This book really takes you in-depth through all of the paces of the movie-making cultural festival "chapter" that was in the anime series! It's wonderful, since the whole movie-making process turns out to be quite a bigger adventure than I had previously realized. This must be read!

As someone who has seen the anime series (first season only), this book basically read exactly like how it played out on TV; but, with more Kyon. It was a fun revisit of the series, as it adds a solid perspective throughout. My favourite part was all of Nagato's expanded dialogues. It was much more enjoyable being able to have a solid grasp of her, since her portrayal in the anime would not have been able to express that in the same way (ie: technical data) -- in contrast, the text could never fully express her visual data. Like Kona-chan (Lucky Star) would say... "two worlds!"... reading Haruhi Suzumiya in book format AND watching its anime version invariably go hand-in-hand to create a sum greater than its parts.