[Update: Even Hitler can't stand Endless Eight anymore, as shown above. Thanks to alafista for the vid.]

I have to hand it to Kyoto Animation. They're geniuses. In show after show, they've managed to turn otherwise uninteresting pap into things worth attention, all the while making everything they touch turn into marketing and merchandizing gold.

Unfortunately, it seems that they are evil geniuses, and have turned the debacle that is the latest season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya into an unavoidable otaku money trap. With the latest announcement of the Haruhi Season 2 DVD release, they have revealed their predatory cunning. 

Y'see, even the most brainwashed of Haruhi-ists would prefer not to buy some of this season's DVD slate, given that it consists almost entirely of the infamous Endless Eight time-loop (a virtual replay of one event for eight whole episodes) , instead deciding to buy the volumes with original content. However will not do for Haruhi's overlords at KyoAni and Kadokawa, who have decided to give each DVD a strange, nonsensical numbering system, so that buyers will never know which volume would contain which episode, practically forcing them to buy all.

Considering that Japanese DVD pricing is ridiculously high (2-episode volumes for roughly $50-70 each), devoted Haruhi-ists may need to take out a loan come shipping day. Well, that or to wait until someone posts the content online. Hopefully whomever licenses the English-language release will not succumb to this lunacy. The anime market  in its current state will not tolerate these kinds of shenanigans. Unless those DVDs contain some wealth of additional content (like, perhaps 8 more episodes to replace the ones they've wasted), I cannot in good conscience recommend these to anyone.

Hit the jump to try to make sense of this new numbering scheme.

• 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 5.142857
• 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 5.230769
• 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 5.285714
• 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 5.428571
• 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 5.571428
• 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 5.714285

Evil, I tell you!