest in "ordinary" people, she cuts her Rapunzel Hair, she deliberately looks for things out of this world and she toys the resident Moe girl via Black Comedy Rape.
• Team Mom: Yes, really! Especially in the first chapter of Vol. 10, where she takes care of a sick Nagato. Also, when she plays with a bunch of kids in Endless Eight.
  • In Snowy Mountain Syndrome she almost overbearingly insists on caring for Nagato, even overriding Yuki's claims of being okay now.
• Token Antagonistic Teammate: Until her Heel Face Turn toward the end of Sigh.
• Tomboy to Mikuru's Girly Girl: Shares this status with Tsuruya. Also the tomboy to Yuki's girly girl.
• Trickster Archetype
• Tsundere: Haruhi is an inverted Tsundere, abusing people when she's happy with them and affectionately braiding their hair when she's about to rewrite the Universe out of jealousy. She plays it straight occasionally, however, noticeably at the conclusion of Disappearance.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist/Villain Protagonist: She gets better.
• Who Wears Short Shorts?: Sometimes, most notably in "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody", "Remote Island Syndrome", and "Endless Eight". The rest of the time she wears a Magic Skirt. One imagines she'll wear a long dress exactly one time.
• Won't Work On Me:

Kyon: ... If you want to achieve faster-than-light travel, let Haruhi on your spaceship. She'll just simply ignore the theory of relativity for you. When I mentioned this to Nagato, the reticent pseudo-alien responded with the following. "Your belief is most likely correct."

• Zettai Ryouiki: Only in the winter, though.

Kyon

Voiced by: Tomokazu Sugita (JP), Crispin Freeman (EN)

"The question of how long someone believed in Santa Claus is a worthless topic that would never come up in idle conversation. Having said that, if you're going to ask me how much of my childhood I spent believing in an old man in a red suit, I can confidently say that I never believed in him to begin with."

The viewpoint character and Narrator of the series (and arguably the Main Character). Kyon is nothing more than a bright but somewhat lazy Ordinary High School Student who has given up his childhood fantasies of aliens, time travelers, espers, interdimensional travelers, Government Conspiracies, etc., as he explains in his opening narration on his first day of high school. He just wants his high school life to pass by uneventfully.

Unfortunately for him, his curiosity gets the better of him when he is introduced to irritable Cloudcuckoolander Haruhi Suzumiya, and they strike up a sort of friendship, which eventually leads to him being the first member inducted into her bizarre "SOS Brigade", a club dedicated to finding all those things Kyon refuses to believe exist.

Naturally, all of them turn out to be real. And they all join the club, to boot.

What follows is the story of an ordinary (maybe) young man caught up in extraordinary events. While he constantly bemoans the insanity he's been thrust into, he adapts to it out of necessity, and gradually (several novels into the series) comes to look on the lunatics he hangs out with as a sort of True Companions, helping them prevent The End of the World as We Know It with a resigned sigh and a constantly suppressed panic.

Kyon presents himself in the narration as a levelheaded, objective, philosophical guy.

Tropes exhibited by Kyon include:

• Accidental Pervert: Although his thoughts regarding Mikuru sometimes move toward Covert Pervert territory.
• Action Survivor: Several times. One of the most dramatic ones being when he's attacked by Asakura, which causes some severe Mood Whiplash
• Agent Scully: He wants to go back to being a Scully. But he gets so much incontrovertible proof thrown at him early on he becomes a rather grumpy Agent Mulder.
• Anti-Hero: Type I-> Type II.
• Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: With Haruhi, very frequently.
• Badass: All things considered.
  • Badass Boast: The message he gave to the Data Entity. "If anything happens to Yuki Nagato; I will let all hell break loose." He tells Yuki to tell the Data Entity that if it ever remotely thought of punishing her; he'll tell Haruhi everything. And make her believe it with "I am John Smith." Then he and the SOS would go as far as destroying existence and rebuilding it to get Yuki back. Oh, and the rebuilt reality would not have the Data Entity in it.
  • Badass Bookworm: Not in Yuki level, but qualifies to a degree. For bookworm part, he can make references on obscure and complex topics. For Badass part, he can freaking recreate the world by telling Haruhi and he's John Smith.
  • Badass Normal: It´s really impressive, how far a humble human being can get just by saying the right words at the right time.
• Beleaguered Assistant
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: That's the whole point of the Kyon/Haruhi ship. Haruhi's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Kyon's a Tsundere who doesn't dare beat up God. Actually he's stopped by other members of the team when he moves to strike her.
• Bishonen: Just look
• Bishie Sparkle: Once, during the second Endless Eight episode.
• Blatant Lies: Uses one whenever he's caught with Yuki.
• Book Dumb: Lampshaded by Kyon himself: "Why is it that I can be so smart when it comes to reading Nagato's facial expressions or Koizumi's hidden clues, but fail to answer every single test question?"
• The Call Fancies You
• Cassandra Truth: Kyon stutters out an explanation of the SOS Brigade to Haruhi in the prologue of Sigh. She doesn't buy a word of it. Obviously.
• The Comically Serious
• Catch Phrase: "Yare yare" which he picked up from Sasaki.
• Character Development: As mentioned under Pinball Protagonist Kyon goes from being incredibly Brilliant but Lazy to much more assertive and active in the story's action. This is because his lack of action and over-reliance on the other SOS Brigade members (especially Yuki) lead to the events in Disappearance.
• Chick Magnet: He seems to be one due to the fact all the girls like him.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Possibly the only reason he never pulls a Screw This, I'm Outta Here.
• Closet Geek: He tries to downplay his hobbies, but it's shown that he's a avid manga reader, plays lots of video games, may be familiar with American cinema (in the anime he wears the wristwatch from Men in Black, and mimics Marty McFly's sleeping position) and mentioned model-making as a hobby (with a focus on giant robots).
• Conveniently Seated: In the traditional second-from-the-back window seat when the seats change, and always right in front of Haruhi.
• Covert Pervert: Overwhelmingly towards Mikuru. He does occasionally admit that he thinks Haruhi is nice to look at and sometimes does for Yuki as well. On a less perverted note, he thinks he'd like Haruhi just as much as Mikuru if she'd give a genuine happy smile rather instead of the "I have an idea" smiles that invoke a This Is Gonna Suck reaction from him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Dear God, the Deadpan Snarker.
  • Taken to hilarious extremes in his version of Hare Hare Yukai in his Image Song album, where he keeps interjecting in between his own singing to snark at the lyrics.
  • Just read the script for episode 0. Any text in blue is Kyon and is pretty much 100% free range organic snark.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Both the novel and the anime play with this. In the novel, Kyon's dialogue is very rarely formatted as such, leaving it indistinguishable from his usual narration. The only way to tell if he's either saying or thinking something is from his interlocutors' responses. The anime achieves this effect by having his mouth offscreen during these parts. In both cases, it is the audience that is meant to be confused, Kyon himself never makes the mistake.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Did you just French the Lord thy God? And in the second season of the anime, he literally tries to punch out God. And for his next trick, one must emphasize, he blackmails the Data Overmind. Really, considering the nature of both Haruhi and the threats he faces, this entire index applies to him. Thankfully given what it would most likely lead to, Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? has thus far been averted (just).
• Dismotivation: One might ask himself if he's gonna be an Almighty Janitor someday.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Everyone is Itsuki for Kyon!
• Expy: He can arguably considered as, despite what many fans believe, more jaded and snarky Yuuichi Aizawa from Kanon (which came out in 1999). In short, Kyon is VN!Aizawa's Expy while the latter's 2006 Kyo Ani's incarnation is Kyon's Expy. Yeah.
• Face Palm: Often does one anytime Haruhi brings up her crazy ideas for the SOS brigade.
• Female Gaze: The Endless Eight arc just loves showing Kyon lacking upper body wear, and in some shots he's noticeably more muscular than others
• Fauxlosophic Narration
• Filming for Easy Dub: Used in the anime to recreate the novels' lack of distinction between Kyon's thoughts, narration and speech.
• First-Name Basis: With Haruhi.
• First-Person Smartass
• Flashback Nightmare: Though a daydream and not a nightmare, one of his dreams in class is a word-for-word flashback of a conversation he had with Sasaki about quantum physics.
  • He also has dreams about the time he and Haruhi were trapped in Closed Space together.
  • "Editor-in-Chief Straight Ahead!" suggests he has them about the events of Disappearance:

I did not want to remember that bespectacled Literature Club member who wore a troubled face in front of an outdated computer at a time like this. Seeing her in my dreams at night is enough.

• Foil: Arguably the whole point of the Haruhi/Kyon relationship is how their opposing personalities come to a balance.
• Genre Savvy: Yes, he really is. Only Yuki and he worked out what happened on Remote Island Syndrome, and Yuki worked it out only because she's an alien with special powers.
• Grammar Nazi: To give just one example, he always uses 訊く for "kiku" in the sense of "to ask". 聞く is the accepted norm, because although it isn't strictly correct—it actually means "to hear"—the character 訊 occurs rarely and is not taught in school.
• Gratuitous English: Dubbed in one instance into Gratuitous Japanese.
• Grumpy Bear
• Guile Hero
• Heroic BSOD: In The Movie; when he's confronted with a normal world. Everything he's always said he wanted; and isn't happy; a mental version of himself pushes him down and tramples on him; mocking all the things he had said in the past; until Kyon rips out from deep inside himself that yes, he wants a world of time travellers, espers, and aliens.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: At first.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In the fourth novel/The Movie.
• Inner Monologue: All the time.
• It's All My Fault: He feels personally responsible for the events of Disappearance as even though the Integrated Data Thought Entity failed to give Yuki a more complete personality (which put a strain on her) he decides that his over-reliance on her was the straw that broke the camel's back.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his snarky dismissal of, well, everything and everybody, Kyon is a deeply compassionate person who treats everyone equally and seriously in thought, if not in action. This applies whether they're a normal student, a living computer, or God.
• The Lancer: Given everything he does for the sake of maintaining the Universe and helping his friends, he's really The Hero, albeit one who complains a lot.
• Last-Name Basis: Refers to everyone by their last names apart from Haruhi. Even when asked by Mikuru to use her first name, he continues to use her last name.
• Lemony Narrator: You know you love him because of it.
• Little Professor Dialog: Even disregarding all the esoteric knowledge and vocabulary that very few 16-year-olds would be expected to know, Kyon's speech patterns make him sound much older, as though he grew up in the 1950s or '60s. He was born in 1994.
  • The author himself lampshades this during an interview,

"Nagaru: In a sense he reasons philosophically although he is a first-year student of high school."

• Male Gaze: Makes his filming of the student film...interesting.

Kyon: Position target in the center, pull the switch.

• Meaningful Name: according to Wikipedia, Kyon's nickname might come from κύων / kyôn, Ancient Greek for "dog", from where the word "cynic" may come from. Another possibility: Haruhi in the novels loves the story of Tanabata, involving a romance between a man and a woman separated and only allowed to meet once a year; the Korean name for the man can be romanized as 'Kyonu'.
  • Kyon's real name remains undisclosed. This alone implies that it is relevant, and Sasaki tells us the full name Kyon prefers is noble, and the sort which one would question the reasoning behind.
• Meta Guy
• Morality Chain: To Haruhi.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Kyon at first seems to constantly despise Haruhi's antics even though he begrudgingly goes with the flow. He often complains about wanting to have a perfectly normal life. Then in the Disappearance film, Nagato changes the world to more or less be a normal one without crazy stuff going on. After some soul searching within himself, he realizes that he prefers the crazy world after all.
  • He also has one in the anime adaptation of Sigh after realizing just who he had nearly punched in a blind fury at the same time she invokes this trope (you can tell by how she's struggling to fight back tears).
• Nay Theist: He gets over it.
• Non-Action Guy: When compared to Yuki or Itsuki, at least.
• No Name Given: For anyone in his family, including himself.
• Not a Morning Person: He'd always be Late for School if not for his sister's daily glomps.
• Not So Above It All: Kyon admits to himself that he does, in fact, enjoy the crazy antics the SOS-Dan finds themselves in.
• Not What It Looks Like: One example of this happens when he's holding Nagato as Taniguichi walks into the classroom. He even tries a lie later to cover it, but Taniguichi doesn't believe him.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Especially obvious in the novels, where we see even more of his thought process.
• Only Known by Their Nickname
• Oblivious to Love/Selective Obliviousness: Kyon's (un)awareness of Haruhi's attraction to him is complicated to judge.
  • On the one hand, there are a few points where his internal dialogue makes it clear that he's aware of it, which means that there is definitely some Selective Obliviousness going on (required for stretching the Will They or Won't They? for ten freakin' novels). For example, in "Live Alive," Kyon rejects Taniguchi's suggestion that they go try to pick up girls, precisely because there'd be huge trouble if "somebody" saw him doing that.
  • On the other hand, there are places where Kyon acts in a way that seems genuinely oblivious to Haruhi's attraction. For example, in "Melancholy IV," Kyon suggests to Haruhi to "find [herself] a nice guy and go walking around the city looking for strange things; [she] could even call it a date and kill two birds with one stone," which is a very stupid (and maybe even cruel) thing to say if you realize that that was exactly what Haruhi had wanted to do with Kyon in the mystery search the previous weekend.
  • This scene from "Remote Island Syndrome I" could go either way:

(Kyon wakes up to the sight of Asahina taking a photo of him.) Asahina: I just took a picture of you waking up. And I took a couple of you sleeping. You were sound asleep, weren't you? Kyon: (thinking) Really? Why would Miss Asahina want to take pictures of me sleeping? Kyon: (still thinking, starts smiling) Maybe she wants to put a picture of me in a cute frame, keep it next to her bed and every night, just before she drifts off to sleep... (Haruhi brusquely takes away the camera from Asahina, who's been reviewing the photos, and puts it in her own pocket.) Haruhi: (to Kyon, interrupting his thoughts) What's with the goofy face? You might wanna stop 'cus you look like a moron! Haruhi: (to everyone) I've temporarily given Mikuru the responsibility of being the SOS Brigade's photographer! It's important to maintain a record of the Brigade's activities for future generations. But I decide what pictures to take! Kyon: (out loud) Why would anyone care what I look like when I'm sleeping or when I'm waking up?

• • Itsuki points out Haruhi's attraction a few times, once to tell Kyon that he and Haruhi are the new Adam and Eve, and then later telling Kyon to embrace Haruhi from behind then whisper "I love you" into her ear. Kyon reacts angrilly, at which point Itsuki tells him it's a joke.
  • Also made hilariously obvious in the prologue of Dissociation when Itsuki has to devote a couple pages explaining to Kyon that the reason Haruhi got upset after meeting Kyon's childhood friend was because she was jealous.
• Only Sane Man: He likes to think of himself as this, though it probably should be taken with a pinch of salt.
  • It should also be noted that he accepts the eccentricities around him quite well. He claims it's because too much evidence has been thrown in his face for him to deny it, but overall he gets used to the idea of all this fantastic stuff around him much faster than any normal person would.
  • Only Sane Employee
• Ordinary High School Student: Or so he would like to think. But the other SOS members, particularly Koizumi, constantly have to remind us that there's more to him than this trope alone.
  • In the seventh novel Koizumi offers to train Kyon to be an esper. Apparently there are not a whole bunch of other persons who can be trained.
• POV Boy, Poster Girl: With Haruhi as the Poster Girl and Kyon as the POV Boy.
• Precision F-Strike: From Disappearance: "Tell them to go fuck themselves!"^{[please verify]} Watered down in the anime adaptation to "Then you can tell them to go to HELL!"
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: In Disappearance, for unclear reasons. May have been intentional on the part of Nagato in order to give him a choice in the matter, but the fact that he needs protection from the reality warp when he goes back in time to stop it leaves this in doubt.
  • There's doubt about this? Yuki says outright at the end of the movie that while she couldn't prevent herself from rewriting reality, she COULD ensure that Kyon would be unaffected. The reason he needs protection when he goes back is because her failsafe was used up when Kyon chose to activate it at the famous READY? prompt. The program said that once it was run it would be deleted, so it time-travelled him outside the sphere of effect at his choice. Presumably had he chosen to stay, he would have subsequently be subjected to the re-write (as seen in the spin-off manga).
• Role Playing Game Terms: In the novels, Kyon often makes tongue-in-cheek references to his HP and MP and Haruhi's negative effects on both.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Savvy Guy to Haruhi's Energetic Girl.
• Screw What I Said I Wanted I'm Doing What's Right: Kyon's personal theory as to why Yuki granted him his Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory in Disappearance, because he would choose to do the right thing and stop her despite being granted his fantasy.
• Secret Keeper
• Sharp-Dressed Man: His outfits in Endless Eight are of the casual variety but still incredibly sharp and stylish. He even manages to out-dress some of the girls.
• She Is Not My Magical Girlfriend: With Haruhi. He does like Mikuru, but is forbidden to date her due to her restrictions as a time traveler. Not to mention the one time he accidentally got a little too friendly with her, Haruhi nearly destroyed the world.
  • Neither is Yuki, even if they were on the floor in a compromising position.
  • And neither was Sasaki.
• Ship Tease: With everyone in the Five-Man Band, bordering on an Unwanted Harem.
• The Snark Knight
• Spider Sense
• The Square
• Stable Time Loop: Kyon is particularly careful about not screwing these up when he gets involved.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: Fanboys are so hot for Kyon, and yet so doggedly heterosexual, that a Gender Flip version called "Kyonko" was made to satisfy the fantasy. At least one of the reasons for Kyonko's popularity involves the way Kyon's personality just works for her.
• Sugar and Ice Personality
• Supporting Leader: It's patently obvious how much the other SOS Brigade members respect his judgment (even Haruhi) and leadership to the point where some people think for all Haruhi's bluster it's actually Kyon who's calling the shots.
• Supporting Protagonist
• Talks Like a Simile: His narration is littered with disturbingly descriptive comparisons.
• Tall, Dark and Handsome AND Snarky
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: For all of his emphatic narration, we rarely see Kyon show any emotion about anything at all. We can, however, expect entire paragraphs dedicated to his insistence that he's emotionally overwhelmed about something. This isn't to say he doesn't show emotions; merely usually not quite the ones he's talking about at the time.
• Tomato in the Mirror Theory for now, but there are hints that Kyon may actually be the superpowerful being everyone thinks Haruhi is and that she is just his avatar.
• True Companions: Starting around the third through fifth published books.
• True Love's Kiss: Sort of.
• Trust Password
• Tsundere
• Unfazed Everyman
• Unreliable Narrator: Essays can be written here.
• Unwanted Harem: It's perfectly easy to make the case that everyone in the SOS Brigade, even Itsuki (what with the sheer amount of Ho Yay), is out for him. Though somewhat subverted in that he actually WANTS Mikuru, who is not the archetypal "first girl" of the Harem. He has also expressed interest in Yuki. Most of all, he did make out with Haruhi, which is followed by him cursing away at his subconscious, and noting that it doesn't take Freud to comprehend the dream.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With both Haruhi and Koizumi.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: At least according to Kuyo, in her first coherent sentence ever.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Answer: exactly the same.
  • He also treats the resident esper the same as he'd treat anyone with his... quirks.
• What the Hell, Hero?: While he normally snarks about what Haruhi is doing, he rarely truly objects. However, all through the movie filming in Sighs he can be seen getting angrier and more upset with each passing scene while his snark gets more and more hostile. Eventually, despite Koizumi's efforts to hold him back for fear of the consequences, Kyon nearly hits her. While he ends up being stopped, it's clear to her that he intended to do it, which was upsetting enough on her part to nearly cause another catastrophic event and, after they make up, to start being less abusive.
• When He Smiles: Kyon is so ridiculously charming and good-looking when he smiles it's just not fair.
• The Wisecracker
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: But Haruhi seriously pushes it, once or twice.

Yuki Nagato

Voiced by: Minori Chihara (JP), Michelle Ruff (EN)

"..."

Yuki Nagato is a severely quiet, bibliophile Meganekko and the only member of the Literature Club, from whom Haruhi takes over the SOS Brigade's new headquarters. She's quickly and unresistingly assimilated into the SOS Brigade, where she's described by Haruhi as their "invaluable silent character", and helps a great deal when the club is in need of The Smart Guy. She also enjoys reading Science Fiction and playing the strategy game The Day of Sagittarius III possibly a bit much (although she is very good at the latter).

Actually, she's an advanced Artificial Human Robot Girl controlled by a Sufficiently Advanced Alien known as the Data Overmind, which exists on a mostly non-physical level. Her purpose (and that of her fellow Humanoid Interfaces) is to observe Haruhi and her Reality Warper powers. Her Character Development stems from her continuing closeness to Kyon, to the point that her loyalty ultimately lies towards him and the SOS Brigade.

The author of the light novels has commented that Yuki is one of his favorite characters to make stories about, since Robot Girls are easy to write Character Development for, hence the number of short stories (and one whole novel) focusing on her emotional development.

Tropes exhibited by Yuki include:

• Adorkable: Few people make dopey ignorance towards Earth-Technology so darned cute, as show with THIS little old scene.
• And I Must Scream: Her fate during the "Endless Eight" arc, in which she is forced to relive the same 2 weeks for approximately 595 YEARS!
• Badass Adorable: She seems quite huggable because of her quietness and lack of understanding when it comes to earth tech (among other reasons) but is easily the most powerful of the SOS besides Haruhi.
• Badass Bookworm: Outside of Haruhi using her Reality Warper powers, Yuki is the strongest and most intelligent member of the SOS Brigade.
• Barehanded Blade Block: Does it one handed, and saves Kyon this way when he was about to get knifed by Ryoko. It works, naturally, but it results in a really nasty cut in her hand.
• Battle Butler: Not to be confused with the SOS's battle waitress.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Two ways, with the SOS-dan and also with the IDSE agents.
• Big Eater: Or better said, fast eater. She doesn't consume very large meals, but those she gets to eat, she gulps them down fast.
• Big Fancy House: The huge sparse apartment in the anime is a downgrade from the three bedroom spread she has in the novels.
• Bob Haircut
• Broken Bird: The experience of living out 2 weeks repeatedly for more than 15,000 times in Endless Eight gave her emotions, and eventually made her steal Haruhi's powers and create an alternate universe where everyone is normal and Haruhi is Put on a Bus.
• Character Development: Her development goes in the direction of emotions and individuality. In one of the later novels, she refuses to synchronize with her self from a different time, in order to retain her individuality. She flat out says "Because I don't want to." She also begins to treat the SOS-dan more akin to True Companions, going from caring about Kyon in particular, to also caring about the rest of the members.
  • Some of this may be due to Kyon becoming an expert Yuki watcher or projecting his feelings on what he sees from her. For example when he's feeling guilty about a date with Mikuru he sees Yuki as being colder than usual towards him.
• The Comically Serious: See Understatement below.
• Covert Pervert: Probably a byproduct of Fanon, but still possible. Considering the many ways she could have removed Mikuru's contact lenses in Sigh, the one she chose was rather... suggestive.
  • That part had more with her having to remove the contact as fast as possible seeing as how it was shooting deadly lasers at the time.
  • There's also the incident in "Snow Mountain Syndrome" where each Brigade member encounters the apparition of another character who tries to seduce them. We later find out that Yuki sent the specters and the pairings are a coded message, which explains why, for example, Koizumi saw Kyon and Mikuru Haruhi. But that doesn't explain how the phantasms behaved.
• Creepy Monotone: Although... she's not creepy. Neither is the monotone, really. It's arguably part of the charm.
• Cute Bruiser
• Deus Exit Machina: Kyon resolves to rely less on her. His wish is granted.
• Emotionless Girl: Rather subverted, since she is actually a kind and caring girl, but was ill-equipped by her creator to actually express it. She's even aware of it herself, leading to some frustration and bitterness on her part that she still can't express. It can be quite pitiful.
• Extreme Doormat: Starts out as this, changes significantly over the course of story.
• First-Name Basis: Or rather, personal-pronoun-only basis toward Kyon.
• Fortune Teller
• Heroic RROD: Appears to be dangerously close to one in the beginning of Book 10. She got better.
• Hikikomori: Sits in her room, in her high school uniform, for three years until finally attending that school.
• Hilarious Outtakes: "I don't really have a glasses fetish." "What kind of a fetish do you have?"
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Kyon's interpretation of her motivation in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya; Yuki being Yuki, whether she actually thinks this is left ambiguous.
• Ill Girl: In stories set after the movie.
• Instant Expert: Of course.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The fandom's interpretation of her motivation in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, she did give Kyon the Emergency Escape Program...
• Leitmotif: "Nagato's Confession"
• Magical Girl
• Magic From Technology: Yuki's powers are described as "magic" but basically come from post-mechanical technology overwriting local reality. As a bonus, her "incantations" are Microsoft SQL scripts sped up and backwards.
• Meaningful Name: Yuki's given name is obviously meant to evoke "snow", especially given her hinted-at backstory and Image Song, but is written with the kanji for "hope".
• Meganekko: Subverted (and lampshaded).
• Nerds Are Sexy: Yuki and her large fanbase within the story.
• Never Gets Drunk: Yuki is shown to be capable of downing several glasses of wine without so much as a stagger.
• Nigh Invulnerability
• Not So Above It All: Even Yuki has moments where she gives into just blatant silliness such as wearing her fortune-telling costume when it's not required, buying cheap play masks to wear at a festival, insisting on wearing her party hat while in the clubroom in the lead-up to the Christmas Party, or choosing a silly nickname for herself when Kyon blackmails Haruhi with one.
• Physical God: We still gotta find out what Yuki can't do. We know she won't change weather because it might screw up the environment. On a geological scale of time.
  • In Melancholy, she claims that she will not travel through time. She prefers cross-temporal synchronisation. However, it's unclear if this means that she permanently lacks the ability to travel in time, whether she's generally capable of doing so but unable or unwilling at that time, or whether she simply hasn't learned how to do it (given her remark that time travel is "not difficult"). In Disappearance, Nagato says that she cannot accompany Kyon and future Asahina back to December 18 because she must stay and guard their time-frozen past selves in her guest room, and for all we know, this may be the only reason for her statement in Melancholy.
    • In the novels after Disappearance, Yuki reveals to Kyon that she has voluntarily had the Entity restrict her time-related powers, because synchronizing with her future self robbed her of the ability to freely choose her fate.
  • More or less, it seems she self-imposes a limitation not to cause any significant harm and maintain the Masquerade.
• Prescience Is Predictable
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Until she loses the glasses.
• The Quiet One
• The Rainman: Lacking in emotion but brilliant with computers and a gifted musician as well.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: Her name even puns on Rei's name. Yuki is a homonym for "snow" in Japanese, while "Rei" can also mean "cold". "Ayanami" and "Nagato" are the names of two WWII Japanese warships.
• Ridiculously Human Robot
• Reality Warper: One that's more in control of her powers. She can snatch Haruhi's powers, making Haruhi powerless, but herself pretty much a Physical God. Since this is Haruhi we're talking about, it could be argued that the only reason Yuki could do something like that is because Haruhi, on some level, allowed it to happen (because she wanted it that way, because she was bored, because doing so would be interesting, etc etc etc).
• Robe and Wizard Hat: And we all know it looks damn awesome on her.
• Scary Shiny Glasses and/or Stoic Spectacles: Until she loses them, and Kyon comments that he's not into the glasses fetish anyway.

Yuki: (Deadpan) "What is a 'glasses fetish'?"

• School Uniforms Are the New Black: Very rarely does she wear anything else (a notable exception is "Remote Island Syndrome").
• Shrinking Violet: Only in the Alternate Universe.
  • Main sequence Yuki is always The Quiet One and a bit of a Hikikomori. Has she actually said anything to the convenience store clerk?
• Silent Bob: And I quote: ". . ."
• The Singularity: See Magic From Technology above. This actually makes her love for Scifi books an interesting quirk.
• The Smart Guy: Haruhi's perception. Actually The Big Guy, when you get down to it.
• Spin-Off: Has an Alternate Continuity Manga based on her called The Vanishing of Nagato Yuki-chan, roughly based the Disappearance of Haruhi arc, if there weren't any interference.
• The Spock
• Spock Speak
• The Stoic
  • Not So Stoic: In the Alternate Universe, where she smiled at Kyon.
    • A subtle moment occurs in Melancholy when Kyon takes her to the library. She's so joyously overwhelmed at the sight of so many books she practically floats away.
    • Kyon seems to make a habit of Yuki-watching and will ascribe emotions to her for actions of hers that he just barely discerns.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien
• Sugar and Ice Personality
• Superpower Lottery: Yuki's supernatural abilities are vastly more useful than Itsuki's (only useful in Closed Space) or Mikuru's (largely nonexistent). Kyon realizes at a few points that he's relying too much on Yuki to keep up the Masquerade, and resolves to ease up on her.
  • Mikuru's only power is her TPDD, and it's pretty much useless, because it can be stolen, and she needs approval from an apparently bureaucratic system.
    • The TPDD actually can't be stolen, and Mikuru even comments that losing it should be impossible. Statements here and there by the Mikurii and Yuki indicate that future tech isn't so much physical devices as it is biological circuitry within their bodies. Mikuru's TPDD wasn't stolen, it was deactivated by her superior officer, Mikuru.
• Super Speed: Seemingly able to move at near lightspeed.
• Squee: The 4th novel Disappearance.
• Techno Babble
• Techno Wizard
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl to Haruhi's tomboy and the tomboy to Mikuru's girly girl.
• True Companions: It is made obvious several times that she will not stay neutral when the Brigade members are in danger, even though her task is to simply observe.
• The Uriah Gambit: The Data Overmind can't directly retaliate at Nagato for Disappearance due to Kyon. It can, however, elect her to be the "Ambassador" to the Canopy Domain, exposing her existence and sanity to something which is as alien to her as the Data Overmind is to humans. A lesser being would Go Mad from the Revelation. Fortunately, if this ever ends in something seriously bad for Yuki, Kyon will retaliate, so the only thing they can really do is torture her, not eliminate her completely.
• Understatement: Nagato's laconic nature, lack of affect when she does speak, and way of explaining things in overly technical terms, can make even the most earth-shattering pronouncements seem rather trivial. This occasionally seems to mask a depth of feeling not present on the surface: after determining that Kyon's old friend Nakagawa fell for her based on a misunderstanding, she says it was "a little bit" disappointing. Coming from her, this could easily be the equivalent of "devastated".
• When She Smiles: The first poster for the movie shot her Moe levels OVER NINE THOUSAAAND!
  • THIS
• The Worf Effect: The threat posed by the Sky Canopy Domain is illustrated by how quickly they can put poor Yuki out of commission. Twice.
• You Gotta Have Purple Hair: At least you do if you're a Humanoid Interface.

Mikuru Asahina

Voiced by: Yūko Gotō (JP), Stephanie Sheh (EN)

"That's Classified Information."

Painfully shy, walked-upon, and adorable, Mikuru Asahina doesn't seem to serve much purpose on the show other than Fan Service, a rival Love Interest for Kyon (and the one he actually expresses interest in), and being the much-abused subject of Haruhi's "admiration". However, like the other characters, Mikuru has her own secret: she is a Time Traveler from an unspecified date in The Future, sent to study Haruhi like Itsuki and Yuki, since Haruhi is the source of a temporal disturbance Three Years Ago that prevents time travel to any previous period.

Mikuru is, as far as the audience can tell, the least diligent in the whole "observe/control" Haruhi business. Indeed, she seems content to be the SOS Brigade's personal Meido (having an especial fascination with tea-brewing for some reason), deal with 21st-century culture shock, and endure Haruhi's constant molestation and enforced Cosplay. It's not that she's around solely for window-dressing. It's just that she's passive to the point of being The Chew Toy. (And partly around for window-dressing).

Tropes exhibited by Mikuru include:

• Adorkable
• Anti-Hero: Her older counterpart can be quite morally ambiguous and manipulative at times. Her younger self may or may not have her moments. Koizumi definitely originally thought she was faking her "moe" tendencies to manipulate Kyon.
• Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: There are some moments where we see that, despite all the grief she causes her, Mikuru does care for Haruhi as a friend, and vice-versa.
• Big Breasts, Big Deal: Easily the Embarrassed type.
• Butt Monkey: Often due to Haruhi's antics
• Catch Phrase: "That's classified (information)."
• The Chew Toy: Mostly after Haruhi's Character Development.
• Cosplay: Against her will.
• Celibate Hero: While none of the characters are currently dating anyone, Mikuru isn't allowed to get involved with anyone out of her timeframe. However, she does seem to have a strange interest in Yuki in the 7th book. And is too embarrassed to look at Haruhi in a cheongsam later on.
• Cool Big Sis: Her adult version towards Kyon; dosen't make her any less cute though.
• Cuteness Proximity: While petting Shamisen in "Where Did The Cat Go?" (Disturbance), she says to herself, "Kitty, kitty, um… Kitty, calico, mew… Umm~ umm, little kitty eat cat food."
• Distinguishing Mark: Her mole.
• Dojikko: At times Haruhi expects her to act like this when serving as the SOS-dan's Meido.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Haruhi, Tsuruya and even Yuki seem to quite "like" Mikuru.
• Eye Beams
• Face Heel Turn: Not happened yet, but Scheme reveals that she'll grow up to be one of the more manipulative characters of the series (even to the point of abusing her younger self) unless, as hinted at in the Sequel Hook in Astonishment Vol. 2, Kyon can prove Fujiwara wrong on the subject of whether history can indeed be changed.
• The Monster Faint: The monster in this case is herself.
• Faux Action Girl: Parodied.

Kyon: "Don't you have a laser beam or something?" Mikuru: "No, carrying weapons is forbidden!"

• • And later subverted. The reason she has to be in the past is to protect and inspire the inventor of time travel, who is currently a primary school kid living near Haruhi. Mikuru indirectly and unknowingly is responsible for saving his life.
• Femme Fatale: At least Itsuki suggests this to Kyon. More obvious in her older version.
• Fetish Fuel: Invoked by Haruhi - She wants to make her as 'fetishy' as possible.
  • Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: She's a big-boobed moe blob who cosplays in glasses, maid outfits, and bunny girl costumes and who is frequently molested by the show's heroine.
• Fish Out of Water: Temporal Water, specifically.
• Fragile Flower
• Future Badass: Maybe not badass, but Mikuru's future self is rather competent and self-confident, compared to her younger self. On the downside, she's alot less morally clear.
• Future Me Scares Me: Averted insofar as Mikuru doesn't know that her boss is her future self. However, Koizumi is highly suspicious of the future Mikuru and by the end of Scheme Kyon's starting to agree.
  • Koizumi re-iterates this in the 11th book, telling future Mikuru to her face that he considers present-day Mikuru a friend, but he's not so sure about her.
• Gainaxing
• Gaussian Girl: Mikuru in a Yukata from Kyon's POV.
• Girly Girl to Haruhi and Tsuruya's Tomboys
• The Goofball
• Hidden Depths: It may surprise you that she has an image song about being bitter and wanting to get revenge upon all those who have used her as a tool.
• Informed Attractiveness: She really is attractive, but given the way Kyon puts her on a pedestal sometimes...
• Kawaisa: Even her adult version.
• The Load: When Kyon isn't carrying her unconscious body around, she's likely to be clinging to him to prevent his escape from the battlefield.
• Male Gaze: Kyon, you sly dog!
• Meaningful Name: Assuming the most obvious choice of Kanji for her name, it could alternatively be read as "mirai", meaning "future".
• Meido: Perhaps oddly for a time-traveling secret agent, she seems to enjoy playing this role.
• Moe: Invoked. Played up to the point of absurdity by Haruhi. Heck, she's even the page image!
• Neutral Female: SOS Brigade Mikuru that is. Adult Mikuru is much more proactive... frighteningly so.
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: Yūko Gotō is a hardass, alcoholic, hyper-masculine Badass Biker who is nothing like the gentle and kind Mikuru-chan in real life. Point in fact, treating her like Mikuru has been said to be a major Berserk Button for Ms. Goto, due to people stereotyping her outside her roles. Just DON'T do it.
• Nice Girl: Present-day Mikuru is, at least.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Maybe.
• Older Than They Look/Younger Than They Look: Mikuru's denials of telling Kyon her age implies that she is not really high school age (by our standards). She also qualifies as both by having the face of a little girl and the breasts of a much older woman.
• Playing Against Type: Played straight with Present!Mikuru, and subverted with Future!Mikuru. Present!Mikuru is nice. Future!Mikuru? Not so much, though Kyon is active in trying to change that as of the end of Astonishment Vol. 2.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: Mikuru's the closest the SOS Brigade has to a Proper Lady, and guess who wears tights with her uniform during the winter months?
• The Precocious
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl
• The Singularity: Why Mikuru doesn't know how anything in the 21st century works - future society surpassed mechanical technology long ago.
• Sparkling Stream of Tears
• Team Pet/The Chick: How Haruhi sees her. And well, she really is The Chick.
• Time Travel
• True Companions: As Koizumi points out in the 11th book, whatever future Mikuru is like or feels on the matter, present Mikuru is unquestionably a loyal friend.

Itsuki Koizumi

Voiced by: Daisuke Ono (JP), Johnny Yong Bosch (EN)

"Relax! I don't believe in the existence of an Almighty God, or the Ultimate Creator that created humans. Many of my companions think the same way as well. Yet, there's one thing that bothers us." Bothered by what? "The things that we do. Are they as foolish as a clown doing a handstand by the edge of a cliff?" —Haruhi Suzumiya (volume 1)

Itsuki Koizumi. New Transfer Student. Prodigious talker. Perpetual annoyance to Kyon, and toady to Haruhi. Also the wielder of (rather specialized) Psychic Powers and representative of a shadowy conspiracy of similarly-empowered people, who credit Haruhi as the source of their abilities. Like Yuki and Mikuru, he's here to observe Haruhi and, more so, keep her under control; he knows from regular experience the highly destructive nature of Haruhi's teen angst, and his "Agency" is tasked with keeping it under control.

Itsuki is the most active in interacting with Haruhi, usually actively finding ways to keep her occupied and feeling good via thorough ass-kissing. Aside from that, he greatly enjoys Contemplating His Navel, spouting Expospeak, and playing a variety of board games (poorly), all but the last of which annoy Kyon immensely. In his spare time, he beats up Kaiju manifestations of Haruhi's irritability in Closed Space, a sort of Phantom Zone.

If Kyoko's words in Volumes 10 and 11 are anything to go by, he is the founder and the leader of the Agency.

Tropes exhibited by Koizumi include:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Oh, so much. That he keeps his own emotions hidden behind a plastered smile makes him the one character in the series almost no one in the fandom agrees on.
  • There's even a bit of this in-universe with Mikuru distrusting his motivations originally, Koizumi swearing loyalty to the brigade, and Kyon being simultaneously annoyed by and trusting of him. Koizumi himself all but confirms his personality is an act, but even then he might have been lying...
• Ambiguously Bi: His interactions with Kyon tend towards this, though he tells Kyon that he acts that way because it's how Haruhi expects him to. Doesn't stop the Ho Yay... which seems to be carried out when Haruhi isn't around or paying any attention, though. On the other hand, he tells Kyon in the fourth novel that he is in love with Haruhi. Given that this took place in an alternate universe, it may or may not be the case in the main reality. This could be more or less a result of him being an esper and knowing that all that matters in the world is the wishes of a teenage girl. He's a teenager, has magic powers and belongs to an organization that probably supports him in whatever way he needs. This is a kid with no worries.
  • At least until Snow Mountain Syndrome in the fifth novel. From then on, as Kyon notes the situation becomes a lot more serious. By the ninth novel Koizumi has serious worries. So much that he lets his mask slip more and more often to Kyon.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: In a sense; when we were shown him fighting the Celestials, he seemed to be competent (along with the other espers, admittedly) and if the recent revelation about him, as well as how he dealt with Fujiwara in combat, are anything to go by...
• Badass Bookworm: He is in North High's top class. The Badass part? See Authority Equals Asskicking.
• Becoming the Mask
• Beleaguered Assistant: Despite his apparent enthusiasm toward Haruhi's actions, he makes clear that the fact that he has to take care of the closed spaces (although their appearances become less frequent in the later novels) put him under a lot of stress, especially in the ninth novel.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He fights and apparently kills Fujiwara in the 11th book. And he does it with a smile.

"I shall take care of that." A large, shiny, volleyball-like orb of red floated above the palm of Koizumi's right hand. "Now I feel like I'm becoming the protagonist of an esper manga. I've waited a long time for this, so please let me play an active role in this ending. This may be the last chance I'll have to fulfill my dream." He was saying this quite happily, but I think anger would be more fitting for his emotions.

• Big Damn Heroes: Note to Itsuki: It spoils the effect when you walk in smiling and give a jaunty wave at the guy you're going to rescue.
• The Big Guy: Per Haruhi. Really The Smart Guy.
• Bishonen

Kyon: Was it a guy, or a girl? Haruhi: Could've been disguised, but for now he looked male.

• Calling Your Attacks: In the Cave Cricket fight. His attack names are Shout Outs to the Full Metal Panic!! series produced by Kyoto Animation.
• Character Filibuster: Koizumi frequently (ab)uses his role as Mr. Exposition as an excuse to fire off seemingly interminable dissertations about physics, philosophy, psychology and whatever other topic he can come up with that facilitates longwinded rants about abstract matters. He invariably ends these with some variation of I Was Just Joking to make absolutely certain that no concrete point whatsoever is ever made of these rants. Kyon, and most of the audience, are left with the impression that he just likes doing this For the Lulz.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the end of the Snow Mountain Syndrome, he said that he would betray the Organization exactly once to aid Kyon. We'll have to see when that comes to play.
• The Chessmaster: He's the leader of The Organization. That should tell enough.
  • He eventually reveals that he's not the leader. When asked by Kyon if Mori is his superior, he is surprised by Kyon's assumption and states that the Organization does not run like a normal one, and that everyone is on the same level.
    • It's Koizumi, people- note the lack of specifics in the above revelation. We never know when he's being entirely truthful.
• Contemplate Our Navels
• Deadpan Snarker: Shows hint of being one in volume 8 and onwards.
• Dissonant Serenity: Seemed fairly cheerful when informing Kyon of the situation during their time Haruhi's world-ending Closed Space in Volume 1. Even moreso in Volume 11, while confronting Fujiwara. Kyon even notes that Koizumi's still smiling when he's threatening Fujiwara, and thinks that a look of anger would be more fitting.
• Eyes Always Shut
• Estrogen Brigade Bait: And how!
• Expy: He resembles Neon Genesis Evangelion's Kaworu Nagisa, though not as strongly as Yuki mirrors Rei.
• The Gadfly: Seems to enjoy confusing Kyon and then annoying him by retracting the statement way too much. Also one explanation for his constant Ho Yay. Considering his strongly implied attraction to Haruhi, it could be his way of getting back at Kyon for his distant attitude towards her.
• Gay Option: Well, everyone else had an Eroge trope on their list...
• Genre Savvy: His role as Yes-Man to Haruhi; even though she only listens to Kyon and herself, Itsuki apparently sees no wisdom in opposing the girl who may or may not be God.
• Gratuitous English
• Guile Hero: Even though he does let Kyon handle most things, he is, by all rights, the leader of The Organization.
• Homoerotic Subtext: It makes Kyon pretty uncomfortable.

Koizumi to Kyon in "Snowy Mountain Syndrome": "'You appeared in my room as well. The appearance might have been you, but the behaviour was just terrifying... anyway, you did things that you wouldn't do.'"

• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: For both beloveds, if you believe that he secretly loves Haruhi, and he does tries to 'give' Kyon love advice. Or, he could be a Shipper on Deck for KyonxHaruhi if you don't believe the theory about his secret crush for Haruhi or his Ho Yay with Kyon
• I Was Just Joking: At least once, after another philosophical monologue.
  • Many of his statements to Kyon end with his (nearly signature) 'Ah, sorry, that was a joke'. He stops tacking this onto his persistent hints that he has a thing for Haruhi by Disappearance.
• Keigo: To death.
• Mr. Exposition: A trait that he seems at least aware of enough to make fun of during the School Festival. Or he could have just been doing what he does best (Ramble on forever and confuse the audience). However, he is also a self-admitted Unreliable Expositor.
  • Worth noting that his dialogue in the class play is actually an abridgement of the source material; the simple fact that he was cast in that role Lampshades the hell out of this trope.
• New Transfer Student
• No Sense of Personal Space: The source of most of his Ho Yay.
• The Philosopher
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections: Taken to near damn omnipotent level; he has so many connections that he can pretty much do anything that doesn't involve supernatural phenomena.
• Ship Tease: A bit of it with Kyoko Tachibana at the end of the eleventh novel.
• Stepford Smiler
• Teen Genius: He's involved with an organization that is more or less omnipotent in human terms. And according to Kyoko Tachibana, he's the head of it!
• Touched by Vorlons
• Trickster Mentor
• True Companions: He declares that he would choose the SOS Brigade over the Agency, effectively betraying them Heel Face Turn style, should they turn out opposing to the Brigade.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Kyon. He annoys Kyon most of the time, and occasionally gets back at Kyon for Kyon's obtuseness and neglect of Haruhi in his own passive aggressive way. But Kyon spends more time with him than any other member of the brigade and grows to trust him. And, when it comes down to it, Koizumi would side with Kyon over the Organization should it ever come to that. So he says.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Itsuki tries to exploit Haruhi's Genre Savviness, but it generally doesn't work out so well for him.

Secondary Characters

Ryoko Asakura

Voiced by: Natsuko Kuwatani (JP), Bridget Hoffman (EN)

Ryoko Asakura is the Class Representative of Kyon's class. She's described as a model student—hardworking, beautiful and smart, until she gets revealed as another alien data interface, the same as Yuki. She's gotten tired of sitting around and observing until Haruhi acts, and so she decides to act... by stabbing Kyon and seeing how Haruhi will react. Kyon is saved by Yuki, who then proceeds to shut down Ryoko. This convinces Kyon that Yuki is an actual alien.

In the Alternate Universe stemming from Disappearance, she is a normal student and still the Class Representative of Kyon's class. Nonetheless, she still ends up trying to kill Kyon at the end, when things are about to return to normal.

Interestingly, she has a good twin in The Vanishing of Nagato Yuki-chan; a dimension where she is Yuki's best friend; and genuinely tries to help her be with Kyon. Although she is just a little bit jealous (of Kyon), she tries to hide that.

Tropes exhibited by Asakura include:

• Anti-Hero: As of Book 10, a definite Type V. She's still the same Asakura, she just happens to be fighting on the same side as the Brigade now.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: It can kind of be argued either way; on the one hand, when dealing with the vast majority of people, she seems to be legitimately, actually nice and to even enjoy it, doubly so in Disapperance's Alternate Reality and its related spinoff (which, given the nature of The Verse, may or may not count, depending). Her interactions with Kyon, however, run the gamut; she starts out nice, then there's the big stabbing incident, then a lot of her lines with him in Disapperance straddle the line between "good-natured ribbing about Yuki" and "passive-aggressive bitchiness", then she stabs him for real, and then in Book 10, she saves his life while holding a knife to his throat at the same time. Perhaps it's most accurate to say that if she has an Inner Bitch, Kyon brings it out, and since he's our narrator, we may get a disproportionate view of it.
  • Granted, she also seems to bitch out Kimidori a bit, but by Book 10 she has nearly as much of a legitimate axe to grind with the Data Overmind as Yuki does at this point, so it comes across as less "self-righteous bitchiness" and more "you really don't have any room to tell me what I should and shouldn't be, Nagato understands that".
• Blue Eyes
• Boxed Crook / Recruiting the Criminal: In the 10th novel, Astonishment, she does a Big Damn Villains, but she can only appear in certain circumstances.

Ryoko: I'm afraid it's about time for my temporary deployment to come to an end. Call me again any time. I'll be ready and waiting. As long as Little Miss Scary over there doesn't step in to intervene, of course.

• Class Rep
• Combat Tentacles: Those glowing appendages she forms are described as such at least by Kyon.
• Curtains Match the Window
• Cute and Psycho: Ryoko's Humanoid Interface incarnation. Even after coming back from Yuki's deletion. Her kernel must be built around stabbing people or something.
• Evil Counterpart: To Yuki. In the 10th novel, she even claims that she'll exist so long as Yuki does.
• Eviler Than Thou: Kuyo Suo of "the Anti-SOS Brigade" is even more deranged than Ryoko.
  • Also, her human counterpart from "Dissapearance" is much worse than normal Ryoko. Normal Ryoko's attempt to kill Kyon was motivated out of psychotic pragmatisism and there was no real malice behind it. The alternate Ryoko, on the other hand, was motivated by emotional spite, and she nearly succeeded in killing him alot more than normal Ryoko did.
• Faux Affably Evil: Admittedly she's more Blue and Orange Morality than out-and-out evil, but certainly her cheerful personality is only skin-deep.
  • Granted, given certain events in Disappearance especially, there are... other ways of interpreting that statement.
• Foreshadowing: Remember the knife scene from Melancholy? Guess who fights Kuyo and what weapon she uses?
• The Gadfly: A bad case of this, but fits it nonetheless.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Part of the reason for her Ensemble Darkhorse status is that when she isn't stabbing people, she's legitimately kind, empathic and helpful (even if she rags on Kyon sometimes). Kyon even sits down to an extended dinner with her in Disappearance (partially at Yuki's insistence), and rather manages to enjoy himself despite his paranoia about being knifed out of the blue.
  • The fact that she appears in Disappearance at all is telling. Yuki temporarily stole Haruhi's Reality Warping powers, which means that she very easily could have fabricated a universe where Ryoko didn't exist at all; in fact, she would have to know how negatively Kyon views her, and this was all done for his sake. That Yuki brought Ryoko back regardless really suggests that Yuki must see something redeeming in her and that she isn't just a Knife Nut.
• Girl with Psycho Weapon
• Hime Cut
• Homoerotic Subtext: Starting in Disappearance she starts showing a weird fixation on Yuki, though some of it may be a result of Yuki restructuring the world. It's really hard to interpret her behavior properly considering how, well, alien she is.
  • Perhaps it's a mix of If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... and I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
• Knife Nut
• Let's Get Dangerous: "Shifting to Termination Mode."
• Not Quite Dead: Twice.
• Letters 2 Numbers: Yuki(?) rewrites Haruhi's graphic to say 505. However 708 remains just an apartment number. (Unless it's short for Be On the Lookout.)
• Psychopathic Womanchild
• Token Evil Teammate: Fills Haruhi's shoes in that role, although Haruhi was actually more antagonistic than evil until her Heel Face Turn in Sigh left a void that Asakura would eventually fill in Astonishment Vol. 1.
• Uncanny Valley Girl: She keeps up that impeccable smile at all times. All times.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Kyon, of all people. Especially given the... imagery involved. He really, really tries to avoid acknowledging this in the 10th novel, straight down to refusing to look at her... because he doesn't want to admit to himself that she's attractive and that looking at her might allow him to begin to forgive her, a trap he fell into already in "Dissapearance."
• Villainous Rescue: Saves Kyon from Kuyo in the 10th novel.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: All Ryoko wants to do is to break the status quo and incite some reaction from the titular character. Her method happens to be trying to murder the narrator, and major love interest, Kyon. When she returns in the tenth novel as a Boxed Crook, she still wants to kill Kyon because she still believes that her actions were justified. Still, she protects him, because she wants to be the one to kill him.
• The Worf Effect: Has only nailed Yuki (who was using her own body as a distraction) and Kyon when she took him completely by surprise.
• Yandere: Ryoko's human incarnation in Disappearance is very much one of these.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair

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Tsuruya

Voiced by: Yuki Matsuoka (JP), Kari Wahlgren (EN)

No one really knows what's up with Tsuruya-san, Mikuru's classmate, ersatz SOS Brigade member and something of a Sixth Ranger. She's got the (ankle length) green hair one would expect from a Humanoid Interface, but seems to be totally normal, if just as much of a Genki Girl as Haruhi. She's also notable for her Cute Little Fang, Big Fancy House, tendency to point and laugh (very loudly), and for inspiring the Fan Web Comic and Memetic Mutation Sensation, Churuya. She also seems unusually aware of the SOS Brigade's oddities for a Muggle, but seems content to enjoy the show rather than disrupt the Brigade's attempts to keep Haruhi under control. Sort of an Ensemble Darkhorse.

Tropes exhibited by Tsuruya include:

• Big Fancy House
• Cloudcuckoolander: Her tendency to laugh at almost anything.
• Cool Big Sis - In age and attitude; she dotes on her younger friends as if she is their big sister.
• Cute Little Fangs
• Genki Girl
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Tends to do this when she laughs.
• Hero of Another Story: Itsuki implies that she's off having her own adventures; her family is "very influential" in the Esper community, even though she's not one.
• The Hyena: Once she finds something funny, it's hard to make her stop laughing.
  • She's not big on subtlety either. She won't just laugh, she'll point and laugh.
  • There's one single occasion where she gets serious. Since it's Tsuruya, this only helps to increase the drama and tension.
• Motor Mouth
• Nice Girl: Will be friends with anyone, unless they hurt Mikuru.
• No Name Given: However, the one commonly accepted by Fanon due to a certain AU fanfic is Haruka.
• The Ojou
• Rapunzel Hair
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: See Verbal Tic below.
• She's Got Legs: Oh boy!
• Ship Tease: With Kunikida in Book 11.
• Spoiled Sweet: Actually pretty nice and friendly despite being rich.
• The Tease: She likes "suggesting" things to Kyon. Of course, she's only kidding and Kyon doesn't fall for it either.
• Tomboy to Mikuru's Girly Girl: Shares this status with Haruhi.
• Verbal Tic: "Nyoro" though she only says it very rarely (once in the anime). The anime also adds "megas"; though it's used only once in the actual anime it appears in her character songs.
• You Gotta Have Green Hair

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Emiri Kimidori

Voiced by: Yuri Shiratori (JP), Hynden Walch (EN)

Emiri Kimidori is a mysterious student in North High—somewhat of a Yamato Nadeshiko and a Mysterious Watcher to the Brigade. She is revealed to be a humanoid interface just like Yuki, but has done very little, save for a couple of minor plots and being an ally to the Student Council President. That is, until Volume 10, where she reveals herself to be somewhat of an Obstructive Bureaucrat working under the Data Overmind. She becomes an observer to the Sky Canopy Domain, but refuses to act unless ordered by the Data Overmind.

Tropes exhibited by Kimidori include:

• Adaptation-Induced Plothole: More regarding characterization. The character songs for the anime's first season were released prior to the tenth-novel preview; building off the fact that she's an interface, the songs portrayed her as someone reaching for humanity and wanting to participate in the fun everyone else has but being unable to. The tenth-novel preview, however, revealed that she doesn't give a damn about anything that interferes with what the Entity wants, not even Yuki's personal safety.
• All Powerful Bystander: Of the first and last variety at the same time: she hasn't been ordered to help out Nagato when she gets sick in the tenth novel, and she doesn't care enough about her to do so either. Thus, she just continues to watch.
• Curtains Match the Window
• Green Eyes
• Hair Decorations
• I Just Want to Be Normal: According to her Image Song. However, she appears to actually be largely indifferent.
• Kick the Dog: She says it's not her place to look after Yuki when she's in trouble, and generally has little care whether Yuki lives or dies.
• Mysterious Watcher: Essentially the role given to her. She refuses to act outside of this.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat
• You Gotta Have Green Hair

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Taniguchi and Kunikida

Taniguchi voiced by: Minoru Shiraishi (JP), Sam Riegel (EN) Kunikida voiced by: Megumi Matsumoto (JP), Brianne Siddall (EN)

Taniguchi and Kunikida are Those Two Guys and Kyon's main non-SOS Brigade friends. Both totally normal to all appearances, Taniguchi is a Big Eater and something of a teenage Casanova Wannabe who is implied to have dated Haruhi for exactly five minutes back in junior high. Kunikida is Kyon's junior high friend, and receives no Character Development or Backstory detail whatsoever - except that he gets better grades than Taniguchi or Kyon and, as is revealed in the eleventh novel, may have a crush on Tsuruya. They both act as an anchor of normalcy for Kyon, and occasional extra bodies in the SOS Brigade for things like baseball games or magazine publishing.

Tropes exhibited by Taniguchi and Kunikida include:

• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Taniguchi briefly tasted Haruhi's shortest relationship, listed one alien as a top pick then dated another one for a few months. Fortunately for his sanity, he's Locked Out of the Loop and just a Romantic False Lead.
• Shipper on Deck: Taniguchi for Kyon x Haruhi and Kunikida for Kyon x Sasaki. (In the novels at least.)
• Ship Tease: Kunikida goes to North High so he can be with Tsuruya more often.

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Kyon's Little Sister

Voiced by: Sayaka Aoki (JP), Kari Wahlgren (EN)

Kyon's Little Sister, known only as Imouto-chan, is a Cheerful Child who occasionally tags along on her brother's sort-of-adventures, being a bit hyper but still better-mannered than most Annoying Younger Siblings. Because Adults Are Useless, she forms the core of Kyon's family life in the novels. He doesn't get much screen time at home in the anime, so she's follows he him out of the house more often.

Tropes exhibited by little sister include:

• Cheerful Child
• Genki Girl
• Hair Decorations
• No Name Given

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The Computer Society President

Voiced by: Dave Wittenberg (EN)

A nameless character who is the president of the Computer Society. His role in the plot is essentially The Chew Toy, being the subject of several of Haruhi's antics—being blackmailed into giving away computers to the SOS Brigade, getting taken over by a cricket-like Data Entity, etc. He declares himself and his club to be rivals to the SOS Brigade and challenges them to a game of their own creation, but they lose and become "vassals" to the SOS Brigade. Emiri Kimidori also pretended to be his girlfriend. It must suck to be him.

Tropes exhibited by the Computer Society President include:

• Butt Monkey
• The Chew Toy
• Dynamic Entry: The receiver of it once he declares the Computer Society to be the SOS Brigade's rivals.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After trying to cheat their way to victory in their game against the SOS Brigade, Yuki manages to one-up them by hijacking the code to their game and prevent them from cheating.
• No Name Given: The anime at least, plays with this by making Kimidori say his name, only to get cut off by the meowing of a cat.

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The Student Council President

Another character with No Name Given, he is the school's Student Council President introduced in The Anger of Haruhi Suzumiya by Koizumi to give Haruhi an antagonist and to keep her from getting bored. He acts like a Bespectacled Bastard Boyfriend in his role as the president, but he is secretly laughing at how ridiculous his job is. Later on, it seems that Haruhi's influence is making him take his job more seriously.

Tropes exhibited by the Student Council President include:

• Becoming the Mask: He comments that he slips back into his mask every now and then, even when Haruhi isn't around.
• Full-Name Basis: Or a Japanese variant thereon: he always addresses female students with the honorific "kun," which is typically used for boys and young men. As That Other Wiki notes, there are two exceptions to that practice, "in business settings, young female employees may also be addressed as -kun by older males of senior status," and "in the Diet of Japan (Legislature), chairpersons use kun when addressing diet members and ministers." Either way, he's being pretentious.
• Jerkass / Jerkass Facade
• Scary Shiny Glasses
• Smug Snake
• Student Council President: Invoked by Koizumi to keep Haruhi entertained.

Yasumi Watahashi

Formally introduced in Astonishment, Yasumi Watahashi is one of the new first years at North High participating in Haruhi's rigorous SOS Brigade entrance tests. Kyon notices her among the other first years as the only one interested in Haruhi's lecture on the history of the SOS Brigade. By Astonishment (Part Two), she is the only student to pass the tests.

Contrary to the popular pre-Astonishment theories, Yasumi has not yet been revealed to be one of the supernatural beings that Haruhi has been pursuing. However, as her presence is the most obvious difference between the Alpha and Beta plots (aside from the mysterious phone call to Kyon which was probably made by her in the first place), speculation has abounded as to her true nature. But really, she was born of Haruhi's subconscious to save Yuki and Kyon from the troubles they suffer in the Beta plot, causing the Alpha plotline to occur in the process.

Tropes exhibited by Watahashi include:

• Chekhov's Gunman
• Deus Ex Machina: Literally, she was created by Haruhi's subconcious precisely in order to handily solve the plot.
• Hair Decorations
• Genki Girl: Her energy even gets on Haruhi's nerves.
• OC Stand-In: Due to the long wait between her first appearance and her formal introduction, fanfiction written between the releases of Dissociation and Astonishment often uses her as one.
• Literal Split Personality: To Haruhi.
• Moe: In-universe, where even Mikuru can't stand how adorable she is.
• Moe Anthropomorphism: Of Haruhi's subconscious self.
• Moment Killer: Deliberate Destruction of Sasaki's meetings with Kyon, even though Sasaki couldn't bring herself to confess to Kyon the first time around.
• Sempai-Kohai: As a first year, she's a kohai to the entire SOS Brigade. In the phone call, she refers to Kyon as "Sempai".
• Significant Anagram: When her name is read in the proper reading (Yasumizu Watahashi), it can be rearranged to say watashi wa(ha) Suzumiya -- I am Suzumiya.
• Sixth Ranger: Albeit briefly.

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Shamisen

Voiced by: Steve Kramer (EN, season 1) Michael McConnohie (season 2)

Shamisen is an everyday alley cat (or maybe not...) who becomes a Touched By Haruhi Talking Animal for a while when playing Yuki's familiar in the Adventures of Mikuru Asahina student film. He's actually quite The Philosopher when he can speak. He loses this ability after the film is finished and the weirdness starts to wear off, but he becomes involved in a few other adventures after Kyon and his sister adopt him. He is also a male calico.

Shamisen: (interrupting) Why don't you just take control of his mind? From my observations, you have the ability to do just that... Yuki: bops him on the head Yuki: (Matter of factly) That was ventriloquism.

Tropes exhibited by Shamisen include:

• Contemplate Our Navels: He's awfully philosophical, when he can speak.
• Meaningful Name: Shamisen (the instruments) use cat skin in their construction.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: He's a male calico cat. Kyon mentally comments on this a single time.
  • Actually, this is possible (though very rare) in real life, due to males with the XXY chromosome set. However, this also probably means that Shamisen is sterile.

The Anti-SOS Brigade

Clockwise from the top-left:Fujiwara, Kyoko Tachibana, Sasaki, and Kuyo Suo.

The "Anti-SOS Brigade" are The Psycho Rangers. While not nearly as cohesive as Kyon's True Companions, they've more or less allied for differing reasons.

Sasaki

Kyon's old girlfriend. Or at least the female person he used to hang around with, and the reason for his pre-Haruhi reputation for "liking weird girls." Sasaki is intelligent and analytical...but chooses not to do anything to change her environment. She knows about aliens, time-travellers and espers, which are interesting, but she's not going to change her daily routine over it. She's somewhat of The Spock and wishes to keep out of the God-business all the organizations have.

Tropes exhibited by Sasaki include:

• A-Cup Angst: A one-off comment from her in Rainy Day, where she expresses a hint of jealousy upon the idea of Kyon ogling the popular girl in their class and her larger "assets".
• Antagonistic Counterpart: To Haruhi...at first.
• Anti-Villain: Seemingly a Type I but really a Type IV.
• Asexuality: Possibly; she sees emotions of love as a mental illness, but unlike Haruhi, claims never to feel them. It's a lie.
• Bokukko: Strangely, she refers to herself using male pronouns when speaking to boys, but switches to female pronouns when talking to girls.
• Catch Phrase: "Yare yare", at least in the past. Yes, she's the one Kyon picked that up from.
• Chekhov's Gunman: She was mentioned offhand multiple times as Kyon's precedent for liking weird girls (even before most of the characters were introduced), and her name appears in Kyon's phone in the Disappearance movie (screenshots here); she doesn't actually appear until the ninth novel.
• Curtains Match the Window
• Deconstruction: It's a hobby of hers.
  • She herself even deconstructs the Big Bad Evil Counterpart trope. She knows full well she's been cast as a villain in the story and doesn't want to play that role.
• Forgotten Childhood Friend: To Kyon and Haruhi.
• Good All Along: Though she's introduced as Haruhi's Evil Counterpart, she's actually the only member of her group who isn't villainous at all. In fact, she was even a friend of Haruhi's back in elementary school! She and Kyon hatch a plan to stop the rest of the Anti-SOS Brigade. It wouldn't have worked, but it's the thought that counts.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: She mentions that one of the reasons she hangs around the Anti-SOS Brigade is that they're the only people who talk to her. In the end, Kyouko states that she wishes to remain Sasaki's friend, and Kyon promises to always be her friend too, so things work out well for her.
• New Old Flame: Suddenly introduced as Kyon's 'close friend' in the ninth novel, but was foreshadowed in the first novel.
• The Philosopher
• Refusal of the Call: She tells Kyoko she wants nothing to do with Haruhi's power.
• Strange Girl: Even Haruhi thinks she's a weirdo.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Feels the need to bring up the topic again and again to remind Not Love Interest Kyon (and herself) that about the She Is Not My Girlfriend.
• Token Good Teammate: Just as Haruhi was once the Token Antagonistic Teammate to the SOS Brigade, so is Sasaki this to the Anti-SOS Brigade, eventually to the point of actively trying to sabotage Fujiwara's goals with the help of Kyon and Yasumi.
• Unwitting Pawn: To the rest of her group, but especially Fujiwara.
  • She was one of few, however, to exactly know she was the group's pawn and secretly worked to stop it.

Kyoko Tachibana

An Esper who believes that Sasaki should be God. Reveals that in Sasaki's Closed Space, nothing changes. Ever. Fridge Logic to that does not occur to her. She also believes that Kyon has the power to transfer the power from Haruhi to Sasaki.

Tropes exhibited by Tachibana include:

• Antagonistic Counterpart: To Itsuki, even though she more resembles Mikuru.
• Dojikko
• Girlish Pigtails
• Heel Face Turn
  • Heel Realization: Complete with a brief Villainous BSOD and My God, What Have I Done?.
• Moe Stare: Usually depicted with one.
• Psychic Powers
• Reformed but Rejected: Though she seems to genuinely regret being a part of the whole kidnapping Mikuru/Michiru thing, Kyon still doesn't trust her because of it.
  • Well, that's because she hadn't technically reformed just yet. She does make a real Heel Face Turn in the end and Kyon is more trusting toward her as a result.
• Ship Tease: With Itsuki at the end of Novel 11.
• Touched by Vorlons: As with the other espers. Her powers, however, came from Sasaki.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist
• Wham! Line: Delivers the main one in Dissociation: "We believe the existence of the real god is not Miss Suzumiya, but Miss Sasaki."

Kuyo Suo

An agent of the rival to the Data Overmind: the Canopy Domain. Has far, far less social skills than Yuki; she seems autistically unaware of anyone's existence. Has a lot of dark hair which is commented on, possible a reference to the Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl trope. She's a bit of an Ensemble Darkhorse, and her managing to stuff her ridiculously large amount of hair into a tiny plastic umbrella has become a Memetic Mutation, it seems. She violently tries to attack Kyon in the tenth novel (or at least it seems), until she is stopped by Ryoko and has a knife fight with her. Kuyo almost kills Ryoko before Emiri intervenes.

Tropes exhibited by Kuyo include:

• Artificial Human: She is an interface, after all.
• Blue and Orange Morality: Does not understand morality. All she knows is that she wants to communicate, but doesn't know what it actually means to communicate or to fully grasp what other entities are.
• Creepy Monotone: Unlike Yuki's, hers is legitimately creepy.
• Curtains Match the Window
• Deicide: Serves as an accomplice to an attempted one.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette
• Evil Counterpart: To Yuki.
• Eviler Than Thou: She's worse than Ryoko Asakura AND Emiri Kimidori.
• Humanoid Abomination: Wonderfully done, as about everything about her is described to be very alien and unnatural.
• Rapunzel Hair
• School Uniforms Are the New Black: Like Yuki, she doesn't seem to own any other clothing.
• Short, Dark and Bishoujo
• Starfish Aliens: She does not understand the concept or death, nor that of life and has only recently grasped the idea of language but doesn't seem to know what it's for. Apparently, all she wants to do is talk to people (especially the Integrated Data Thought Entity) but since she goes about it in such incomprehensible ways, it leaves her extremely dangerous.
• Starfish Language: Implied at first, and then mostly subverted. The Canopy Domain did not, in fact, really know what communication even was, meaning they had no language.
• Stealth Pun: When Kyon asks if the Canopy Domain means overhead, Yuki points North, while sitting at North High.
• Technically a Smile: As Kyon puts it, "the perfect simulation of a smile."
• When She Smiles: Subverted; her smile is beautiful, but it's just not right.

Fujiwara

Kyon believes this name to merely be a pseudonym, so he is commonly referred to as that sneering bastard. The most villainous of the group, he is a Time Traveller who believes that Time Travel actually makes humans slaves to Causality.

Tropes exhibited by Fujiwara include:

• Big Bad: Of "Scheme of Haruhi Suzumiya" and also ends up as "Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya"'s one too.
• Deicide: Goes out of his way to make a very serious attempt on Haruhi's life at the climax of Astonishment Vol. 2.
• Evil Counterpart: To Mikuru, even though he more resembles Itsuki.
• Have We Met Yet?: To Mikuru in Novel 7.
  • Long-Lost Relative: In Novel 11, it's revealed that Mikuru is Fujiwara's elder sister (well, he claims it to be, but it seems that he isn't her brother anymore due to alterations to the timestream).
• Killed Off for Real: Apparently by Itsuki in the 11th book. They fight, an explosion is seen, and then the way people speak of Fujiwara afterward seem to indicate that he's long gone.
  • Of course, given his nature as a time-traveller, there's always the possibility a Fujiwara from a different point in time could decide to drop in...
• Knight Templar: He pretty much drops all claims to well-intentioned extremism after he tries to kill Haruhi.
• No Name Given: For a while, he eschews names, and only adopts an obvious pseudonym at the insistence of the rest of the Anti-SOS Brigade.
• Screw Destiny: He wants to prove that the future isn't dependent on predetermined events. He's right... maybe.
• Smug Smiler: His perpetual expression is described as "an evil version of Koizumi's smile."
• Smug Snake
• Time Travel
• Villainous Breakdown: In the 11th novel, complete with Motive Rant.
• Wham! Line: During the climax of the 11th novel: "Go kill Haruhi Suzumiya!"
• Yandere: A brotherly one toward Mikuru.

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