What was the deal with Haruhi's Endless Eight?


In Haruhi second season, there was 8 episodes that have been the same. The
series of "Endless Eight" episodes are literally doing the same things over
and over again. But it's not really the same thing, they re-animating and re-
dubbing whole episode, they didn't being lazy and use the same source.

Here's the same sequence of different episodes when Haruhi called Kyon to ask
him to swim with others at the pool:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OFPd9l.jpg)

As you can see they give different tones, angles, outfits, etc. That's too
much effort for same situation all over the episode for eight episodes
straight. So why did they doing it? Did they also did it in light novel? What
is the point of "Endless Eight"?




Most likely [the last arc of the show was originally planned to adapt _The
Disappearance of Suzumiya
Haruhi_](http://web.archive.org/web/20141101050001/http://ultimatemegax.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/tanigawa-
ishihara-shimo-roundtable.pdf), but the producers changed their mind well into
production, and decided to make it into a movie instead. As a result they had
to fill in a seven episodes gap that they already bought the timeslot for,
thus this gimmick was born.

They _Endless Eight_ chapter in the novel is only about the very last
iteration where Kyon figures out the solution.

The point of _Endless Eight_ was to provide a reason for Nagato to do what she
did in _Disappearance_ , being the only one to remember the over 15000
iterations.




Most likely [the last arc of the show was originally planned to adapt _The
Disappearance of Suzumiya
Haruhi_](http://web.archive.org/web/20141101050001/http://ultimatemegax.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/tanigawa-
ishihara-shimo-roundtable.pdf), but the producers changed their mind well into
production, and decided to make it into a movie instead. As a result they had
to fill in a seven episodes gap that they already bought the timeslot for,
thus this gimmick was born.

They _Endless Eight_ chapter in the novel is only about the very last
iteration where Kyon figures out the solution.

The point of _Endless Eight_ was to provide a reason for Nagato to do what she
did in _Disappearance_ , being the only one to remember the over 15000
iterations.

