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Haruhi Suzumiya Franchise's Crowdfunding Adds Goal for 2 More Songs With Music Videos

The official X (formerly Twitter) account for Nagaru Tanigawa's Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series announced on Friday that the franchise's crowdfunding campaign has added a third goal. The new goal would fund two more songs and their accompanying music videos if the campaign reaches 30 million yen (about US$194,000). The organizers are also considering adding a fourth goal.

Satoru Kōsaki, the composer of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya anime's background music and its song "God knows…", would score the first of the added songs if funded. Tsubasa Ito (The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Northern War, Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions, Skeleton Knight in Another World) would composed the second added song.

The campaign launched on November 15, and will end on January 15. On its first day, it had already reached its first two goals for one new song and its music video. As of press time, it has raised 28,658,853 yen (about US$185,000).

The initial 10 million yen (about US$65,000) goal will fund a new song featuring Haruhi, Mikuru, and Nagato, with the music video featuring a 3D model of Haruhi dancing. The second 15 million yen (about US$97,000) goal will also add 3D models of Mikuri and Nagato. Aki Hata and Tomokazu Tashiro, the songwriters of the anime's iconic "Hare Hare Yukai" ending theme song, will work on the new song, with Tashiro as composer, and Hata writing the lyrics.

The project will also include the creation of a new original voice drama starring the SOS Brigade cast members (Aya Hirano, Tomokazu Sugita, Minori Chihara, Yūko Gotō, and Daisuke Ono) as a backer reward.

The first new music video is slated for the first half of 2025. Backer rewards are scheduled to ship in early February 2025, while digital backer rewards will go out in the latter half of 2025.

The Theater of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekijō), the first new volume in the Haruhi Suzumiya light novel series in four years, will have a simultaneous worldwide release on November 29. Kadokawa's BookWalker Global site and Yen Press will both digitally release the novel in English on November 29.

The volume will include two short stories previously published in Kadokawa's The Sneaker magazine, plus a new sequel to those two stories.

The "Suzumiya Haruhi Gekijō: Fantasy-Hen" (Haruhi Suzumiya Theater: Fantasy Arc) short story ran in the August 2004 issue of The Sneaker. It begins when the SOS Brigade are apparently transported to a fantasy world. The story continues in different worlds through the "Kaete Kita Suzumiya Haruhi Gekijō" (Return of Haruhi Suzumiya Theater) follow-up story in the June 2006 issue of The Sneaker. The upcoming new volume will then add a new sequel short story to these earlier stories.

Tanigawa and illustrator Noizi Ito published 11 novels for the original series between 2003-2011. The light novel series has more than 20 million copies in print as of 2017. The Little, Brown Books for Young Readers imprint and Yen Press released the entire series (at the time) in 10 volumes between 2009-2013. The first 10 volumes are also available in English digitally.

Kadokawa published The Intuition of Haruhi Suzumiya, another volume of two earlier short stories and one new short story, in November 2020, and Yen Press published the volume in English digitally at the same time, with the print version following later in June 2021.

The first season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya anime series premiered in 2006 in a non-linear order, and was rebroadcast in 2009 with new episodes and a new chronological order. Kyoto Animation animated the show's first and second seasons. Bandai Entertainment previously held the license to both series, but Funimation rereleased the anime in 2016.

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya anime film opened in 2010. Bandai Entertainment and later Funimation released the film on home video.

The novels have also inspired a manga and spinoff manga. Several of the spinoff manga have also inspired anime works.

Sources: Haruhi Suzumiya series' X/Twitter account, Campfire via Otakomu

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